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This story was originally published on Aug. 23, 2011, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. Gazelle takes your old cellphones, laptops, digital cameras, camcorders, GPS devices, game systems, calculators, e-readers, LCD monitors, tablets, and any other out-of-date electronic equipment cluttering up your home or office...

This story was originally published on Sept. 29, 2011, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series To many, the term "sales executive" conjures up images of five-star dinners and long afternoons on the golf course. But, as I'm sure any sales executive would tell you, the job entails more than simply schmoozing with clients a...

This story was originally published on Aug. 17, 2011, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series It was once the case that computer viruses and other malicious software were written primarily by hobbyist hackers. Their motivations, for the most part, were simply bragging rights and the respect of their peers -- desirable rew...

The proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger hit another obstacle Tuesday when the chairman of the FCC called the deal harmful to consumers. AT&T will have to prove otherwise if FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gets his way. He's asked that the other commissioners approve an administrative hearing on the issue, expressing concern that the US$39 billion deal w...

The proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger hit another obstacle Tuesday when the chairman of the FCC called the deal harmful to consumers. AT&T will have to prove otherwise if FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gets his way. He's asked that the other commissioners approve an administrative hearing on the issue, expressing concern that the US$39 billion deal w...

Facebook's entry into the smartphone handset business is being reported like it's a done deal. It's a deal, however, in which critics say Facebook has more to lose than gain The Facebook phone project already has a code name, "Buffy," a reference to the famed vampire slayer of film and television, according to The Wall Street Journal. Given the rel...

Only weeks after its triumphant initial public offering, it appears daily deal trailblazer Groupon has fallen out of investors' good graces. Its stock price has plunged 15 percent, with shares hovering near their IPO average of US$20 or so per unit. In the months leading up to its IPO, Groupon experienced a similar slide in investor confidence as ...

On an otherwise slow news week, I spotted a story emanating from a Gartner analyst, Dennis Gaughan, at a recent Gartner talk in Australia. The article was on Business Insider, and I found it interesting ...

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Microsoft will release an update to the Xbox 360 dashboard for all Xbox Live members on Dec. 6 The update is reportedly modeled after Microsoft's new Metro user interface, which is used for Windows Phones and will be part of Windows 8....

Penguin Group, one of the largest book publishers in the U.S., has delayed the availability of new e-books in local libraries and will no longer allow OverDrive to loan out digital copies of its titles to Kindles. [*Editor's note - Nov. 23, 2011] The publishing group cited security concerns as the reason for the change. Penguin finds it necessary t...

Six degrees of separation may be good enough for most people, but for Facebook members, it's only 4.74 degrees, according to a study conducted jointly by the social networking giant and the University of Milan Conducted earlier this year, the study examined all 721 million active Facebook users, who had 69 billion friendships among them, Facebook s...

Shares of HP had slightly recovered by mid-day Tuesday from the overnight slide of up to 6 percent they endured following the company's fourth-quarter earnings report Monday. Its fourth-quarter earnings -- HP's first quarter under the guidance of new CEO Meg Whitman -- beat expectations, though its outlook for the coming year left investors unimpr...

The flash mob dance by the world's most powerful groups of agencies against ICANN's new gTLD domain name program must not be taken lightly. After all, these global bodies represent the real manipulaters of emotions. They influence our taste, habits and behavior -- like type of cereal, length of skirts and width of ties. Commercials and reality shows teach us how to role play in cubicles or dance at weddings.

Microsoft's star witness, the company's chairman and former CEO Bill Gates, took the stand in a long-brewing antitrust civil lawsuit that pits Redmond against software maker Novell The suit is based on an oft-repeated accusation against Microsoft: namely that it abused its dominant position in the market to shut a rival out. Microsoft's position ha...

IBM's recent Information On Demand (IOD) 2011 conference came at the tail end of a particularly tumultuous year or so for the company's primary system vendor competitors HP fired one CEO (Mark Hurd), gained a new one (Leo Apotheker), fired him and gained another (Meg Whitman), all while publicly discussing selling or spinning off its largest busine...

Children often focus on neighborhood role models as their first glimpse of what they want to be when they grow up. School nurse, perhaps. Or firefighter. Or police officer In a future increasingly consumed by information technology, who will be the first responders to provide first aid for a computer scrape, douse a virtual IT fire, or catch a cybe...

A new wave of really cool devices will soon do more than simply integrate your mobile gadgets with your automobile. Pairing your smartphone with your car's sound system and on-board navigation platform is already old hat. Car makers are now looking at how to expand that concept to enhance the notion of your car being treated as one big mobile device...

All things considered, this past week has been hell on security professionals On Monday, AT&T Wireless announced that hackers used automatic scripts to target some subscribers in a bid to steal information stored in their online accounts. They apparently didn't succeed....

Following a one-day delay, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission featuring its new Curiosity rover is now scheduled for launch on Saturday, Nov. 26, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Representing the largest and most advanced rover ever sent to the Red Planet, the automobile-sized Curiosity vehicle will look for evidence of wa...