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Microsoft has forged a deal with Baidu, China's largest search engine, to provide search functionality in English. The deal comes a year and a half after Google exited China's search market with much fanfare, announcing it could no longer stomach the censorship the government applied. By the end of this year, Microsoft's search engine Bing will be...

Who's the most popular person on Google's spanking new social networking site? Britney? Lady Gaga? Larry or Sergey? Nope, it's Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He has racked up a whopping 29,543 followers on Google+ as of Tuesday, beating out Google cofounders Larry Page -- who came in second with 19,878 -- and Sergey Brin, who took fourth place with 15,646...

The total value of mobile payments of all types worldwide will surge from US$240 billion this year to $670 billion by 2015, Juniper Research predicts This covers mobile payments for digital and physical goods, money transfers and near field communications (NFC) transactions....

A federal judge recently refused to dismiss charges against Google from July 2010 which claim the company violated the Federal Wiretap Act. At the same time, the court threw out accusations that the search engine giant broke state laws in an accidental data breach In what's being popularly referred to as the Google Wi-Spy incident, Google Street Vi...

When the U.S. government goes to the market for information technology, various contracting mechanisms come into play. In fact, as IT evolves, contracting follows, witness recent efforts at the General Services Administration to develop special procurement vehicles for both cloud technology and wireless services However, a key factor in procurement...

CDC Software's Pivotal CRM Customer Service and Support has launched, with major changes to the application's integration with social media and email, and more configuration options. ...

Shortly after launching the beta of its Google+ social network last week, Google slammed the shutters down. Like many new Google offerings, Google+ is, for the time being, accessible only by invitation. But after distributing invites rather liberally for a day or so, Google pulled back, citing "insane demand." It's unclear when Google will kick its...

This story was originally published on April 21, 2011, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. Succumbing to the primal pull of gameplay, millions of new consumers are joining the nearly ubiquitous adventure of exploring the pixelated worlds presented in video games, seeking personal recreation, relaxation, amusement, e...

This story was originally published on April 19, 2011, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. Computer software requires an enormous amount of support. That fact has enriched companies such as Oracle and SAP, which levy annual support fees of about 20 percent of the sale prices of their applications....

I just came back from Dell's financial analyst meeting, and the firm is doing amazingly well. That wasn't the way it was a few years ago when folks were calling for a shakeup at the top. Michael Dell, along with an excellent team, turned the firm around, and he kind of did it by channeling Steve Jobs. Last week, Steve Ballmer had to respond to c...

Last month, e-commerce giant Amazon made a foray into the flash sales marketplace. With European flash sales stalwart Vente Privee entering the North American market, and with the tremendous growth of U.S. flash sales players like Gilt Groupe and Rue La La, it's clear that the flash sales sector is blossoming. Every week, there's a new startup ...

Nortel awarded its 6,000 patents to the winning bidder, and it wasn't Google -- it was a consortium of six mobile technology leaders: Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion and Sony. The group paid US$4.5 billion in auction that took place over several days Google set the starting figure for the bidding when it offered $900 millio...

Google is making over the interface on its Gmail email service as part of a larger overhaul of the look and feel of all its offerings. The renovation project will be ongoing over the next several months, according to Chris Wiggins, creative director of digital at Google ...

Nielsen's latest statistics on smartphone sales in the U.S. are more than a little eye-catching. They suggest that an important tipping point is on the horizon: The majority of mobile phone users will soon own smartphones, as opposed to feature phones. The majority of cellphone users still own feature phones, Nielsen says, based on its May survey ...

Fresh off failure from its first social network attempt, Google decided it'd give the tech trend another shot and launched Google+, the company's hope for rivaling networking leaders Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. ...

By now, you've probably heard about Google's limited release of its new social networking platform, Google+ -- but did you know this could be the most significant product launch in the brief history of social media? That may sound like an outrageous statement, but it's true. And it's valid regardless of whether Google+ proves to be raging success o...

Several weeks after the Sony PlayStation Network was brought to its knees by a massive security breach, the company has decided to clean house with an executive reshuffling. Among the changes: Akira Sato, chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment, and Ken Kutaragi, honorary chairman, will retire, effective almost immediately. Kutaragi is leaving his...

Imagine a customer service agent who can do virtually no wrong. She typically answers questions in about three seconds, with an astonishing 94 percent accuracy rate. ...

Adobe's recent decision to pull support away from Air for Linux might be the first in a series of market adjustments designed to throttle its bottom line with Android rather than the traditional Linux platform. But the move could cost the company a bank roll of good will Adobe officials do not see their action as hampering relations with the Linux ...

A new malware package is running wild on the Internet, according to Kaspersky Labs, and its creators are attempting to create an indestructible herd of zombified machines The botnet has been dubbed "TDL-4," which Kaspersky describes as "the most sophisticated threat today."