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Summer was a Droid double-header for Motorola. The company opted to follow up last year's successful original Droid launch by introducing not one but two sequels: The Droid X, followed by the Droid 2. When I first heard this, I started to believe Motorola was having a numerological crisis, unable to find the value of X or unwilling to give it a number lest the world think it's somehow better than 2...

A lot of folks have been making a big deal the past few days about Google employee David Barksdale. If you haven't caught the coverage, the fuss is centered around this one employee -- a mid-twenties "site reliability engineer" -- who (allegedly) inappropriately used his position of authority and corresponding elevated levels of access and privilege to view the private data of a number of individuals. The fact that the data included details of a few individuals who were minors -- well, that wasn't good. Anyway, this thing is turning into quite the brouhaha. ...

As spectators crowded in to see keynote speeches Monday at Oracle's OpenWorld 2010, the question on everyone's lips was: What's Mark Hurd going to say? The recently ousted HP CEO was hired by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison shortly after Hurd left HP amid a scandal involving a female contractor and fudged expense reports. Hurd's now a president at the dat...

IBM has made a US$1.7 billion offer toacquire Netezza, a data warehouse specialist that allows usersto analyze huge amounts of data very quickly by integrating hardwarewith analytics applications Since IBM announced its offer, Netezza's stock price has risenpast the $27 per share price it reflects. That could signal a bidding war ahead....

Facebook on Monday denied a weekend report that it is preparing to launch a branded phone designed to make the mobile phone experience more social, Facebook style Although rumors spread following an anonymously sourced report that first appeared on TechCrunch purporting that such a phone is coming, the company said that while it is working on sprea...

Google Apps has announced added security and authentication to the online application suite's fee-based Premier edition as well as its Education and Government versions. The two-step enhanced verification system will be added to all versions of Google Apps in coming months.

With smartphones becoming ubiquitous and more and more people using mobile devices both at work and at home, enterprises are increasingly looking to make use of mobile applications. Small and medium-sized businesses are apparently beginning to pick up on this trend, and many of them are turning to developers to create custom mobile apps for them "T...

Today's consumers are more connected than ever with mobile devices in hand, while retailers have long focused on better engaging with consumers. Some brands have enjoyed early wins through effective direct digital marketing. Mobile solves many problems, with its high reach and in-the-moment communication. A well-designed app can place flashy co...

Exhibiting at traditional trade shows is one of the most common marketing tactics used by companies targeting the industrial and manufacturing marketplace. The opportunity for direct engagement with prospects, customers and other vendors who could be potential partners or customers is invaluable. And the opportunity to "shake hands" with key clients, thanking them for their business, is often perceived as priceless.

Here in Silicon Valley, otherwise known as drama central, we live for conspiracy theories, have vampire CEOs who are rewarded for bleeding their companies dry, and even have executives who have their own fighter planes and are at war with each other. You would think we would have a few good, though probably fictional, conspiracy theories as well. ...

Two tech stalwarts -- Oracle and Research In Motion -- posted solid quarterly earnings, not only goosing their own shares, but delivering a boost to the stock market in general The bigger surprise was RIM, which posted higher-than-expected second quarter earnings and gave a forecast for the third quarter that also beat analyst expectations....

Microsoft released the Windows Phone 7 software development kit (SDK) on the Web Thursday, just over two weeks after the WinPho7 platform had been released to manufacturing This release is in English only, but versions in French, Italian, German and Spanish will be available in "the next couple of weeks," Brandon Watson wrote on the Windows Phone D...

Details about the Galaxy Tab are beginning to his the street following a Samsung event Thursday, including the fact that device maker will reportedly ship the Android-based tablet to the four largest U.S. wireless carriers: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile ...

ComScore's latest tally of smartphone operating system market shares in the U.S. showed Research In Motion's BlackBerry OS continues to hold a dominating lead in the smartphone arena with a 39.3 percent market share for the May-July period. However, that represents a slip of 1.8 percent since April. Apple's iOS owns the No. 2 spot, claiming 23.8 p...

Consumers will spend US$237 billion on online purchases in the United States alone in 2010, Javelin Strategy & Research predicts. That's almost 15 percent more than in 2009 Online retail is also growing globally. MasterCard announced a global agreement with cross-border e-commerce shopping firm Borderlinx in August which lets MasterCard holders pur...

Consumers will spend US$237 billion on online purchases in the United States alone in 2010, Javelin Strategy & Research predicts. That's almost 15 percent more than in 2009 Online retail is also growing globally. MasterCard announced a global agreement with cross-border e-commerce shopping firm Borderlinx in August which lets MasterCard holders pur...

Consumers will spend US$237 billion on online purchases in the United States alone in 2010, Javelin Strategy & Research predicts. That's almost 15 percent more than in 2009 Online retail is also growing globally. MasterCard announced a global agreement with cross-border e-commerce shopping firm Borderlinx in August which lets MasterCard holders pur...

RhoLogic, a division of Logic Appeal, an integrator of SugarCRM software, last month released RhoLogic Mobile for SugarCRM. The app is now generally available for download at the iTunes App Store and Android Market. The company is working on a BlackBerry version, as well asversions for Windows Phone 7 and Symbian The app itself is fairly straightfo...

Renaissance Italy created an explosion of new ideas across art, science and culture, but the biggest idea to come from that era was the idea of the modern bank. By creating an independent entity to hold and protect customer assets, modern banking helped lay the foundation for modern capitalism, and all the wealth that it has created. The beautiful thing about banks is that when you put your money in, you still own it. You can withdraw it at any time, usually in a matter of minutes...

The brave new world of technology will include devices that change our whole relationship to them and, perhaps, to the world around us. That's according to Intel CTO Justin Rattner, who outlined the future of "context-sensitive" computing at his keynote address to the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco this week The new class of context-aware g...