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Please don't get the wrong idea about this column; I have nothing against crowdsourcing. Some of my best friends belong to crowds. I also have nothing against the concept of a "free, Web-based, collaborative multilingual encyclopedia project," as Wikipedia defines itself. And while journalists, students and others doing research should know by now to consider the wide variety -- and quality -- of sources that go into most Wikipedia listings, I'll admit that there is some value within the information that's presented; it can steer you in the right direction to validation. On the most trivial level, it can mean hours of time-wasting fun to skip around the listings and check out what's been written about a favorite movie/rock band/pro athlete/geometric equation...

SAP has inked a deal to acquire mobile and database software maker Sybase for US$5.8 billion in cash -- or $65 per share. That translates into a purchase price that is more than 55 percent over Sybase's trading price before rumors of the deal became public, which was $41.57 per share. The deal, which still requires regulatory and shareholder approval, has prompted much debate: Do the benefits of acquiring Sybase's mobile application functionality justify the premium SAP is willing to pay?...

The face of computing may be undergoing a massive change, and tablet PCs appear to be at the heart of it "There's a fundamental shift in the computing industry, which is moving to being cloud-based and mobile," Maribel Lopez, founder and principal analyst at Lopez Research, told TechNewsWorld....

In the technology industry, imitation has always been the sincerest form of flattery -- if not a successful business model for certain companies. It's even more so in the nascent smartphone segment, so no one seems to be particularly surprised that Verizon Wireless and Google have plans to make an Android-based tablet computer to take on Apple's iPad...

The majority of today's contact centers employ well-designed, sophisticated self-service strategies, but even with a highly successful self-service application boasting a high call-completion rate, people will always need to talk to people. That is why there will always be a need for live service interactions. However, the move from automated self...

Part 1 of this series on getting started with blogging addresses factors to consider when setting up a blog, such as platforms, hosting and design Once all the technical steps have been accomplished and your blog is up and operating, it is time to start adding content on a regular basis and integrating it with social media....

At least one U.S. Senator wants the FTC to investigate. Notable leaders in the tech sector have begun talking about dropping out. Millions belong to groups complaining about it. Now, European privacy advocates are on Facebook's case, arguing the company's latest round of privacy adjustments are not only wrong-headed, but may run afoul of European privacy laws...

Microsoft launched Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 for business customers Wednesday morning in an event held in New York City Office 2007, the last version of Microsoft's cash cow -- Office represents 25 percent of Microsoft's annual revenue -- came out four years ago. Office 2010 offers a plethora of new or upgraded features and functions focusing...

Lending further credibility to reports that circulated about a month ago, Google has apparently partnered with Verizon Wireless for work on a new tablet device that may run Android That news was delivered by Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam in an interview published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, though no specifics or timetable were given...

Most successful companies invest in marketing. Marketing budgets are utilized differently depending on factors such as industry and company goals, and results are contingent on how well an organization understands and interacts with its customers. However, what many organizations don't know is that often they could be getting the same -- or better -- outcomes by spending a lot less. ...

One of the frustrations of new technology is that quite often even the vendor lacks a coherent understanding of an innovation's business context. Too often we receive a new product category and the best we can say about it is that it is "cool." This should not be surprising because that's what early adopters are for. The early adopters see some...

The ubiquitous CD/DVD platter may be on its way to Legacyville, onetown away from the FloppyTown and the once-popular ZipDisk City.Large-capacity USB and micro disk storage media go where the CD/DVDcannot go -- small mobile gadgets ...

Server virtualization has crossed the proverbial chasm. Not long ago, when deploying new servers, one had to justify making them virtual, rather than physical. Now, the opposite is becoming true. IT managers in many organizations have decreed "virtual first" policies, requiring new server deployments to be virtual unless there is specific justification for a physical server...

Turn on an Android OS phone, and that little yellow robot pops up all over the touchscreen like R2D2 on bionic steroids. A mini-chorus line of them shows up first, then just one robot decides to play hide and seek with you; there he is peeking out from the left side of the screen. Now he's upside down, waving at you with a tiny cyber-arm The impres...

Twitter has stomped out a bug that for a brief period allowed users to force other users to follow them on the microblogging site. In eliminating the glitch, however, Twitter emptied out some users' list of followers entirely "Like other social networks, Twitter was originally designed to serve a pretty small community, and when it grew so big, fun...

Speed, power and user control are Mozilla's top three goals for Firefox 4, according to early product plans released Monday Specifically, the browser will be fast -- "super-duper fast," according to Firefox director Mike Beltzner -- while also enabling new open-standard Web technologies such as HTML5 and putting users in full control of their brows...

The "Like" button that's part of Facebook's new Open Graph platform depicts a miniature "thumbs up" hand gesture, and it provides a quick, easy way for those visiting certain websites to indicate they approve of the content and want to place it on their FB profiles. And like thousands of Roger Ebert wannabes giving a positive review of the new platform, businesses large and small seem to be willing to jump aboard this new sharing paradigm, despite privacy concerns raised by a growing number of critics -- the most recent voice being that of U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)

When politicians are campaigning, voters get close attention as prospective buyers and customers. After they take office, however, and are charged with actually running a government, how often do the elected officials maintain a real customer orientation to the voters? In Georgia, Gov. Sonny Purdue concentrated on improving the operations of the s...

Linux aficionados gained a new option Monday, thanks to the release of Peppermint OS Checking in at under 512 MB, Peppermint is a Linux-based operating system that's designed to be cloud/Web-centric, ready to use and "insanely fast," its makers said. As a fork of Lubuntu, the system is based on -- and compatible with -- Ubuntu 10.04 and its reposit...

Many have already written eulogies for the virtual worlds. Dead, they claim; the avatar is dead in the corporate realm. But the truth reads like the "Star Trek" script for the "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode: just because you don't see them, doesn't mean they are not breeding like mad in a closed grain bin. Without doubt, many corporations are indeed tribbling their avatar action...