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The set-top box (STB) is the primary point of entry into the digital home for television services, including cable TV, DTH (Direct to Home satellite), and IPTV (Internet protocol television). This device has evolved beyond its historical role as a simple black box sitting on top of a large TV set into a smaller form-factor device supporting a variety of functions, notably interactive television applications. Service providers worldwide are aggressively upgrading their equipment to support the migration away from analog television and toward digital television (DTV), with the hopes of improving consumer satisfaction and creating service differentiators...

Some companies have a "PMO of one," which means that instead of setting up a sophisticated project management office, they assign one person the task of establishing and enforcing common project management processes. This person often has to deal with a broad spectrum of project work being performed by different teams with a range of maturity levels, which is no small task! Yet it can be necessary for a number of reasons, including the fact that establishing processes helps to move an organization toward maturity. The Project Management Institute (PMI) highlights the benefits of this:...

I've seen some amazingly great movies in the last few weeks. I was at Disney World to see "Alice in Wonderland" in IMAX 3-D and watching that movie on a Disney property for this ex-Disney employee was truly magical. Last week, I was at DreamWorks to see "How to Train Your Dragon," and the movie engaged me heart and mind in what was also a magical experience. It is amazing how far we have come, but DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg, who spoke to us for awhile, along with a presentation by PhaseSpace, showcased that future films could not only be even more amazing, but also be made for less -- and more often. This last is largely due to technology from companies like HP and Intel, which is what I'll focus on this week. ...

One of the biggest questions facing companies today is what to make of cloud computing. Does it signal a major shift in how we approach IT -- and the business -- or is it just another ride on the hype wave that will disappear if we just wait it out? HP tackled this question this month with a series of virtual conferences, "Cloud: Practical Advice f...

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris sentenced computer hacker Albert Gonzalez to 20 years in prison for his role in stealing 40 million debit and credit card numbers that resulted in an economic loss of US$200 million, according to the U.S. government's best estimate. The sentence closes what was the largest credit and debit card theft in U.S. banking history.

The United States is the world leader in nanotechnology research, but it may lose that position if it doesn't step up its efforts. That's according to a report issued Thursday by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Better coordination of research efforts and a more concerted effort to get important findings into the commercial marketplace are among the recommendations made by the panel of 21 experts...

After months of investigation by police and the FBI, a French hacker accused of breaking into the Twitter accounts of President Barack Obama and singer Britney Spears was arrested earlier this week Francois Cousteix, a 25-year-old unemployed man from central France who is known online as "Hacker Croll," is also accused of breaking into Twitter admi...

Google has introduced a feature that gives advertisers another bite at the apple -- that is, it gives them another shot at potential customers who interacted with their company somewhere on the Google Content Network but didn't make a purchase. Google is calling the feature "remarketing." Introduced last year in a beta test, it is now available th...

Marketing Asset Management (MAM) is an emerging category of Digital Asset Management (DAM) technology that has been developed exclusively for the marketing function. With a host of digital asset technology available, many generic DAM products lack workflow capabilities, dynamic collateral development, and the user security required for productive marketing asset management.

Like ERP and CRM before, collaboration is the next big space in software. By the numbers: SharePoint is a billion-dollar business. IBM Lotus is a US$700 million business. Forrester Research claims Enterprise 2.0 will grow to a $4.6 billion industry by 2013. Collaboration software is evolving to mean much more to its users than it did a few years a...

For a second, I thought the Radio Shack ad in my Gmail inbox was trying to sell me a new netbook or a previously unreported competitor to Apple's forthcoming iPad. Then I took the time to read all the ad copy: "Watch. Read. Surf. Play on the Biggest Touchscreen Smartphone Around."

GoDaddy.com and Network Solutions have discontinued their domain name registration activities in China in the wake of stepped-up requests for detailed information on customers. The news came to light earlier this week in Congressional hearings focusing on Google's decision to stop censoring its search results there -- and the subsequent fallout from that decision.

Three security experts tore into three Web browsers on Wednesday, the first day of the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, exposing flaws on a MacBook, iPhone and Windows PC, and winning cash and hardware in the process Network security provider TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative organized its and other companies to plug holes in their po...

The Wall Street Journal might be available on a paid subscription basis on the iPad when that device hits retail shelves April 3, according to a story published Wednesday in the Journal A subscription to that publication on the iPad will cost nearly US$18 per month -- certainly more expensive than the discount offers for subscriptions to the print ...

A new bill introduced in the Senate on Tuesday aims to put the United States in a leading role in the global fight against cybercrime Dubbed the "International Cybercrime Reporting and Cooperation Act," the bipartisan legislation was introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in response to the growing threat of cy...

Cablevision broadcast the first high-def 3-D television program in the U.S. Wednesday night, a hockey game from Madison Square Garden The broadcast was largely symbolic -- almost no one is watching TV in 3-D in their homes yet as television sets equipped to decode the signals are just beginning to move through production....

The economic hardships hitting businesses worldwide over the last several months have compelled may an IT department to steer costly new initiatives into indefinite holding patterns. However, these stalled technology upgrades are beginning to find new corporate support. A new survey by Robert Half Technology reveals some organizations are finally planning to implement projects that earlier had been shelved due to the recession...

Tolstoy wrote, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." CRM failures are very similar -- the ones that work do so for the same reasons, but those that go awry manifest a collection of diverse symptoms, so that the term "CRM failure" is but a catch-all CRM fails for a lot of reasons -- all of them avoidable, an...

T-Mobile on Wednesday said that it would offer the United States' fastest 3G wireless network by upgrading its existing 3G service to High-Speed Packet Access Plus (HSPA+) 3.5G technology. By the end of the year, T-Mobile expects to have HSPA+ deployed in more than 100 metropolitan areas reaching 185 million people.

Three of the biggest names in the Internet industry are founding members of the Global Network Initiative, a consortium of companies, non-profits and academic groups formed in October 2008 to promote human rights and privacy around the world. However, now one of those companies, Google, finds itself going head-to-head with the Chinese government over issues regarding censorship of search data, while most other technology companies have remained on the sidelines as they wait to see how this economic and diplomatic standoff resolves itself in Beijing...