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The fight against cancer is often lost before it is even waged. Too many patients get the news too late. However, the battle may soon take a turn, as advances on the nano frontier bring more sophisticated firepower to the front lines. Latest developments include nanosensors that can detect minute amounts of cancer biomarkers in human blood. Forewa...

2009 is expected to be the first year when mobile phones start gaining real traction in holiday shopping. Nearly one in five consumers will use a mobile device to assist in their holiday shopping this year, according to Deloitte's most recent Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends Shoppers will use their mobile devices to find store locations, research prices, find product information, get coupons, read reviews and more. An estimated one in four consumers will even make a holiday purchase with their phone, representing a sizable chunk of potential sales...

A decade ago, electronic communications channels were new to customer service. This discipline was dubbed "eService" and touted as an entirely different way of providing value to customers. eService came in a variety of flavors: Web self-service, email, SMS, instant messaging, to name a few. Many people felt that eService was completely different from a company's overall customer service strategy. They were wrong...

It is time to talk about the changing role of Web sites in business. They are no longer simply online calling cards and repositories of marketing collateral. They've become the heartbeat of the organization, the public face, the online portal for employee and partner access. They're evolving to multi-function application hubs, interactive global mash-ups combining internal and external data and content, melded into a unified user experience...

Google is looking at quantum computing to help it sort through the millions of searches it conducts daily, and it's working with processors from Canadian company D-Wave Quantum computing will help Google with the sophisticated artificial intelligence technologies such as machine learning and pattern recognition that its services are based on.

The European Commission is concluding its latest antitrust case against Microsoft by accepting the company's promise to offer Windows users a choice of Web browsers, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes announced on Wednesday Specifically, in March Microsoft will issue an update that enables the more than 100 million European users of Windows XP, ...

Wednesday's announcement by the Federal Trade Commission that it is suing Intel over its business practices must have looked like computer-generated deja vu to the technology industry. Those who were around for the Clinton Justice Department's case against Microsoft in the late 1990s are hearing familiar arguments from both sides -- the government claiming a monopolist is using its market share to bully partners and push around competitors, and a corporation claiming a government agency that's clueless about technology is trying to stifle innovation...

From Australia to Italy, from Canada to Columbia, and from the U.S. to South Africa, pragmatism is the order of the day for IT departments as they struggle to stretch their 2010 budgets and resources to make much needed infrastructure upgrades in the face of a still uncertain and tight economy Those are the results of a new 2010 IT & Technology Tre...

Every year-end I write two columns. One looks back on the prior year's forecast; the other looks ahead. This is the first of the two, and it's time to compare my projections for the year with what actually happened Last year I took an optimistic approach by saying that it was a great time for innovation. You might recall there was plenty to worr...

Google finally released a beta version of its Chrome Web browser forLinux on Dec. 8, slightly more than one year after releasing itsChrome browser for Microsoft Windows. The wait was worth it,especially given the more than 300 extensions already available tocustomize the new browser Because Linux distributions are numerous, Google ported the Chrome...

If you want to know why the netbook is headed to the endangered species list, take a look at Gateway's new ultraportable. ...

URL shortening -- a niche service that exploded into the mainstream along with Twitter -- has suddenly become a hotly competitive market, with a handful of new offerings. Market leader Bit.ly, as well as TinyURL and scores of other smaller players, now have to contend with Google and Facebook. The Google URL Shortener is currently available only ...

Amazon seems to be writing a self-help book of its own. You could call it, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective E-Reader Companies, and the first item on that list would appear to be: Lock in an exclusive deal with one of the most popular business writers ever Amazon announced on Tuesday that Stephen Covey, author of the bestselling The Seven Habit...

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a case that centers on text-messaging privacy policies for employees in the workplace. The Court could reinforce employees' rights, prompting employers to issue ever more stringent policies on workplace communications, including stepped-up monitoring in order to maintain their right to view such messages.

When stumbling around the Web in search of a new toaster or a great deal on a new pair of sneakers, it's not unusual for consumers to come across ominous policy dialogs warning of mismatched or expired SSL certificates. In fact, recent surveys have shown nearly 20 percent, or even more, of popular Web sites may have certificate problems that would lead to errors...

CRM systems are on a steep evolutionary slope, but marketing automation is evolving even more rapidly, spurred by a rash of innovative thinking and the SaaS delivery model. With the technology offering so much potential, integrating a crackerjack CRM system and an effective marketing automation solution seems like a surefire way to boost sales numbers...

With the rumor mill still in overdrive following reports of a new, Google-branded Android phone going on sale directly to consumers as early as Jan. 5, it's not yet clear what effect it may have on the broader cellphone market Widely referred to as the "Nexus One," the HTC-manufactured phone will likely be sold in two configurations, according to a...

Remember the "Scantron" sheets that you had to fill out in school for taking standardized tests -- you know, the ones where you had to fill in the circle with a No. 2 pencil to mark your answer? Now imagine you're watching someone take a standardized math test -- you watch as they spend 15 minutes calculating the answer to a complicated problem.

Oracle has pledged it will not assert copyright claims over MySQL and that it will extend terms and conditions of existing commercial licenses of the database for five years in the hope that the European Commission will approve its US$7.4 billion pending acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The EC has indicated that Oracle's concessions are "an import...

Early Monday morning, NASA launched a spacecraft that will map the entire sky in infrared light with more sensitivity and resolution than has ever been possible before A Delta II rocket carrying NASA's new Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 6:09 a.m. PST Monday and deposited the in...