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Over the years, I've had long "discussions" with Apple fans on why Apple can't actually put Microsoft out of business. Many seem to think the event is imminent, while I clearly believe it is impossible. To make a point like this, however, you need a reverse example, and the new Zune is likely the best product for the purpose. By all measures, it is a better media player than Apple has ever produced, but with Apple as dominant as it is in this area, there is virtually no chance that Microsoft will displace it. In this market, the seats are reversed -- but the rule still holds. To take out a dominant vendor, building a better product simply won't get the job done. ...

A day after Google announced it had bought itself some digital help in its Google Books project by way of reCAPTCHA, reports surfaced of new governmental objections to a settlement the company reached last year with publishers and author groups The attorneys general of five states have filed a class action objection to the settlement with the U.S.

It's back to the future for Palm, which is dropping Microsoft's Windows Mobile in favor of its own proprietary platform, webOS, unveiled earlier this year Palm CEO John Rubinstein reportedly told investors in a conference call on Thursday that the company wants to dedicate all of its future development resources to WebOS evolution.

Microsoft on Thursday launched an early technical preview program for Microsoft Office Web Apps -- lightweight versions of its Office suite of applications Participation is by invitation only, and the preview is initially available in English and Japanese. It will be available in additional languages later this fall....

HP has just made either the most hyperactive digital picture frame on the market or the lamest tablet PC ever. The DreamScreen looks sort of like what you'd have if someone tore an HP Mini in two and handed you the monitor side. It's a device that can run video, show pictures and play music with built-in speakers. It has USB ports and it can hold ...

For this week's installment in the E-Commerce Times' series ontravel-planning Web sites, I took a spin around Orbitz, completing my tour of the top three aggregators Thus far, my biggest complaint about travel sites in general has been overcrowded user interfaces that waste space with self promotion. As I looked at the Orbitz home page, I wondered ...

Today, loyalty programs come in all shapes and sizes, and they give retailers, financial institutions and hotels opportunities to reward their best customers like never before. New loyalty solutions help track customers' spending trends, including when and how much they are spending. Targeted marketing efforts that cater to their specific interests can improve customer experiences, increase marketing efficiencies and ultimately cut business costs...

In the latest phase of its battle with Intel for the notebook and netbook markets, ARM has unveiled two new 2GHz capable Cortex-A9 dual core processor implementation These give silicon manufacturers a way to develop high-performance, low-power Cortex-A9 processor-based devices, ARM said....

Those who cannot remember to report news on social media ... are condemned to retweet it Yeah, I know; somewhere in heaven, George Santayana is throwing his "World's Greatest Philosopher" coffee cup at the wall, cursing yet another mangling of his famous saying about those who ignore history. But it seemed to fit, considering a famous TV reporter m...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has determined who will get the vaccine for the H1N1 flu virus -- aka "swine flu" -- in the event of a shortage, but the priority groups don't line up well with the groups most likely to die from the disease The reasons reflect a complex calculus of ethics that might be changing....

The headline on the Official Google Blog makes sure you know what a CAPTCHA is; "Google Acquires reCAPTCHA" is written in the now-familiar wavy, squiggly-style font that you are used to seeing when you want to log on to certain Web sites or post links on Facebook. When confronted with a CAPTCHA, you're asked to read the odd-looking letters and typ...

HP unveiled on Thursday a line of wireless, Web-connected screens called "DreamScreens." ...

Online retail sales are projected to increase by 11 percent this year to US$156 billion, according to Forrester Research. Although that's good news, it's a small decline from last year's growth of 13 percent It's clear the down economy, with the lack of credit access and low consumer confidence, has dampened consumer spending. The e-commerce sect...

As the systems that run the way we work and live become smarter, the workplace as we know it is undergoing dramatic and dynamic change. The challenge organizations face is embracing the rapid shifts in today's world for their own advantage rather than resisting them. In the face of this challenge, individuals and teams today are able to collabor...

Managing access to protected resources (applications, services and their data) for users in the extended enterprise (which consists of employees, temporary employees and contractors, business partners, and customers) can be a daunting task. New applications and services are continuously being developed and deployed; new users join the extended enterprise, change roles within it, and eventually move on. To the extent that policies regarding access must be managed on a user-by-user, application-by-application basis, the effort involved is exceedingly large, and the probability of implementation without error is infinitesimally small...

The federal government has launched Apps.Gov, an online app store for federal agencies and workers, in the hope of reducing the US$75 billion a year it spends on IT. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra introduced the site Tuesdayin a speech at the NASA Ames Research Center, as well as in a White House blog post The goal is for the federal govern...

It may not have qualified as true breaking news, but the new media and digital technologies showed once again Monday how they are breaking traditional news rules, thanks to a spur-of-the-moment post on Twitter from an ABC News anchor involving President Barack Obama ABC "Nightline" anchor Terry Moran and some network colleagues were monitoring a CN...

Hard drive manufacturer Seagate has come up with a new way to attack the chaotic home entertainment market: Let users create their own personal information clouds On Tuesday, it unveiled its FreeAgent Theater + high-definition media player; and on Wednesday it announced the FreeAgent DockStar network adapter and new FreeAgent Go portable drives....

Adobe's planned acquisition of Web analytics firm Omniture took nearly everyone off guard when it was announced Tuesday. Now that the idea has had a chance to sink in, though, it seems to be growing in popularity "I think it really does make sense," Steve Ashley, an analyst for investment research firm R.W. Baird, told the E-Commerce Times....

Innovations of the past few years provide an interesting hint at the future of e-commerce. Consider the following scenario: A CIO of a retail company gets off the phone, sits back, and begins to read his new monthly retail systems contract. The days of dealing with large development teams, countless software products, integration, infrastructure an...