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The current economic environment has consumers tightening their purse strings, carefully scrutinizing each dollar they spend. Scaling back on expenditures, including investments, they're not taking any chances with the money they do have. There is little trust in the economy or the future. To get consumers to open their wallets, online businesses must be able to instill this sense of trust...

In the summer of 1865, newspaper editor Horace Greeley offered this advice to a nation just then beginning to recover from the Civil War: "Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country." As America begins to recover from recent economic challenges, Greeley's best advice to merchants in 2008 would probably be to go online and build their ...

Five years and 35,000 people later, the Recording Industry Association of America has apparently conceded a major battle over music file-sharing. The music industry trade group has decided to stop suing individuals it suspects of illegally downloading music via peer-to-peer Web sites, according to press reports However, that doesn't mean the war is...

YouTube continues to bring its high-definition video strategy into sharper focus with the announcement late this week of more support for HD videos. And while the new development may not make it any easier to know just where the hell Matt is -- regarding the globetrotting dancer in one of YouTube's most popular videos -- his scenic backgrounds will indeed look much clearer...

Shares of video game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software fell 26 percent to US$8.91 in late-day trading Thursday after the company announced a disappointing financial forecast for the holiday shopping period Take-Two shares were down 68.2 percent from their 52-week high of $27.91....

In yet another sign of weakening in the technology sector, enterprise software giant Oracle announced a decline in profits on Thursday The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company reported US$1.29 billion in earnings during the fiscal quarter ended Nov. 31, down 1 percent from $1.3 billion in earnings during the same period last year. The year-over-yea...

Fourteen tech firms have banded together to form a new industry alliance and cooperatively seek US$1 billion to $2 billion in federal funding to create a center for the development and manufacture of domestic lithium ion batteries for transportation applications in the United States. The National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell M...

The virtual world of the Internet has become a hotbed of activity designed to ease the real-world pollution problem The Chicago Climate Exchange, or CCX, is a regulated exchange whose members are committed to cutting their emissions. It is the only cap-and-trade system in North America for six greenhouse gases....

A quiet battle of sorts is taking place behind the scenes in thesoftware industry. Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing haveevolved, placing much more attention on Web-based applications This greater focus has also raised expectations for the servicesdelivered via Web 2.0. The open source software community hasresponded to this growing ...

Like Tiny Tim, Cindy Lou Who, George Bailey and Hermey the Misfit Elf, I too have some Christmas wishes as this Year from Hell for journalists comes to a merciful end It is my Christmas wish that media company managers stop laying off the most experienced of their news gatherers, whether they work in print, TV, radio or the Web. This nasty economy ...

Enterprise application whitelisting company Bit9 launched an attention-getting press release last week, a document which merely bubbled for a few days until the recent Internet Explorer flaw took center stage and Mozilla pushed out a few Firefox updates. Eventually, the heat under the issue boiled over, prompting Mozilla to tackle the Bit9 report ...

The Federal Reserve Bank has issued new rules that will take effect in 2010, radically changing the way credit card companies treat their customers. Essentially, they are strong protections that regulate interest rates and billing methodologies For instance, card companies will be prohibited from charging interest on balances that were paid off in...

Business networking company LinkedIn has undergone a changing of the guard. CEO Dan Nye is out and has been replaced by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. Former Yahoo executive Jeff Weiner has joined the company as interim president and will oversee day-to-day operations.

Microsoft released a fix Wednesday that should protect Internet Explorer users from a zero-day exploit that emerged last week and rapidly evolved into a major attack vector for cybercriminals and hackers The vulnerability, rated "critical," affects Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 6 SP 1 and Internet Explorer 7. The so...

A heavily financed Internet startup has launched a new question-and-answer search engine with a twist -- users pay one another to get answers to questions Santa Monica, Calif.-based Mahalo launched Mahalo Answers earlier this week. The search service is reminiscent of Yahoo Answers and search engines popular in Asia such as Naver and Daum, both bas...

The economic downturn is top of mind for every organization. Pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV and it's hard to dismiss the facts: Recession looms and nobody knows when or how it will end. ...

If you've used an in-flight entertainment system, known in the airline industry as an "IFE," to watch movies, listen to music, or order food lately, chances are it used Linux as an operating system You might not know that Linux is the operating system behind what you see on your screen, but it probably is. United, Delta, Qantas, Emirates, Virgin Am...

This is the second installment in a multi-part series on building a Web site for your small business. Part 1 looks at essential elements of a business Web site. This article offers site design guidelines With all the free online Web building and design tools, a lot of time-strapped business owners might think that with a few strategic drags and dr...

New York Gov. David Paterson has proposed a 4 percent tax on digital music downloads and other "digitally delivered entertainment services." The "iPod Tax," as it's become known, is just one of many new taxes the governor has proposed in an effort to close the state's multibillion-dollar budget gap....

Yahoo announced Wednesday that it is enacting a new global data retention policy. In most instances, the Internet search engine and portal will now anonymize user log data within 90 days. After a three-month time period has elapsed, Yahoo will scrub out any data -- such as IP addresses, cookies and other information -- that would potentially enable someone to identify a given user...