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The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Dish Network's appeal of a decision that found EchoStar had infringed TiVo's patent for its Time Warp software, which allows users to record television programs while watching a different channel, and also to skip over commercials. The appellate court ruling now stands, requiring Dish to pay US$104 milli...

Microsoft has given its Windows XP operating system another short reprieve. Rather than extending support for the software -- as the software company has done in the past -- this time the extension enables computer makers to continue providing XP discs with systems that are sold pre-loaded with Windows Vista Ultimate and Vista Business. The discs ...

For developers who have fallen in love with .Net/C#, but aren't married to running their applications on Windows, the Mono Project aims to let Microsoft .Net-based apps run on Linux and Mac OS X, among several other platforms. Sponsored by Novell, the Mono Project has released Mono 2.0 of its cross-platform, open source .Net development framework.

Google's new Web browser, Chrome, is key to the company's push to connect its myriad Web offerings and become an integrated online service provider. That said, writing it off a month after its release -- based partly on figures that show a decline in downloads -- seems more Schadenfreude than sober analysis. Chrome's share of the overall market pe...

An American physicist from Chicago is celebrating a Nobel Prize win for an advanced physics concept he helped formulate more than four decades ago. Yoichiro Nambu, an 87-year-old scientist with the University of Chicago, was one of three recipients of the highly esteemed honor, announced Tuesday The prize spotlights the discovery of a particle phys...

Advanced Micro Devices is splitting into two companies with the help of a massive cash infusion by investors in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi AMD will continue designing semiconductor chips for computers and servers. The spinoff, called "The Foundry Company," will focus on manufacturing semiconductor chips....

Woopra, a new Web-tracking and analysis service designed by iFusion Labs, began quietly enough. iFusion Labs CEO John Pozadzides, along with his partners, Elie Khoury and Jad Younan, launched the site at Word Camp, a convention for bloggers, in March 2008, offering memberships to 200 attendees The quiet launch, however, quickly picked up steam. Wit...

Last year's online shopping season surpassed US$29 billion in sales, up a full 20 percent from the previous holiday. More consumers did their shopping online than any holiday season before, due to the convenience and increasing popularity of the Internet as a way to get too many things done in too little time. This year's online sales have already...

It didn't take long for NetSuite to cozy up to Google. Shortly after the Web conglomerate rolled out its open source browser Chrome last month, the SaaS suite provider announced its support NetSuite was also the first vendor to announce support for the iPhone and for Firefox 3.0, Mini Peres, NetSuite's vice president of product marketing, told Linu...

RealNetworks released its controversial RealDVD movie ripping application last week but within days removed the program from its Web site due to a legal feud with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) RealNetworks provided TechNewsWorld with a final prelease version of the RealDVD software last week in consideration of a new product revi...

IBM's considerable footprint in the cloud computing space is growing larger. The company has announced an expansion of its ISV (independent software vendor) partner network; it has also launched a beta version of Bluehouse -- a social networking and collaboration cloud service designed to connect people from different businesses. Big Blue took the...

Ask.com rolled out a new version of itself Monday. The revamped search engine includes a new user interface with three new technologies -- DADs (Direct Answers from Databases), DAFS (Direct Answers From Search) and AnswerFarm -- that offer users the ability to search the Web using commonly spoken language The enhancements to Ask.com will help the s...

Online auctioneering pioneer eBay announced it will slash 1,000 jobs and acquire online payment processor Bill Me Later for US$820 million in cash and $125 million in outstanding options The 1,000 layoffs will cut San Jose, Calif.-based eBay's total workforce by 10 percent and will result in a pretax restructuring charge of about $70 million to $80...

One of Facebook's two cofounders is jumping ship to start his own Internet company. Dustin Moskovitz announced he'll leave the social networking site in about a month. He and colleague Justin Rosenstein, a Facebook engineering manager who previously worked at Google, will launch a new enterprise software business The startup will focus on an open s...

Google and Yahoo are so well established in my daily Internet search routine that I wasn't expecting to find anything new with a beta engine from a start-up search company. But ubExact had more than one pleasant surprise in how it lets users search ubExact launched its beta on Sept. 2 after spending much of its first year designing the search platf...

If you haven't done so yet, it may be time to consider adding third-party industry e-newsletter advertising to your marketing mix. Online advertisements can motivate your audience to act. According to a recent engineering trends survey, 87 percent of respondents stated they visited an advertiser's Web site after viewing an online advertisement -- an impressive number...

After watching the first presidential debate, one person on that stage clearly showcased the leadership, focus and bipartisan attitude the U.S. needs to turn itself around. Unfortunately, Jim Lehrer isn't actually running, so it didn't help my own decision process much, and I remain decisively undecided at the moment. In watching the bailout last week, it became clear that tech is clearly at risk, and I was struck by the reality that were the U.S. a company, the CEO, CFO and chairman of the board (Speaker of the House) would likely have all been, and should have been, fired.

More consumers than ever are shopping online, but it doesn't mean they all buy online. Studies show that the Internet influences more than US$3 of in-store sales for every dollar spent online. The Internet has given consumers the ability to make more educated purchases and get better deals, but many consumers still prefer to buy a product at a loc...

In the take-no-prisoners environment of the video game console industry, Nintendo was not so long ago considered an also-ran. The video game console pioneer and one-time market leader had been outmaneuvered and outsold by video game juggernaut Sony and even upstart entrant Microsoft, as their respective PlayStation and Xbox platforms made Nintendo's offerings look like children's toys in comparison...

Odd couple Google and Yahoo late on Friday reportedly opted to delay their proposed partnership, under which Google would essentially devour part of Yahoo's advertising business and create an online ad behemoth that critics say no rival could possibly compete against On Thursday, Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., the chairman of the U.S. Senate Antitrust Sub...