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Law and order is one of the cornerstones of a civilized society. Establishing rules of conduct, spelling out acceptable and objectionable behavior, defining the consequences for anyone who violates those laws and deciding who will enforce them are all essential to maintaining peace and harmony In the real world, there exist systems of laws -- civil...

End-user organizations are looking to leverage enterprise applications to achieve competitive advantages and operational efficiencies, and to improve information flow in their value chains. In order to maximize the return on investment from these deployments, organizations are optimizing their networks and ensuring a high level of performance. Abe...

Two years after discontinuing sales of its DJ line of digital music players, Dell plans to launch a new effort to snag a piece of the digital music market from Apple with its own device this September, according to a Wednesday report in the Wall Street Journal Citing details provided by several Dell executives, the report describes a company stung ...

Sprint Nextel sustained a harsh legal blow this week that could have wide-ranging effects across the entire mobile telephone industry A judge in California ruled that it is illegal for Sprint to charge so-called early termination fees when customers discontinue their wireless phone service before their contracts with the carrier end....

Microsoft launched another effort Tuesday to debunk the heavy criticism its Windows Vista operating system (OS) has received. But rather than sending out executives and evangelists to tout the benefits and new functionalities in Vista, Microsoft instead performed an experiment The test, much like a Pepsi versus Coke blind taste test, was designed t...

The British House of Lords has decided to extradite Gary McKinnon, a British citizen who hacked his way into several U.S. military, defense and NASA computers, to the United States to stand trial. McKinnon has been fighting extradition since the discovery in 2002 that he was the one who broke into the U.S. government's most sensitive networks -- reportedly from a friend's aunt's house -- between 2001 and 2002. He allegedly caused US$900,000 in damages to computers located in 14 states...

First Amazon transformed itself from simple online bookseller to general e-tailer. Then it spread into the world of Web services and distributed computing. Now the online giant is entering the alternative payments game Amazon's two new payment services announced this week, Checkout by Amazon and Amazon Simple Pay, enter a market with existing playe...

Flying isn't just for superheroes anymore. A personal aviation machine that made its debut at an air show in Wisconsin this week is raising the profile of solo flying devices. The machine -- named the "Martin Jet Pack" -- lets you soar into the skies for as long as 30 minutes and reach altitudes of 8,000 feet, its creators say The Martin Jet Pack ...

Yahoo, HP and Intel are collaborating on an ambitious research endeavor called "Cloud Computing Test Bed" -- designed to support cloud computing research and education at universities. Users will be able to develop and test software, data center management, and hardware associated with cloud computing on this large-scale grid The three companies a...

SAP turned in a strong Q2 financial report on Tuesday with results mitigated only by a drop in profits due to its acquisition of Business Objects. SAP's net profit for the quarter was 408 million euros (US$634.9 million), a 9 percent decline from the same period last year. Revenue was 2.86 billion euros ($4.45 billion), a jump of 18 percent from Q...

Heading the company with perhaps the most recognized acronym in the information security field and following in the footsteps of lightning-rod figure Phil Zimmerman must have both its charms and its challenges. PGP President and CEO Phil Dunkelberger, however, ranges far and wide in his reflections on how data -- and keeping it safe -- affects our lives and our thinking...

Ribbit announced that it had been purchased by British Telecom (BT) on Tuesday for US$105 million in cash. As deals go, that might not seem like a lot, but given the fact that it's all cash and given the relatively slow market for "liquidity events" these days, it's worth pondering Peeling the onion and trying to get beyond the cash, this is an imp...

Interoperability is fast becoming a key watchword in business computing circles. Open source products continue to gain enterprise acceptance. With that acceptance comes an increase in users who demand that data produced with one application to work with data produced for another application -- or even another operating system. Open source advocate...

Social networking tools aren't really new in the computing world. After all, AOL was the granddaddy of social networking environments back in the Internet's early days. But the extension of these environments to mobile devices is new. According to an Informa Telecoms report, about 50 million people, or about 2.3 percent of all mobile users, already use the mobile phone for social networking, from chat services to multimedia sharing. The company forecasts that the penetration rate will mushroom to at least 12.5 percent in five years...

Markets responded favorably to Tuesday's news that the chairman and CEO of Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent would be leaving the merger-troubled company The telecommunication company's stock was up nearly 6 percent by market close following the announcement that CEO Serge Tchuruk and CEO Pat Russo will both leave later this year. The company also announc...

Dell rolled out its entry in the emerging ultra-small PC category Tuesday: the Dell Studio Hybrid. The desktop joins other systems in the category, including the Apple Mac mini and HP's Slimline series The Studio Hybrid, roughly the size of a large hardbound novel, is about 80 percent smaller than the average desktop minitower and uses significantl...

The promise of digital photography is that it can help any amateur develop into a backyard Ansel Adams, given the right camera, software and dedication. Imaging software company Adobe Systems has known this since 1990, when it rolled out version 1.0 of its trailblazing Photoshop software; it has followed that with a host of related products aimed at different segments -- and expertise levels -- of the digital imaging market...

Year-over-year profits at Tokyo-based consumer electronics giant Sony fell 47 percent to US$326 million during the first quarter, and company officials predict a further decrease in profits later in the year Several factors contributed to the massive drop in Sony profits: lower-than-expected earnings from Sony Ericsson; falling electronics prices; ...

Facebookers hoping to get in on a game of Scrabulous on Tuesday were left disappointed. Instead of linking to the game, designed by brothers Rajat and Jayant Argarwalla for play on the Facebook social networking platform, players found the following message: "Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like...

Don't book that cruise just yet -- the vacation to outer space is a step closer to becoming reality. Virgin Galactic unveiled its White Knight Two carrier this week, starting the countdown to the world's first airline to take tourists to the stars White Knight Two -- designed by Burt Rutan and funded by British entrepreneur/adventurer Richard Brans...