Business

SoftBank is considering a bid for T-Mobile USA, according to a new batch of rumors circulating in the press. Softbank shares were down 3.2 percent on Monday by the close of trading in Tokyo. SoftBank acquired Sprint, the third-largest U.S. mobile phone carrier, earlier this year, and now may be stud...

More than eight years ago, the Authors Guild filed a class action against Google on behalf of thousands of authors, claiming that Google infringed the authors' copyrights. The Authors Guild recently lost its case based on the fair use doctrine that's generally reserved for nonprofit use by academic...

Corporate America has been quaking in its boots since Microsoft announced in August that CEO Steve Ballmer would retire within 12 months and launched its search for a replacement. Given the enormous task Microsoft's next CEO will face, the compensation is likely to be substantial, and the lure of al...

Nothing stirs up speculation like success, and right now questions about Bitcoin are on everyone's lips. Is it headed for the moon after once again breaking the $1,000 mark on Wednesday? Or is it, as former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said, overpriced, lacking in intrinsic value and, ess...

Viber on Monday launched v4.1 of its eponymous VoIP chat application. It includes Viber Out, a feature that lets users call anyone mobile phones or landlines anywhere. Calls to other Viber users are free; otherwise, a fee is assessed. The company also unveiled additions to its line of stickers. Vibe...

Attorneys for Snapchat executives Evan Spiegel and Robert Murphy have applied to the California court for a restraining order and order to show cause against cofounder Reggie Brown, who is currently in litigation with the company over his ouster. The restraining order would keep Brown from publicizi...

Sen. Edward Markey plans to soon introduce legislation that will restrict the bulk collection of Americans' cellphone data by U.S. law enforcement agencies. "We need a 4th Amendment for the 21st century," he said. "Disclosure of personal information from wireless devices raises significant legal and...

The European Commission has issued a stark warning to Nokia to not become a patent troll. The company sold most of its mobile phone business to Microsoft earlier this year but retained its patent portfolio. The EC cleared the acquisition last week, but the deal has sparked concerns that Nokia may mo...

The United States House of Representatives on Thursday passed the Innovation Act, a bipartisan bill seeking to curb frivolous lawsuits by patent trolls, by a vote of 325-91. Bill H.R. 3309, whose chief sponsor is House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, will go before the Senate where anoth...

Mentioning virtualization technology to typical computer users in a work environment will get you a puzzled look. Despite the apparent obscurity of this IT trend, virtualization is making an increasingly large impact on small to medium-sized businesses. Some type of virtualization was reported in pl...

Hard on the heels of Amazon's recent announcement that it's planning deliveries by drone, Google this week acknowledged that it has embarked on a new robotics effort under the leadership of former Android head Andy Rubin. "I am excited about Andy Rubin's next project," said Google cofounder and CEO ...

Yahoo has purchased SkyPhrase with the intention of enabling computers to deeply understand natural language and intentions. "Yahoo uses Bing for their search engine, so it's unclear why they would buy a natural language technology for search because they can use Microsoft's technology," said Rob En...

In the waning days of the current session of Congress, patent reform is one issue that's very much alive. Major IT companies and business associations are making sure their voices are heard in what has become a typical end-of-year legislative scramble. Their efforts may not result in passage of a bi...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday announced it would not hear an appeal by Amazon and Overstock.com challenging a New York law that requires e-commerce companies to collect taxes from shoppers in the state even if the retailers don't have facilities there. The decision is the latest twist in an incre...

Akamai Technologies is buying Prolexic, which offers protection against distributed denial of service attacks. The deal, which is expected to close in the first half of 2014, will cost Akamai about $370 million in cash plus the assumption of outstanding unvested options to purchase Prolexic stock. "...