Business

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard has undoubtedly made a significant improvement to the security of cardholder account numbers and other sensitive information within the payment card infrastructure. The standard lays out a strong set of requirements that merchants, acquirers and proce...

After strenuous deliberations, the European Union's antitrust regulatory authority is giving Oracle's proposed $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems a green light. The EU's approval is the culmination of a months-long dispute between Oracle and Europe that threatened the deal's survival until...

Aberdeen's August 2009 research "Talent Acquisition Strategies 2009" found that the top strategy organizations are pursuing in the area of recruiting today is to proactively build and expand a candidate pipeline regardless of current hiring needs. Given the continuing pressure many organizations are...

Authors and publishers of select Kindle e-books will soon be able to earn royalties as high as 70 percent of a title's list price, net of delivery costs, under a new plan announced by Amazon on Wednesday. The new option will be available starting June 30 for in-copyright Kindle books whose list pric...

The Gray Lady may once again ask for some green if you want to view something that's black and white and read all over. Reports surfaced over the weekend that The New York Times is about to announce another attempt at a paid-access business model for its Web site, with management apparently deciding...

The overheated weapons and steroid-pumped terrorists featured in "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" made a lot of noise in the gaming industry leading into the holidays. However, by the time receipts were totaled, it was a familiar little mustache-wearing plumber and his arcade-style melodies that san...

The organization representing the wireless industry -- CTIA - The Wireless Association -- is fighting to head off a possible expansion of the Federal Communication Commission's Net neutrality proposals. CTIA on Thursday filed comments in response to recent proposals made by the FCC. Among other argu...

A combination of aging computers and their operating systems, along with reduced hardware prices, contributed to higher worldwide shipments for the leading PC makers in the closing quarter of 2009, according to two industry reports. Worldwide PC shipments increased 15.2 percent for last year's fourt...

The discovery of a series of cyberattacks from China targeting Google and other companies has prompted the Internet giant to threaten that it may pull out of the country. Recent "highly sophisticated and targeted" attacks on Google's corporate infrastructure "and the surveillance they have uncovered...

A startup developer of technology that helps publishers better connect sales with affiliate marketers has closed on seed funding from First Round Capital, Google Ventures, and such individual investors as LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. The financing for the company, VigLink, will be used to take the...

The global IT market will see better days in 2010 as signs point to the beginnings of a worldwide economic recovery, according to a report from Forrester Research. Global IT spending will grow 8.1 percent, while IT spending in the United States will climb 6.6 percent, according to the study. Large e...

Microsoft is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for a rehearing of its affirmation in December of a lower court's jury verdict that Microsoft infringed on patents held by a Toronto-based company, i4i. While awaiting the court's decision, though, Microsoft has scrambled to compl...

Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs on Monday launched Green Touch, a project aimed at making communications networks 1,000 times more more energy-efficient. The project's founding members include service providers such as AT&T; research labs such as the MIT Research Lab for Electronics and Bell Labs; an...

The stock market has had a remarkable ride in 2009. Presently, it has substantially recovered from its low point of March, 2009. Many of us are wondering where it is now heading, given that so many people have their retirement savings tied up in the market. In fact, I am often asked to prognosticate...

Amazon plans to start selling an international version of the Kindle DX -- its larger-sized e-reader device -- in more than 100 countries. The e-tailer began offering an international version of its standard Kindle last October. It will start shipping the $489 international DX to consumers in Italy,...