Business

It seemed like a logical leap: If you already provide shoppers with coupons online, what's to stop you from offering them an online source for e-gift cards? So the founders of online gift card company CashStar pooled resources with online shopping coupon mogul Coupons Inc. to create an outlet for m...

Pandora Radio Founder Tim Westergren had been one of the most vocal critics of the royalty rates that small online radio broadcasters were forced to pay per government edict. However, Tuesday's announcement of an agreement between those webcasters and SoundExchange, the organization tasked by the re...

"Green IT" has been a tech industry cause celebre for the past few years, first arising as the potential effects of global warming were coming increasingly to the fore and then enjoying a significant boost as the global recession compounded the practical value of data center energy efficiency and po...

Best Buy is rolling out a pilot program for a new product category: electronic Segways. The company has announced it will be selling these vehicles in 20 stores in Washington, Oregon and California, with electric motorcycles to join the mix later this summer. There had been expectations that Best Bu...

He was into cloud computing before cloud computing was cool. Before that, he'd given the world its first real Web browser. He's a board member of eBay and Facebook, and he's invested in some must-watch Web 2.0 companies: Digg, Twitter, Ning, etc. So when Marc Andreessen announced on his blog Sunday ...

The final day of reckoning in the four-year battle between TiVo and EchoStar has been pushed out a little further. Late Wednesday evening, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted EchoStar's request to stay a contempt order imposed by the U.S. District Court the day before, until it...

In a dramatic repudiation of Bush administration policies, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice withdrew its recent report setting standards for the prosecution of monopolization offenses. Announcing the change of policy, Christine A. Varney, the new assistant attorney general in...

More companies are joining in the fight over Internet taxation begun by Amazon.com. Blue Nile and Overstock.com have joined the Web's largest retailer in dropping affiliate programs in North Carolina and Rhode Island, according to numerous press reports. Amazon also reportedly dropped its affiliate ...

Just three years after launching in a fanfare of publicity, Joost, which provides professionally made TV on the Web, is shifting directions. It will now provide white label online video platforms to media companies and distributors. Joost is closing down its offices in the Netherlands, retaining off...

It may not seem like most people's idea of summer reading. Then again, it is the chance to engage in some detective work with billions of dollars and terabytes of sensitive government data at stake. Better yet, you don't have to spend any money to read this latest techno-thriller. IT Dashboard is th...

The free fall in the IT sector may be nearing an end, according to Forrester. While the decline is not yet over, spending should begin to improve as the year wears on, culminating in the beginning of a recovery in the fourth quarter, according to a report by Forrester Vice President and Principal A...

Sales and revenues for the home systems channel will decline in 2009, just as they did in 2008. Many projects will be postponed or canceled this year. There will a decline in revenues of over 5 percent from 2008 to 2009. That's the bad news. However, integrators and manufacturers should not build th...

Microsoft said last week that designated PCs with premium versions of Windows Vista preinstalled will qualify for upgrades to the equivalent Windows 7 product once the final version of Redmond's next-generation operating system becomes widely available in the fall. However, reports that Microsoft is...

Microsoft is the target of yet another legal challenge -- this time from the online travel Web site Kayak, which has sent the software giant a letter noting similarities between its own site and Bing's travel service. It has asked Microsoft to take steps to address the matter. "Our concern is about ...

Palm continued to hemorrhage money in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2009. For the quarter that ended May 31, the firm's net loss totaled more than $91.5 million. However, the figures it revealed Thursday represent the months just ahead of Palm's release of the Pre. Palm's latest smartphone sold 1...