Business

Anyone who's used popular P2P applications such as BitTorrent, Gnutella or Limewire has probably been plagued by network slowdowns that make sharing heavy media files a time-consuming endeavor. However, a consortium of technologists at the Distributed Computing Industry Association has found a way t...

The Federal Communications Commission continues to receive plenty of static from both sides of the television white space debate. Last month it was Google cofounder Larry Page raising allegations of rigged FCC testing of white spaces prototype devices. Now, the National Association of Broadcasters c...

Does Microsoft still have Yahoo in its gun sights? Listen to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and it might seem so. At an industry event in Orlando, Fla., this week, Ballmer said a deal between Microsoft and the No. 2 Internet search engine would "still make economic sense" for both companies. Within hou...

Immigration is becoming as nettlesome to high-tech companies as it has long been in the agriculture and construction businesses. Although technology firms don't reach into the same labor pool as do ag comglomerates or building contractors, their problems are converging. The challenge, advocates of i...

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia reported a 30 percent decrease in third-quarter earnings and a 5 percent drop in sales on Thursday. However, the company was able to improve gross margins at a time when the global economy is faltering and spending on consumer electronics is decreasing in the United ...

Online auction house and retailer eBay announced a profitable third quarter on Thursday but warned an already-volatile Wall Street that continued weakness in consumer spending would hurt sales throughout the rest of the year. The company reported Q3 earnings of $492.2 million, compared to a loss of ...

The Federal Trade Commission has essentially shut down the largest spam operation in the world, freezing the assets of two of its accused ringleaders. Lance Atkinson, a New Zealand citizen living in Australia, and Jody Smith of Texas, deceptively marketed a variety of products through spam messages,...

Semiconductor chip giant Intel reported better-than-expected financial results for the third quarter late Tuesday, but it wasn't enough to buoy its stock or inject any new life into the broader chip market. Net income at Intel rose 12 percent year-over-year to $2.01 billion. However, top-line revenu...

Search engine giants Google and Yahoo are in talks with the U.S. Department of Justice in the hopes of alleviating regulators' antitrust concerns regarding their pending online ad sharing deal. Reports that the three sides were meeting first surfaced early Tuesday. Antitrust issues have been raised ...

The new film "Flash of Genius" may be based on a 1960s case of patent infringement, but its David-vs.-Goliath story involving independent inventors going up against monolithic corporations continues to spin off sequels well into the 21st Century, says a Minneapolis-based patent attorney. And while t...

While the communications industry waits for the FCC to fill in the blanks on a white spaces policy, the commissioners are going forward with another plan that would provide free wireless Internet access throughout the U.S. Late last Friday, the commission released a report showing test results on cl...

The Internet often has the effect of eliminating the middle man and enabling consumers to complete tasks directly. While these changes have occurred swiftly in some markets, they have been evolving more slowly in the legal profession. In fact, the process of finding legal advice is quite similar to ...

Semiconductor industry watcher iSuppli lowered its 2008 revenue forecast Thursday from 4 percent growth to 3.5 percent. The research firm expects revenue in the chip industry to top US$280.1 billion, roughly $10 billion more than the industry earned in 2007. "Four percent had been our forecast for a...

There's big money in counterfeiting name-brand goods. Sales of knockoff products over the Internet climbed to nearly $120 billion in 2007, up from $84 billion the previous year, estimated MarkMonitor, an online protection firm that works with eBay and other online auction houses to shut counterfeite...

Memory chipmaker Micron Technology will cut its global workforce by 15 percent over the next two years due to a massive slowdown in demand for memory chip technology, the Boise, Idaho-based company said Thursday. Micron employs about 22,600 people, and said the cost of restructuring would be about $...