Business

Technology giant IBM injected some much-needed good news into the stock market Thursday when it made a surprise announcement that its third-quarter profit beat Wall Street estimates by 4 cents per share. The financial report, which came a week early, sent shares of Big Blue up nearly 2 percent to ab...

STARTUP TO WATCH

WEbook: Turning Publishing on Its Ear

"Claiming itself to be a next-generation publisher, WEbook has successfully roped in venture capitalists to invest in their business," Deepak Thakur, senior research analyst in ICT Practice at Frost & Sullivan, told the E-Commerce Times. If the dot-com burst and the more recent Wall Street fiasc...

Search engine giant Google has taken yet another step in its effort to monetize YouTube, the online video portal it acquired for $1.65 billion about two years ago. Now, YouTube users can click on advertisement links leading them to products offered for sale at online outlets like Apple's iTunes stor...

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Dish Network's appeal of a decision that found EchoStar had infringed TiVo's patent for its Time Warp software, which allows users to record television programs while watching a different channel, and also to skip over commercials. The appellate court ruli...

Advanced Micro Devices is splitting into two companies with the help of a massive cash infusion by investors in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi. AMD will continue designing semiconductor chips for computers and servers. The spinoff, called "The Foundry Company," will focus on manufacturin...

Woopra, a new Web-tracking and analysis service designed by iFusion Labs, began quietly enough. iFusion Labs CEO John Pozadzides, along with his partners, Elie Khoury and Jad Younan, launched the site at Word Camp, a convention for bloggers, in March 2008, offering memberships to 200 attendees. The ...

TECH BLOG

Google and Yahoo Set Back Clock on Ad Deal

Odd couple Google and Yahoo late on Friday reportedly opted to delay their proposed partnership, under which Google would essentially devour part of Yahoo's advertising business and create an online ad behemoth that critics say no rival could possibly compete against. On Thursday, Sen. Herb Kohl, D-...

Of all the protests mounted against the pending ad partnership between Google and Yahoo, the one lodged by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., is bound to be among the most worrisome. Kohl, who oversees the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, has asked the Justice Department to continue to monitor the competitive la...

Sprint may be a step closer to selling off its Nextel business. Latin American carrier NII holdings has expressed interest in a purchase, according to The Wall Street Journal -- which cites "people familiar with the matter" as revealing the news. Several private-equity firms such as Cerberus Capital...

INSIGHTS

Building a Profitable Web 2.0 Web Site

Competition for building a profitable Web site is quite fierce. Yet many of us have dreams of a unique concept that will attract viewers, followed soon thereafter by advertisers. I'm not sure what percentage of aspirants succeed in this quest, but I would venture to guess that it's a very low percen...

"[R]ailhead may actually degrade the ability to provide intelligence data for use in the consolidated terrorist watch list," according to the U.S. House subcommittee report. This massive government IT project is failing -- and it's not an isolated case. Large IT projects in agencies from the FBI to ...

Google said the United States has a very real opportunity to transform its economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy -- and to make it happen, Google is pitching a $4.4 trillion proposal that outlines how it can be done by 2030. By spending $4.4 trillion on buildi...

Companies hoping to dial up international business with China may have yet another reason to think twice about privacy concerns, following new revelations that the Communist country has been spying on Skype-based phone calls and text messages. Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto-based security and ...

Take-Two Interactive Software, maker of the immensely popular "Grand Theft Auto" video game series, has decided to remain independent after resisting Electronic Arts' persistent acquisition efforts over the past few months. Take-Two reportedly had engaged in discussions with other interested video g...

TECHNOLOGY LAW CORNER

Post-eBay: Trademark Injunctions No Longer a Sure Thing

Traditionally, requests for permanent injunctions were treated similarly in both patent and trademark infringement cases, generally being granted almost automatically any time a patent or trademark owner proved infringement. Recent cases, however, have called this parity into question. As reported i...

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