Business

A team of University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) scientists said Thursday they have come up with a microscopic switch that will speed development of cheap and super-efficient "molecular machines" that could eventually replace computers.

UK-based online auctioneer QXL (Nasdaq: QXLC) will go ahead with its planned acquisition of Germany's Ricardo.de AG, the companies said Friday, after agreeing on a lower price to reflect a decline in Ricardo shares and financial performance since the deal was first announced in May.

A ruling from a federal judge that bars a Web site operator from distributing software to descramble DVD codes is being hailed as a major blow against video piracy. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan likened his ruling to "eliminating the source" of a contagious disease.

In order to succeed on the Net, major music labels must quit fighting the digital music revolution and implement their own digital distribution model to support single-track purchases, according to a report released Thursday by the Gartner Group.

I don't believe in reincarnation. That's too bad, because I'd like to be around in a thousand years or so when a more highly evolved human race pokes through our dismal digital remains and concludes that we were clearly out of our minds.

New research released Wednesday by Jupiter Communications predicts that in five years, every Internet user will be exposed to more than 950 marketing messages every day. The report also predicts that $16.5 billion (US$) will be spent on online marketing by 2005.

A new poll by Gartner Group-owned cPulse shows that nearly a quarter of Web shoppers are extremely dissatisfied with their buying experience, leading to worries that online retailers could lose a hefty chunk of business this holiday season.

Responding to a judge's order to expedite the release of information related to Carnivore, its controversial e-mail snooping technology, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is preparing to hand over as many as 3,000 pages of documents to the Internet privacy watchdog group that has been a...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Wednesday that it has taken action against three men it says fraudulently sold securities in a phony online art gallery and jewelry store.

Online grocer Streamline.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: SLNE) has warned that it will likely run out of money unless it receives new financing within "several weeks."

With all the recent dot-com burnouts, a lot of young high-tech workers are wondering where they can find stable jobs. Many are shying away from startups. They want secure -- make that rock-solid -- positions on career paths that can be measured in generations rather than months.

This year's Internet cause celebre, the Pets.com Sock Puppet, goes one better than last year's major ploy, viral marketing.

The Internet hosts over 700 online gaming sites, generating billions of dollars (US$) in revenue, yet you can bet that this is one industry your local officials are not likely to woo.

Industry giant IBM (NYSE: IBM) and e-commerce software company Kana Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: KANA) announced plans Wednesday to help companies that do business on the Internet improve their customer service.

To the casual surfer, the Internet may seem like a limitless ocean, but to e-tail firms whose cash is swirling down the drain, it may seem more like a little fish tank that is fast losing its water. The situation is about to get a lot worse: The land sharks are coming.