Business

Google on Monday announced a two-pronged thrust to beef up its efforts in the mobile wallet arena. It has struck agreements with Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile to preinstall the Google Wallet app, including its tap-and-pay functionality, on Android phones the carriers will offer la...

Apple on Monday announced a plan to build two new data centers in Europe -- one in Ireland and the other in Denmark. Apple plans to spend $1.9 billion on the project -- its largest European investment to date. The new facilities will power its online services including the iTunes Store, App Store, i...

Electric-car battery maker A123 Systems earlier this week filed a lawsuit against Apple in a Massachusetts Superior Court in Middlesex County. A123 also sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop its former employee, Mujeeb Ijaz, from violating his non-disclosure and non...

Samsung has purchased mobile payments firm LoopPay to create its own digital wallet. Samsung already was an investor in the startup, along with Visa and Synchrony Financial. LoopPay's contactless magnetic secure transmission technology works with magnetic stripe readers. "The one major advantage L...

Yandex has asked Russia's antitrust authorities to look into whether Google is breaking the country's laws by not allowing preinstallation of third-party services on Android devices. Three smartphone vendors told Yandex last year that they couldn't install its search engine as the default, the compa...

A major information technology trend within the U.S. government is the gradual -- and apparently inexorable -- migration of federal IT resources to cloud platforms. As the potential for federal cloud adoption has grown, vendors have intensified their marketing and improved their offerings to meet th...

Almost every day there are reports of cyberintrusions, attacks and related security breaches. If your company does not have the right insurance, it could be even more of a disaster. For example, according to regulatory filings, at the time of Target's cyberbreach in 2014, it had about US$100 million...

Cloud-based alternatives to traditional hardware and software systems and enterprise applications are experiencing a new level of CxO acceptance. Chief Financial Officers are the latest members of the C-level suite to embrace SaaS, PaaS and IaaS solutions to not only reduce operating costs, but also...

For years, RadioShack had been the "go to" place for hobbyists, as well as the store where one could find everything from speaker cables to electrical adapters, gizmos to gadgets. It appealed as much to people who wanted to build a computer as use one. In the 1990s, it moved away from this market, l...

Some proposed rules that the Federal Communication Commission maintains will prevent content discrimination on the Internet drew fire on Thursday from two policy interest groups. A four-page "fact sheet" on the rules was released Wednesday by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. In it, the chairman outlined wh...

With Wall Street breathing down its neck for growth, Twitter on Tuesday launched a new advertising initiative that aims to boost revenues and add to its more than 284 million members. The initiative aims to expand the reach of "Promoted Tweets" on Twitter. Promoted Tweets are ads that Twitter insert...

Google is working on its own ride-hailing service to compete with Uber, according to a Bloomberg report. Meanwhile, Uber has announced a strategic partnership with Carnegie Mellon University that will see the creation of the Uber Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh, Pa., that will focus on de...

Despite several highly publicized cloud hacks last year -- including the iCloud and Sony breaches -- the demand for cloud services is skyrocketing. Amazon Web Services grabbed 30 percent of the global cloud infrastructure service market in Q4, Synergy Research reports. AWS grew 51 percent year over ...

A group of organizations representing American businesses last week requested urgent discussion and dialog with China's government. They expressed concern about the possible adoption of a policy to ensure that any Internet and information communications technology products Chinese banks purchase fro...

The FCC on Tuesday issued a warning that intentional blockage of personal WiFi hotspots was illegal and would be subject to enforcement. The FCC has noticed a "disturbing trend" among hotels and other commercial establishments of blocking consumers' personal WiFi hotspots on their premises, its advi...