E-Commerce

Samsung has opened its Milk Music streaming music service to anyone via a Web browser, one year after introducing it on its mobile devices. "In a word, why?" questioned Mike Goodman, director of digital media at Strategy Analytics. "There's Pandora, there's Spotify, there's Google Music Play -- ther...

Google last week launched an auto insurance rate comparison site in California. Mercury Insurance, MetLife and 21st Century Insurance are among the 14 firms already signed up as partners, and Google promises more will follow. Bolt Solutions last week announced that it too has joined up. "We have a G...

Square on Monday introduced two new services for small businesses: instant deposits; and protection for disputed purchases. Square, which six years ago began offering square-shaped mobile credit card readers for smartphones and tablets, has shifted its focus away from point-of-sale operations and to...

Autonomous vehicles are on a roll, suggests a new report from McKinsey & Co., released last week during the Geneva Motor Show. Acceptance will increase substantially by 2050, accounting for as much of 20 percent of new car sales. The shift to self-driving technologies could reduce auto accidents...

Google Wallet, bitcoin and other payment systems have spent years trying to oust the credit card as the be-all and end-all of payment methods. Publications and pundits everywhere have been quick to hail new technologies as "credit card-killers," and they're not without justification. As a payment me...

Nextdoor on Wednesday announced it has received $110 million in venture capital to grow its neighborhood-based network of residents and vendors. Redpoint Ventures and Insight Venture Partners led the funding round. Nextdoor plans to use the money to develop additional ways for members to benefit fro...

The observation that "80 percent of life is just showing up," generally attributed to comedian Woody Allen, has morphed into the admonition that "80 percent of success is just showing up." However, it appears that vendors who just show up with a generalized approach to marketing cloud technology to ...

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday adopted new open Internet rules by a 3-2 vote along party lines. The rules, which affect both wired and wireless access, prohibit broadband providers from unreasonably interfering with or unreasonably disadvantaging efforts of consumers and edge prov...

Apple must pay patent licensing firm Smartflash US$532.9 million for infringing three patents. U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, who presided over the case in Tyler, Texas, ordered Apple to pay the penalty after a federal jury in Texas found that the company's iTunes software infringed on the pat...

Google on Monday announced YouTube Kids, a new mobile app designed to deliver family-friendly video content. In making a play for the tyke market, YouTube joins other streaming video providers like Amazon and Netflix. The YouTube Kids app provides streaming content curated for families -- everything...

The global access and entertainment services marketplace continues its pace of dramatic change, as broadband services have achieved new levels of penetration and speed worldwide. Emerging markets in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia are experiencing rapid growth, as many homes obtain high-speed...

Customer satisfaction with retail has dropped for the first time in four years, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index -- except in the subcategory of e-commerce. All of the brick-and-mortar retail categories registered weak or flat customer satisfaction for the fourth quarter of 2014...

Xiaomi may soon take its first steps into the U.S. How will it do? I have some suggestions to offer. If it follows them, its chances of success will increase. If it doesn't, it may face the same problems that have dogged Microsoft, BlackBerry, Motorola, HTC and many others. Wireless in the U.S. is a...

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...

Dish Network on Monday officially launched Sling TV, its widely anticipated US$20 per month streaming service, and further announced that customers could sign up for a "Sports Extra" add-on pack for $5 per month. The service, which is available now via a one-week free trial, can be accessed via Roku...