Trends

Facebook, in collaboration with the University of Michigan, conducted a study on the diversity of news and opinions posted by members of the network, in an effort to determine whether its manipulation of News Feed algorithms could be responsible for creating an echo chamber of viewpoints. To cut to ...

TECHNOLOGY LAW CORNER

The Cloud's Threatening Legal Storm

With the ever-increasing use of the cloud by more and more businesses, there is good reason to be concerned about legal risks, which are an inherent part of the cloud. The term "cloud" may be relatively new, but the concept of remote computing started more than 60 years ago, when Dartmouth Universit...

A U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled, in essence, that the NSA's collection of metadata concerning Americans' communications is illegal. The court vacated U.S. District Judge William Pauley's December 2013 ruling in ACLU v. Clapper, and remanded the case to the lower court. Pauley had granted the gover...

ANALYSIS

The Next Big Split in Wireless

The wireless and wire line telecom industry completely reinvents itself every few years. Right now, everything seems to be changing. Seven years ago, the handset leaders were BlackBerry and Nokia. Today, those companies are struggling to stay on the charts. Today's handset leaders are Apple and Sams...

The U.S. Supreme Court last month granted a request from Spokeo, a data aggregator, to consider whether the legal basis litigants must meet to file a claim in federal court should be broadly or narrowly defined. In the case, Spokeo, Inc. v. Thomas Robins, Thomas Robins is a resident of Virginia acti...

Apple and IBM last week announced an initiative with Japan Post Group to provide seniors in Japan with iPads preloaded with apps and analytics designed to improve their quality of life. Japan Post Group will launch a pilot service later this year and gradually expand it to cover 4-5 million customer...

ANALYSIS

Is Comcast, TWC Dead or Just Sleeping?

Now that the Comcast, Time Warner Cable merger deal has failed, what's next? I think it's likely that if Time Warner Cable is still around, the deal might be tried once again in a few years after the industry has transformed itself. Comcast obviously is still interested in expanding with Time Warner...

When Elon Met Larry

Tesla Motors founder and CEO Elon Musk reportedly almost sold his electric car company to Google. Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy, and Musk had all but signed the documents that would have handed over the company, according to an upcoming book. In March 2013, Tesla Motors was all but running on...

Google on Monday announced it will open an experimental portal to purchase patents from their holders between May 8 and May 22. The move is widely seen as an attempt to shut off patent trolls. Patent holders have to set the price at which they're willing to sell their IP, and they will be told by Ju...

Nokia has kinda, sorta asserted that it's not returning to the smartphone business, in the wake of persistent reports that it's been eyeing a comeback. Nokia "currently has no plans to manufacture or sell consumer handsets," reads a company statement. "The reports are false, and include comments inc...

Valve last week announced that it was allowing players to sell video game mods on its digital distribution platform, Steam, starting with mods of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but the policing of the marketplace and the percentage of revenue shared with creators have become points of contention. Vide...

Comcast has decided to abandon its plan to merge with Time Warner Cable, according to multiple press reports. The company is expected to make a formal announcement on Friday. About a week after reports emerged indicating the U.S. Department of Justice was leaning against Comcast's $45.2 billion doll...

ANALYSIS

The Growing Robocall Menace

Automated telephone calls, also known as "robocalls," used to drive me crazy. Then they stopped, and life was quiet, peaceful and beautiful once again, but just for a few short years. Those disturbing calls have started once again, and now they are worse than ever. Why? And how can we stop them? Rob...

The dynamic world of information technology calls for a future-oriented approach to IT management. However, government agencies too often may be looking backward rather than forward with respect to how they operate IT systems, especially when it comes to investing huge sums of taxpayer money into th...

EXPERT ADVICE

Sleek Ad Tailoring for Online Apparel Shoppers

Consumers have gotten on board with the concept of buying apparel online. Especially in this era of free returns and nifty sizing tools, buying clothing and shoes off the Web has become mainstream. However, some advertisers have been slow to respond. While most of us have at some point been served a...

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