Trends

An estimated $5.2 million was stolen over the weekend from Bitstamp, a digital currency exchange. It has suspended services pending an investigation. The company assured its customers that bitcoins held with Bitstamp prior to suspension of services were completely safe and would be honored in full.

Dish Network on Monday unveiled Sling TV, its live over-the-top television service, at the 2015 International CES in Las Vegas. Sling TV will be offered to consumers without a contract, starting at $20 per month. It will be available early this year through a variety of devices, including Amazon Fir...

Concern over government surveillance has been so heightened by confidential information leaked by former intelligence hand Edward Snowden that writers in free countries are as worried as those in autocratic nations, according to a report released Monday. Three-quarters of writers in countries classi...

Malware is running rampant on the Internet, affecting smartphones, tablets and personal computers. Relatively new malware allows bad guys to encrypt devices until a ransom is paid. Usually the ransom is required in bitcoin, rather than U.S. currency, as it cannot be traced. What are the legal and ...

China last week apparently began blocking Gmail, and the outage was still in effect on Tuesday, although to a lesser degree, according to reports. A sharp drop in traffic from China to Google services began last Friday, according to its Transparency Report, and the company could find no explanation ...

It's well known that certain second-rate media outlets use provocatively misleading headlines to attract viewers and parlay those figures into increased ad revenue, but some better known outlets appear to be resorting to clickbait as well. For example, a host of online headlines recently implied tha...

Google has filed a lawsuit against Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, the latest salvo in its piracy battle with the Motion Picture Association of America. Hood targeted Google with an "unreasonable, retaliatory and burdensome" subpoena, the complaint says. The referenced subpoena likely is part...

The U.S. government will remain a steady and significant customer for information technology providers over the next several years. That's the good news. For the foreseeable future, though, the days of ever-growing federal spending for IT are over. Vendors will have to work harder to obtain governme...

The United States government is delivering a one-two punch to Sprint over the practice of cramming -- allowing third parties to place unauthorized charges on customers' bills. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau on Thursday filed a civil suit against Sprint over the issue. Meanwhile, the Federal ...

Apple, Amazon, AT&T, CNN, National Public Radio and The Washington Post were among numerous companies to support Microsoft this week, as it battled U.S. efforts to seize a customer's emails. A coalition of supporting organizations filed 10 amicus briefs with the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appe...

It's that time of year again. The Consumer Electronics Show will rock Las Vegas in early January. Companies are gearing up and hoping to do a good job of cutting through all the loud and distracting background noise to share their messages at the show. It's a tough job, since CES is full of industry...

After a 10-year knock-down drag-out battle, Apple on Tuesday prevailed in a class-action lawsuit over its use of digital rights management technology on iPods purchased between Sept. 1, 2006 and March 31, 2009. Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd -- one of the "most feared litigation firms" in the U.S....

The torrent world is in turmoil following last week's shutdown of The Pirate Bay in a police raid. Other torrent sites have seen traffic spikes, while Pirate Bay clones -- set up both by file-sharing activists and cyberscamsters -- are emerging. Meanwhile, authorities around the world appear to be p...

Microsoft last week began to accept bitcoins as payment for digital content purchases. Bitcoins can be credited to a Microsoft account by anyone in the United States at the currency's market value -- currently around US$352 per bitcoin -- and used to buy content at the Windows Store or stores that c...

The FAA this week gave five licenses to four companies for UAS operations -- that is, flying drones. The drones will be used in aerial surveying, construction site monitoring, and inspecting oil rig flare stacks. The news led Amazon to launch a media blitz about its attempts to get a license and to ...