Trends

The uproar that erupted over Mozilla Foundation cofounder Brendan Eich's appointment as CEO of its subsidiary Mozilla Corp. and resulted in his stepping down earlier this month perhaps was symptomatic of the troubles the foundation is going through, in that opposition to his taking the post had both...

T-Mobile has decided to end overage fees for its mobile customers. The company is abolishing overage charges for customers on every consumer plan, and its chief executive, John Legere, has laid down the gauntlet to AT&T, Verizon and Sprint to kill off such charges as well. Twenty million America...

Most e-commerce businesses already are preparing for their 2015 PCI audit, and plenty of changes are afoot when it comes to meeting 3.0 compliance requirements. Remember, compliance itself does not equal security, but rather is a reporting function of your security program. It is both a mandatory pa...

Federal information technology managers are as intrigued as any other IT community by the potential benefits from IT innovations. However, many federal managers continue to face challenges in adopting innovative technologies. Lack of funding, employee skill gaps, and lack of organizational buy-in ar...

Amazon has released its annual letter to shareholders, revealing a smattering of tidbits about what's happening in the company now and what's in store for the future. The running theme throughout the letter is innovation. The entire company innovates with the customer in mind, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ...

eBay and corporate raider Carl Icahn on Thursday ended their months-long acrimonious battle with metaphorical hugs and kisses. eBay's board accepted an Icahn nominee -- CVS Caremark Chairman David Dorman -- as one of its 10 independent directors, and the disputants sang each other's praises. "Extrem...

A new wave of opportunities is emerging to create industry-specific Software as a Service and cloud computing vertical market solutions. A number of new examples of this phenomenon have crossed my radar over the past few weeks which clearly illustrate the long tail effect of the cloud. The most prom...

Every couple of years, it's time to buy a new wireless phone -- and every couple of years, we go through the same decision-making process. What should be the most important part of that process? The answer is not in the advertising. It's not about choosing a phone. Rather, it's choosing the right ne...

Up to now, Google's smart eyeware, Glass, largely has been considered a diversion for gadget lovers, but the company on Tuesday announced a new program to encourage its use in the workplace. "Today, there are thousands of consumers out there enjoying Glass in ways that are both practical and inspira...

Twitter on Tuesday announced a redesign of its user profiles, hard on the heels of its launch of new photo-sharing capabilities late last month. Included among the new features in the redesign are larger profile photos, customized headers, and an enlarged presentation of tweets that have been partic...

Michael Lewis did not do the securities industry any favors, at least in the short term, with the publication of his new book, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt. His portrayal of how investment banks use high-frequency trading to leverage the few additional milliseconds this technology provides to gr...

We are now living during a wave of social change, and we will not know how the Internet has affected society until we look back on it in the future. A great example of this: When Alexander Graham Bell obtained his patent for the telephone in 1875, no one could have foreseen that a lawyer from Texas ...

There you are, strolling down the coffee and tea aisle at the supermarket when you get an alert on your smartphone that you can get extra points in the store's reward program if you purchase a certain brand of coffee. Are you annoyed -- or perhaps really vexed -- that you have been tracked with such...

The European Parliament on Thursday approved new Net neutrality rules. Net neutrality, both in the EU and in the U.S., refers to the concept of requiring ISPs to treat all traffic the same regardless of its source. In Europe, that means ISPs such as Vodafone can't deliver content from competitive pr...

BlackBerry CEO John Chen is trying to turn the company's fortunes around, and something it has in common with Coca-Cola could help. This is something very important, if BlackBerry realizes it. It's something that if done correctly could help the company succeed once again. I have followed BlackBerry...