Trends

At least 419 million people around the world are blocking advertising on their smartphones, according to a report PageFair released Tuesday. Most of those people -- 408 million of them -- are using ad-blocking browsers, notes the report. The use of ad blockers doubled in 2015, and the use of mobile ...

Antiquated IT systems are soaking up federal technology dollars and creating risks for both bureaucrats and citizens, the GAO reported last week. More than 75 percent of the federal IT budget in 2015 went toward the operation and maintenance of nearly obsolete legacy systems that use outdated softwa...

Microsoft seems to have gone off the deep end with its tricks to get unwilling customers to upgrade from Windows 7 and Windows 8 to Windows 10. Doesn't the company realize this will hurt it? Does Microsoft think it can be abusive and win? Users are complaining loudly. Why doesn't Microsoft care abou...

Facebook this week said it would make several procedural changes to its Trending Topics feature to quell concerns that the results could be steered in a particular political direction, even though it has found no evidence of bias. The company will retrain workers in the Trending Topics department an...

Google on Thursday filed an appeal with France's supreme administrative court over an order from a privacy regulator requiring it to scrub certain search results around the world under a law called "the right to be forgotten." The March order from the CNIL requires Google and other search engines to...

China reportedly is investigating the encryption and data storage features of technology products sold there by large foreign companies to determine whether the products pose a security threat. A committee associated with the Cyberspace Administration of China reportedly is conducting reviews that i...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg invited a group of 15 media executives and right-leaning pundits, including talk show host Glenn Beck, to meet with him Wednesday to discuss accusations that the social media network biased it's trending news topics to omit conservative viewpoints. Zuckerberg also extend...

Concern about online security and privacy are leading Americans to curtail online activity, the United States National Telecommunications and Information Administration reported last week. More than 41,000 households with at least one Internet user in July responded to several privacy and security q...

When small businesses choose an IT and support service provider, the two most important considerations are the provider's ability to include all of the company's devices and provide a comprehensive IT service plan. More than half of small businesses that use professional IT services use two or more ...

With every market forecast predicting rapid growth of the overall Internet of Things, industry and investor focus shifts to specific market segments that will experience the quickest adoption. While most of the attention is on particular applications and technologies, I think managed IoT services wi...

Like many, I have a love-hate relationship with warehouse clubs like Costco, Sam's Club and BJ's. I've criticized them several times over the years, but it's worth noting that some of these clubs have been improving. Others not so much. I have some ideas about what these companies are doing right an...

Google on Wednesday announced that it would ban advertising for payday loans in its ad systems. Starting July 13, the company will prohibit ads for payday loans and related products where funds are due within 60 days of the date of issue, as well as ads for loans with an APR of 36 percent, said Goog...

Facebook hired promising journalists in their 20s and early 30s to work on its secretive trending news project but did not treat them -- or journalism -- well, according to a recent report. The curators served as training modules for Facebook's algorithm, they said. They selected trending news, and ...

Twitter reportedly has blocked U.S. intelligence agencies from accessing information from Dataminr, a firm that tracks tweets in real time to provide actionable information for financial, media, security and other types of institutional clients. The block suggests Twitter is unwilling to cooperate w...