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Apple's month-to-month smartphone sales appear healthy, according to data covering September to November 2013, released Tuesday by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. However, the bigger picture is less encouraging. Year-over-year figures indicate Apple is at best treading water, with its share having declin...

Cloud service users are becoming more vocal about what they want from cloud providers and how they want to pay for it -- and cloud providers may be listening. Cloud firms are beginning to offer more flexible options and are gradually shifting to utility-style pricing models. There is no single facto...

In partnership with Nvidia and several automakers, Google on Monday announced the creation of the Open Automotive Alliance, an effort designed to further its push into the automobile industry. Audi, General Motors, Honda and Hyundai are among the effort's partners on the automotive side. The allianc...

Civil liberties groups and privacy advocates in the United States rejoiced when U.S. Federal District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled last month that the NSA's collection of bulk telephony metadata is likely a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. However, their joy was short-li...

The NSA's surveillance of Americans' emails, Web searches and phone calls has angered the nation, but lawmakers remain divided on the issue. Bipartisan groups have spoken out against the surveillance and a few have introduced legislation to curb it, but some contend it is essential to protect Americ...

In an effort to catch up with their data-swamped online counterparts, brick-and-mortar retailers are turning to a new tool to help them better monitor shoppers and maximize sales: shoppers' cell phones. Approaches include tracking shoppers as they move about the store using their phones' connection ...

No one expects a free lunch. So when people use a free webmail service, many assume they will be bombarded with advertising. Why? Obviously, because the webmail services make money by commercializing the content of the webmail! Actually when you sign up for free webmail, and click "I Accept," or som...

The TV industry has been quick to move into the app market, and these offerings may foster a new era for television services. The term "app" was initially coined for small applications that run on mobile devices and fulfill a particular purpose, but apps are now common to several platforms, notably ...

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to jump into a software patent case that could resolve the muddled situation that has been vexing IT companies, legal experts and federal judges for years. Specifically, the Supreme Court said earlier this month that it would rule on Alice Corp. Pty. v. CLS Bank In...

As most security and compliance pros already know, PCI 3.0 is now officially out. The specific changes it includes have already been covered in quite a bit of detail elsewhere in the industry press, so I won't cover them all again here. However, one area that is often less discussed is how to use th...

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington and the Securities and Exchange Commission have lodged criminal and civil enforcement actions against a former senior portfolio manager at Microsoft and his friend, alleging insider trading. They also accuse the two of planning to u...

BlackBerry has announced dismal quarterly results, but its new CEO, John Chen, still believes there's cause for optimism as the company strides into a new future. The firm posted a loss of $4.4 billion, compared with a profit of $9 million in the same quarter last year, on revenue of $1.19 billion.

Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are selling close to 70 million shares of Class A common stock, which carries one vote per share, in advance of the company's being listed on the S&P 500 index. Facebook will use its proceeds from the sale of 27 million shares for working capital and other genera...

As the 2013 International CES approached a year ago, it was clear that a showdown between OLED and 4K -- or UltraHD -- was brewing in the TV display market. A year later, that showdown is fully under way, but with a notable twist. Specifically, Panasonic's announcement in late October that it would ...

Delta Air Lines this week announced that it will ban in-flight cellphone calls amid growing opposition to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's proposal to allow them. Delta employees, particularly flight crews, are opposed to on-board cellphone calls, CEO Richard Anderson said in a memo to t...