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Google announced Wednesday that it is opening its Google Shopping Express service to shoppers in the entire San Francisco Bay Area, marking the official launch and first big expansion of the company's same-day delivery service. Google began testing the retail delivery service earlier this year among...

eBay on Thursday announced that it is acquiring payment startup Braintree for $800 million in cash. eBay will combine Braintree, which provides technology for processing payments on the Web and mobile devices, with its PayPal payments division. Braintree expects to process some $12 billion in paymen...

Amazon on Wednesday announced the Kindle Fire HDX, the third generation of its line of tablets. It comes in 7-inch and 8.9-inch versions and has an HDX display, a quad-core 2.2 GHz processor, more memory and dual stereo speakers. It includes free 24x7x365 tech support and a host of new features. Ama...

The BlackBerry news of last Friday was bleak, with a billion-dollar loss and the cutting of 40 percent of its workforce. It looked as though BlackBerry was crashing and burning. Even though this was terrible news, I knew it had several different options. It was up to the company to decide which dire...

RealNetworks on Tuesday announced RealPlayer Cloud, a new service that allows users to upload video files to the company's servers and then view and share them across devices. Billed by the company as the first integrated video player and cloud service, RealPlayer Cloud automatically transforms vide...

Facebook this week began testing a new feature dubbed "Autofill with Facebook" that aims to simplify mobile purchases by filling in customers' credit card information for them, thus eliminating the need to type it in each time. "Autofill with Facebook gives people the option to use their payment inf...

Google reportedly is developing its own anonymous identifier for advertising, AdID, that will replace third-party cookies as a way for advertisers to track consumers' online browsing activity. Its aim is to give consumers more privacy and control over their Web browsing. Google's AdID apparently wil...

Vendors seeking to obtain federal information technology contracts are regularly challenged to deal with a variety of complex factors. These include negotiating special IT security requirements, tricky service level agreements, and a growing number of government contracting vehicles that have been d...

Netflix unveiled its SpoilerFoiler app Monday, a tool designed for Breaking Bad fans who want to scan their Twitter feeds without encountering any show spoilers. Twitter users who log in via SpoilerFoiler get a normal view of their Twitter news feed, except that any tweet containing words about the ...

LinkedIn has responded to claims in a class action lawsuit filed against it, maintaining that it does not break into users' email accounts and insisting that it asks for permission before using information from anyone's email accounts. Four LinkedIn users filed the suit, claiming it had appropriated...

Twitter reportedly is in talks with TV networks and advertisers in advance of its IPO, which is expected later this year. Twitter executives are meeting with TV industry reps during the AdWeek conference in New York City this week. Twitter wants to strengthen its revenue flow through partnerships le...

Pinterest on Thursday announced that it would begin experimenting with promoting certain pins from a select group of businesses. The announcement came via a blog post from CEO Ben Silbermann, who hastened to assure the site's users that this move would not be a descent into ad madness. "I know some ...

Sony on Thursday went on a media blitz in Tokyo, disclosing more details and outlining ambitious sales targets for its upcoming PlayStation 4. The gaming device is due to arrive on shelves in the United States Nov. 15, and Sony aims to sell 5 million PS4s by March 31, it reportedly said at the Tokyo...

Mobile apps have enjoyed phenomenal and increasing popularity in recent years, but what we've seen so far is just the beginning, according to a new Gartner report. Specifically, mobile app stores will see annual downloads reach 102 billion in 2013, the research firm reported on Thursday, up from 64 ...

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration this week petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to require wireless carriers to unlock mobile phones, tablets and other devices upon request of the customer. This rule change would benefit the public in several ways, argued th...