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Microsoft has forged a deal with Baidu, China's largest search engine, to provide search functionality in English. The deal comes a year and a half after Google exited China's search market with much fanfare, announcing it could no longer stomach the censorship the government applied. By the end of ...

The total value of mobile payments of all types worldwide will surge from $240 billion this year to $670 billion by 2015, Juniper Research predicts. This covers mobile payments for digital and physical goods, money transfers and near field communications transactions. NFC is the mobile payment techn...

When the U.S. government goes to the market for information technology, various contracting mechanisms come into play. In fact, as IT evolves, contracting follows, witness recent efforts at the General Services Administration to develop special procurement vehicles for both cloud technology and wire...

Succumbing to the primal pull of gameplay, millions of new consumers are joining the nearly ubiquitous adventure of exploring the pixelated worlds presented in video games, seeking personal recreation, relaxation, amusement, even escape -- and the industry is feeling the profound effects of that sta...

Last month, e-commerce giant Amazon made a foray into the flash sales marketplace. With European flash sales stalwart Vente Privee entering the North American market, and with the tremendous growth of U.S. flash sales players like Gilt Groupe and Rue La La, it's clear that the flash sales sector i...

Nortel awarded its 6,000 patents to the winning bidder, and it wasn't Google -- it was a consortium of six mobile technology leaders: Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion and Sony. The group paid $4.5 billion in auction that took place over several days. Google set the starting figure...

Nielsen's latest statistics on smartphone sales in the U.S. are more than a little eye-catching. They suggest that an important tipping point is on the horizon: The majority of mobile phone users will soon own smartphones, as opposed to feature phones. The majority of cellphone users still own fea...

By now, you've probably heard about Google's limited release of its new social networking platform, Google+ -- but did you know this could be the most significant product launch in the brief history of social media? That may sound like an outrageous statement, but it's true. And it's valid regardles...

Several weeks after the Sony PlayStation Network was brought to its knees by a massive security breach, the company has decided to clean house with an executive reshuffling. Among the changes: Akira Sato, chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment, and Ken Kutaragi, honorary chairman, will retire, ef...

California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law Wednesday that will require Amazon.com and other Internet retailers to collect sales tax on goods sold to California residents. Mail order laws have long held that state sales tax doesn't have to be paid by companies that do not have a presence in the sta...

Specific Media announced Wednesday that the company, in partnership with recording artist Justin Timberlake, will buy MySpace from News Corp. in hopes of revitalizing the ailing social networking site. The rumored price is around $35 million to $40 million, less than a tenth of the $580 million News...

I have been impressed with the recovery that Sprint Nextel has shown over the last few years, but now it has struck a deal with LightSquared that puts the cart way ahead of the horse. Is Sprint making a big mistake while trying to bounce back from another body blow it just took? A few years ago, Spr...

Zynga Game Network will likely file for an IPO on Thursday, based on a flurry of media reports that came out Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. Though an impending Zynga IPO has been rumored for weeks, details are now leaking out. Zynga is a leading developer of social games such as "FarmVille" ...

French search company 1plusV has stepped up its battle with Google over how its algorithms rank sites, filing suit against the search engine giant in the French Commercial Court. It is seeking $423 million in damages from business it claims it lost due to alleged antitrust practices by Google. At $4...

E-reader ownership jumped to 12 percent of adult U.S. consumers in May, doubling from 6 percent in the past six months, the first time sales have been in double digits, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. The growth spurt is outpacing that o...