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The IT industry purely loves digital information and with good reason. Creating, storing and archiving documents consisting of 1's and 0's provides the foundation for thousands of business computing solutions and billions of dollars in annual sales. While the gospel of the "all-digital enterprise"...

The world's largest permission-based marketing firm, Epsilon, reported on Friday that its computer system was hacked and an unspecified number of email addresses and names were stolen. Epsilon sends around 40 billion emails a year on behalf of its 2,500 clients, which include major banks such as Cap...

Mobile truly has created an "always on society," where people are online and accessible 24 hours per day. Mobile platforms have become more than simple communications devices; they are lifestyle assistants that enable people to connect, interact, inform and influence. Because of this, they are also...

There are several investors positioning themselves to snap up Blockbuster at its bankruptcy auction, scheduled for Monday. They are lining up in competition against Cobalt Video, a venture formed by some of Blockbuster's bondholders, which made an opening bid, or stalking horse offer, of $290 millio...

It appears Hollywood is ready to give on-demand new releases a go. Four major studios reportedly are planning a video-on-demand service called "Home Premiere" that will show movies that have been in theaters for 60 days for $30 each. Warner Bros., Sony, Universal and Fox will distribute the digital ...

It's difficult to find an industry that has had a harder time transitioning to the digital age than the print news media. It also would be tough to find an industry that inflicted so much damage on itself by making a single bad decision. When readers started gravitating to electronic platforms, most...

Microsoft is filing a formal antitrust complaint with the European Commission as part of the commission's investigation into possible Google violations of European competition law. Google holds about 95 percent of the European search market. The complaint involves Google restraining competition by...

Amazon surprised the music world this week with the rollout of several products that will allow consumers to store and access their digital music in the cloud. Perhaps no one was more surprised, though, than the music studios, who appeared to have learned the details of the offering shortly before t...

The issue of whether online gambling should be legalized is once again being taken up in the U.S. Congress through a new bill designed to significantly overhaul the UIGEA, which it passed in 2006. The UIGEA makes it illegal for U.S. financial institutions to transfer money to offshore gambling websi...

Amazon on Tuesday announced a triple-play entry into the cloud-based music storage field. The online retail giant's trifecta consists of Amazon Cloud Drive, Amazon Cloud Player for Web and Amazon Cloud Player for Android. These three services let customers store music in the cloud and play it on any...

The Obama administration's program to more efficiently utilize information technology has worked -- but not well enough to get a passing grade from the U.S. Congress. Lawmakers are ratcheting up the pressure on federal agencies to improve their IT resource management -- including the way they procur...

Amazon's Android Appstore launched last week with an innovative approach to selling apps. Amazon Test Drive allows potential customers to try out the full-version of an app free for 30 minutes on a virtual version of an Android phone. Currently, Test Drive is limited to U.S. customers -- however, th...

Google may be working to let Android users make purchases using their mobile devices at retail points of sale. The company is rumored to be collaborating with MasterCard, Citigroup and VeriFone on a system based on near-field communications technology. The project would link Citigroup credit and de...

Businesses are constantly searching for ways to reduce costs and improve revenues. Mobile technologies can provide incredible value because they offer immediate business interactions from almost anywhere. Mobile payments can expand your sales channels by helping you meet customers where they are. Pr...

Those of us who have been around the IT block a few times have witnessed remarkable changes in hardware and software capabilities. The big ones are fairly obvious in hindsight: from mainframes to minicomputers in the 1960s; from minis to PCs in the 1980s; and from dumb terminals to client-server te...