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Virgin Mobile is making an aggressive move in the mobile broadband arena, going head-to-head with the likes of AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Beginning Wednesday, the carrier is offering a $40 unlimited mobile broadband plan without a contract. Similar offerings from competitors are priced at $60 pe...

New generations of cellphones may be offering a feature that is a throwback to the analog age: FM radio. If they do, it will be because a controversial proposal gaining traction in Washington includes this functionality as part of the horse-trading. The National Association of Broadcasters has propo...

A lawsuit that is moving forward in the state of Hawaii adds another dimension to the ongoing debate over Internet addiction -- while prompting more than a few cynical guffaws from tort reform advocates. The suit, filed by plaintiff Donald Smallwood against the company NCSoft, claims that he became ...

Consolidation is a common theme in the IT sector, with IBM's purchase of Unica, Dell and HP's pursuit of 3PAR, and Intel's planned acquisition of security specialist McAfee standing as the most recent moves. Do such deals have anything in common? Sometimes. Large IT vendors tend to grow in two way...

HP has made an eyebrow-raising counterbid for a data storage company that Dell is trying to acquire. Last week, Dell made a play for 3Par, offering $1.15 billion. HP has topped that offer with its own bid of $1.6 billion -- a 33 percent premium on Dell's $18 per share bid, and a huge premium for 3Pa...

As e-commerce continues to evolve at a record pace, websites must keep up with the ever-changing demands of increasingly knowledgeable and sophisticated online shoppers. Companies need to enhance their online presence by applying modern techniques and technologies -- from dynamic personalization, so...

Nokia on Friday announced that it will purchase San Francisco-based mobile analytics firm Motally. The Finnish mobile phone giant did not disclose what it's paying for Motally, but it said the transaction is scheduled to close in the third quarter. The purchase is aimed at helping Nokia, which is lo...

A $30 billion information technology market is hard to pass up. That's why the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' program to invest that huge amount of money in health records technology has received a lot of attention in the IT vendor community. That's normal. It is decidedly unusual, ho...

Research In Motion, maker of BlackBerry mobile phones and the new Torch handset, is looking to make a play in the mobile ad market. RIM reportedly has held talks with mobile ad firm Millennial Media, but they broke down over acquisition price. Millenial was said to be asking between $400 and $500 mi...

Chipmaker Intel on Thursday announced that it will acquire computer security vendor McAfee for about $7.8 billion. The deal will create a behemoth that may improve the semiconductor's position in the burgeoning mobile and cloud computing fields. "Security now joins our more well-known strategic focu...

About 15 years ago, I had an office next door to Barry Green. At the time, our businesses had nothing in common. I was a wireless analyst and he was in healthcare. I recently got a call out of the blue from Barry asking for my help in evaluating an opportunity. When I took a look at what he was doin...

Cable premium channel HBO has all but come right out to say it intends to compete head-to-head with online streaming video service Netflix. Remaining exclusive has a value of its own, according to HBO co-president Eric Kessler, and it can command a hefty price tag when consumers want the content bad...

Search engine optimization is the least expensive method of getting visitors to a website, Ralph Wilson, founder and editor-in-chief of Web Marketing Today, told the audience at the SES Conference and Expo in San Francisco Tuesday. In a presentation on SEO basics, Wilson outlined tips on how to get ...

In the mid-to-late 1980s, colleagues and friends were surprised when I transitioned from working as an on-camera investigative TV reporter to cover the then-fledgling high-technology industry for specialized trade magazines. After all, they reasoned, how could I be content covering semiconductors, m...

The BlackBerry Torch 9800 has been widely viewed as Research In Motion's best shot at regaining even footing in its battle with rivals Apple and Google in the smartphone arena, but after just a few days on the market, the device's price has already been slashed. Some 150,000 of the handsets reported...