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Hoping to burnish its image as an eco-friendly company, Dell said Thursday it would strive to become the first carbon-neutral maker of personal computers and other technology gear. Dell plans to become carbon neutral in 2008, a year earlier than it had previously forecast, it said. The company is co...

Continuing the consolidation trend that has swept the video game software development industry over the past few years, Activision announced Wednesday that it has acquired Bizarre Creations, the independent UK-based game developer behind such titles as "Project Gotham Racing" and "Geometry Wars." Th...

A jury Tuesday delivered the second punch of a potentially staggering one-two legal blow to Vonage, finding the VoIP provider had willfully infringed upon patents held by Sprint Nextel. Jurors awarded Sprint $69.5 million in damages -- the equivalent of an estimated 5 percent of its revenues during ...

Among all of the great business concepts of the last few decades, the franchise model is among those consistently at the very top. Over the next decade, the introduction of hundreds of fresh, locally nurtured franchise concepts emerging in the Mideast will set the stage for a revolution of nouveau c...

Consumers are beginning to embrace digital video recorders as they once did VCRs. A scant two years ago, only one American household in 13 had one of the gadgets. Now they're in one in five homes, according to the latest figures from the Leichtman Research Group, of Durham, N.H. What's more, by 2011...

After years of speculation and preparation, Amazon.com launched its digital music store Tuesday, debuting Amazon MP3 and promising a wide selection of music unfettered by DRM restrictions. The e-tail giant launched what it's calling a public beta of the download store with 2 million songs available ...

Having agreed to buy Slingbox maker Sling Media, Dish Network parent company EchoStar Communications now is considering splitting itself into two distinct companies. The Colorado-based satellite TV company wants to separate its consumer-based and wholesale businesses, a move it says will allow both ...

Social networking firm Facebook may sell a partial ownership stake to Microsoft as it moves to beef up its value and move toward a possible IPO, according to reports. After being linked to Yahoo in persistent acquisition rumors -- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg reportedly turned down an offer of c...

Ask an IT executive to define service-oriented architecture, and there's a good chance you'll get at least some kind of a reasonable answer. Ask that executive's functional peers the same question, and the answer might not be so clear. SOA has become a hot topic in the IT world, and many view it as ...

Google has formally asked the European Commission to review its acquisition of interactive advertising firm DoubleClick. The next few weeks will be critical, as regulators and lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic contemplate how -- or whether -- the merger should move forward. The EC on Monday i...

Dell plans to start selling its personal computers through China's sprawling Gome electronics chain as it continues to embrace retail as a key part of its turnaround plan. Hoping to tap into a customer base it doesn't reach through direct sales, Dell said it would start making its PCs available in 5...

With all the games people play with Internet company names, it's quite possible that someday no one will be able to spell anything correctly ever again. Perhaps it's already happening. Ever wonder how many times gross misspellings like "Del.icio.us" or "Flickr" show up on eighth-grade spelling tests...

Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, and Steve Perlman, who developed Apple's QuickTime video technology and WebTV, were among the people who descended upon Capitol Hill to protest the Patent Reform Act passed by the House of Representatives at the beginning of September. Kamen and Perlman are perhap...

Once again, technology entrepreneurs played a prominent role in the Forbes 400, the annual list of the wealthiest Americans, with Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin breaking the top 10 for the first time, though the arrival of several hedge fund billionaires helped dilute the impact of tec...

Forcing consumers to buy prepackaged tiers of bundled TV channels is a violation of trade and anti-trust laws, contends a lawsuit filed in the federal court against media companies and cable/satellite TV providers. The complaint, filed by Los Angeles lawyers Maxwell Blecher and David Kesselman on be...