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Existing copyright laws in the United Kingdom are out of date and should be updated to provide consumers with more flexibility, including the right to copy the content on DVDs and CDs to portable players, a new report argued. The Institute for Public Policy Research issued a report Sunday saying tha...

Verizon Communications nudged past Wall Street estimates for profit in its third quarter as surging revenue in its wireless business helped offset a surge in expenses. Verizon said revenue rose 26 percent to US$23.25 billion as the company began to reap the benefits of its consolidation efforts, in...

The business-to-business market was the darling of e-commerce pundits way back in the early '90s when companies began to get serious about using the Web to do business. B2B e-commerce was expected to lead the way into a brave new online world of business communications, management and international ...

With millions of voters set to cast ballots in key mid-term elections in just over a week, a long-simmering controversy over voting machines continues to percolate. New reports suggest a major manufacturer of e-voting kiosks quietly repaired a flaw without informing election officials. The case inv...

Strong demand for the Xbox gaming console and server software helped push Microsoft to a strong first quarter, with the company exceeding its own revenue projections and surpassing Wall Street forecasts for profit. The Redmond, Wash., software giant said revenue rose 11 percent over the same period ...

The press has been replete with complaints from companies that have to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. Some of the criticisms were based upon the outsized cost of compliance. Other criticisms revolved around the difficulty and intricacy of compliance, especially to Section 404, Management Assessment of ...

Today it seems like every owner of a decent size database now calls itself a "specialized vertical search engine." I suppose there is some clever marketing logic in positioning oneself as such given the wholesale adoption of search as a business tool, and of good search results as a very cost-effect...

After US$5.4 billion dollars and nearly a year of discussions, Advanced Micro Devices finalized its takeover of graphics chip maker ATI, setting the stage for a revived fight with Intel and Nvidia, which becomes the Intel graphics partner by default. AMD -- which promised integrated platforms next y...

Blaming high churn rates and merger-related costs, Sprint-Nextel, the third-largest mobile phone operator, reported its fifth straight quarter of profit losses. Net income from continuing operations declined to US$247 million, or 8 cents a share, from $363 million, or 12 cents, a year ago. Revenues ...

Fans of online banking can hardly imagine how they lived without the channel. Just as snail-mailed personal correspondence has gone out of fashion in favor of e-mail and text messaging, so have snail-mailed account statements and bills. Consumers use online banking for its convenience and the contr...

Government officials have launched investigations into fraud cases that are costing electronic brokerages millions of dollars. Two of the largest e-brokerages are reporting computer hacking incidents in which criminals apparently manipulated client accounts at TD Ameritrade and E-Trade Financial. TD...

BT Group said Wednesday it would acquire managed security services firm Counterpane Internet Security in a move that could help the former national phone company of the UK advance its transformation into a global telecom services and network firm. BT did not disclose the price it paid for the privat...

Security-conscious online shoppers have long feared that thieves will snatch their credit card number and other personal information right out from under their fingertips as they nervously click the "buy now" icon on retailers' Web sites. The proof is in the numbers: 80 million consumers who use the...

Hoping to start the long process of moving past the massive recall of notebook computer batteries, Sony on Monday apologized for the uproar it caused but said it had no plans to exit the PC battery business. To date, some 9.6 million batteries have been recalled around the world, the bulk of them fo...

The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday presented opening arguments in federal district court in its longstanding challenge to an Internet censorship law that was signed by President Clinton in 1998 but has never been enforced. At issue in the case known as "ACLU v. Gonzales" is the Child Onlin...