Uncategorized

Wireless technology is everywhere. Consumers, professionals and businesses are finding they can no longer survive without having wireless access in some form or another -- whether through PDAs, mobile phones, BlackBerries or laptops. One industry that really stands out when it comes to getting real ...

Taking the convergence of cable and telecommunications to a new level, British cable provider NTL will buy Virgin Mobile, a move that will enable it to roll out a four-pack of services under a single brand. The stock-and-cash deal was valued at about US$1.67 billion, making it relatively small in co...

Time Warner said it officially changed the name for its Internet service and portal, saying America Online will now be known by its longtime nickname, AOL. The America Online moniker is being retired after some 15 years, during which time it became synonymous with Internet access for millions of ...

E-mail marketers anxious to see that their opt-in mailings are not mistaken for spam are finally seeing brighter days, new research suggests. While the journey to the customer's inbox is getting easier, however, passive marketers will face tough challenges from smart competitors who are quickly lear...

Based on interviews with 40,000 American residents, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has reported that 3.6 million -- or about 3 out of every 100 -- households were victimized by perpetrators of identity theft between July and December 2004. The numbers differ from earlier research findings and sugge...

Verizon Communications plans to sell off its Caribbean and Latin American telecommunications operations in three separate transactions that will net it some US$3.7 billion in cash, the company announced Monday. It will use the funds to strengthen its balance sheet and and to prepare itself for battl...

In response to advertising industry concerns over Internet security, MySpace.com has removed 200,000 "objectionable" profiles from its social network. The site erased profiles containing risque or hate speech content. Ross Levinsohn, president of MySpace parent company News Corp.'s Internet division...

Alcatel and Lucent announced Sunday they plan to merge in a US$13.4 billion deal that will create one of the largest telecom and Internet gear makers in the world -- and one that may face tough scrutiny from regulators. Exactly a week after acknowledging that they were talking about a possible deal,...

As the recent BlackBerry case focused the world's eyes on the arcane field of patents, I was reminded of the 1999 Amazon.com "one click" case, which caused so many to condemn the U.S. patent system. At that time, critics called the system "broken" and a "disincentive to innovation." Now, the system ...

Google continues to tinker with the concept of monetizing its popular maps feature through advertising. What is new about its latest initiative is that icons for advertisers are embedded in the maps. When clicked, a pop-up ad appears with additional information about the advertiser, including its lo...

Lawyers for Apple Computer argued to a United Kingdom court that the iTunes Music Store is a data-transfer service, not a purely musical endeavor and as a result does not violate a long-standing agreement with the company that handles The Beatles business affairs. The argument was made during procee...

Have you been to Europe lately? If so, when you've crossed borders you've noticed that you no longer have to go through passport control and get your passport examined, then stamped. You can travel throughout the European Union just as you can travel throughout the United States, unimpeded by border...

The U.S. Supreme Court is now hearing arguments in eBay v. MercExchange. It is not examining the underlying dispute between the two firms -- indeed, MercExchange has successfully challenged eBay's use of its buy now technology. Rather, the court is examining whether issuing an injunction against the...

Microsoft has announced the repackaging of four hosted solutions from FrontBridge Technologies, a company that it bought in August 2005, as well as a new licensing model and road map for Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services. The rebranding comes as no surprise, said Joe Wilcox, senior analyst with Jup...

Google said it would release another 5.3 million shares of its stock for public sale, claiming it wanted to be ready to meet higher demand for its shares as it enters the Standard & Poor's 500 index and in the process raise additional cash for "general corporate purposes." The move, which will r...