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Google has launched a playback feature that enables users to watch video online without using third-party plug-in software from the likes of Microsoft or RealPlayer, stepping up its video search capabilities while taking aim at some huge tech targets. Instead, the new feature in Google Video uses th...

Serving a victory to the entertainment industry and a potentially damaging blow to peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing firms, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that P2P firms can be sued if they encourage the use of their products to illegally swap copyrighted music and movies. The unanimous court ruli...

Mobile computer users have always accepted that their devices were only mobile in the sense that they could be taken from one wireless access point to another. Accessing the Web at any point in between -- in other words, over most of the globe -- was problematic at best. However, with the release of...

MCI has launched a test of a consumer-focused voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, in a move that has puzzled some analysts because of the company's pending merger with Verizon. MCI,which Verizon is in the process of buying for US$8.6 billion, has launched a test with about 5,000 customers o...

In the latest sign that it has designs on extending its e-commerce brand well beyond its core auctions business by catering to the legion of small merchants seeking to sell online, eBay has launched a storefront feature that will enable sellers to create a standalone Web retail presence. The ProStor...

The European Union (EU) has been slowly and steadily gaining strength and momentum and has today become a major financial challenger to the U.S. Of late, however, most of our economic focus has been on China, due to the enormous current-account deficit that the U.S. has created with that country. It...

Yahoo has shut down dozens of Internet chat rooms after questions were raised about whether the sites were being used by adults to lure minors into sexual encounters. The portal also removed a feature that lets users create their own chat rooms in Yahoo's popular chat community area, but Yahoo-spons...

Putting its own anti-spam technology to work -- and possibly hoping to highlight its effectiveness -- Microsoft has begun to use Sender ID to divert questionable messages away from the e-mail inboxes of Hotmail account holders. Microsoft has begun verifying e-mail origins with its Sender ID framewor...

Have you ever waited on the line for a customer care representative to help place that very important order right before Christmas, or help you figure out how to resolve a technical issue with your iPod that you're eager to start using? And right when they gave you that special "free shipping" deal,...

An ambitious project launched by Google to scan millions of pages of widely read books to create a digital library open to all is drawing flack from the publishing industry and raising anew questions about how the Internet interacts with traditional copyright laws. The Association of American Publis...

Most great, successful corporations do not own a single global iconic name brand identity, clear and free of conflict or confusion. Finding a name to be yours as a solid intellectual property asset is vital to coping with all the confusion surrounding new positioning and new borderless marketing. As...

Microsoft's MSN has launched its own version of local search, joining both Yahoo and Google in seeking to make search more useful while opening marketing opportunities for smaller businesses, just the latest in a series of moves that suggest no let up in the rollout of new services and features from...

A new call center just opened in Navi Mumbai, India. It won't be making the headlines for being a new monster facility with impressive clients and well-known managers. But this modest business, Purple Support Services, has more to teach us about call center operations and IT outsourcing than any oth...

Seeing potential to merge entertainment with e-commerce, MTV Networks today said it would buy the parent company of the wildly popular youth Web site Neopets.com. Financial terms were not disclosed, but published reports suggested the purchase price was around US$160 million. MTV Networks is a unit ...

In a move already sending shockwaves through the e-commerce industry even though it is still unconfirmed, Google is said to be considering an online payment service that would go head-to-head with eBay's PayPal. EBay shares were down nearly 4 percent on published reports that Google was preparing a ...