China has announced it would indefinitely postpone a mandate requiring all personal computers sold in the country to be accompanied by a controversial content-filtering application, state media reported.
Had the government not delayed its controversial order that all computers be equipped with Green Dam by July 1, the result would have been the same -- Chinese computer retailers were far from ready.
When Iran cracked down on journalists following its recent election, international focus turned to Twitter as citizen journalists posted 140-character reports and links to photos and videos to the site. Trouble was, it was hard to sift the useful and reliable nuggets of information from scores of tweets that included plenty of spam, useless remarks, and stray sentiments.
Last week, Apple released a free update for iPhone users, pushing them to the third iteration of their mobile operating system. (Yes, iPod Touch users are welcome to upgrade, too, at a very reasonable cost of $10.)
Microsoft Corp. is willing to invest up to 10% of its operating income in its Internet search business for up to five years, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday, as its "Bing" search engine starts to gain ground with Web surfers.
Apple's iPhone 3GS and Palm's Pre has captured a lot of hype but don't count out Research in Motion's BlackBerry just yet, say experts.
Google was going to help democratize data in China. Instead, about three years after entering the Middle Kingdom, the search company still finds itself in an uncomfortable working relationship with government censors.
By almost all measures the new Palm Pre handset, released June 6, is a hit: The device is getting raves from technology reviewers, and officials at Sprint Nextel, the only phone network now offering the Pre, have said opening weekend sales outpaced their expectations.
Windows 7 is coming soon. But having a PC sales rebound come with it seems unlikely.
Apple on Monday unveiled a new, faster iPhone, lowered the price on its existing model to $99, and released details of its revamped operating system.
China has announced it would indefinitely postpone a mandate requiring all personal computers sold in the country to be accompanied by a controversial content-filtering application, state media reported.
Had the government not delayed its controversial order that all computers be equipped with Green Dam by July 1, the result would have been the same -- Chinese computer retailers were far from ready.
When Iran cracked down on journalists following its recent election, international focus turned to Twitter as citizen journalists posted 140-character reports and links to photos and videos to the site. Trouble was, it was hard to sift the useful and reliable nuggets of information from scores of tweets that included plenty of spam, useless remarks, and stray sentiments.
Last week, Apple released a free update for iPhone users, pushing them to the third iteration of their mobile operating system. (Yes, iPod Touch users are welcome to upgrade, too, at a very reasonable cost of $10.)
Microsoft Corp. is willing to invest up to 10% of its operating income in its Internet search business for up to five years, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday, as its "Bing" search engine starts to gain ground with Web surfers.
Apple's iPhone 3GS and Palm's Pre has captured a lot of hype but don't count out Research in Motion's BlackBerry just yet, say experts.
Google was going to help democratize data in China. Instead, about three years after entering the Middle Kingdom, the search company still finds itself in an uncomfortable working relationship with government censors.
By almost all measures the new Palm Pre handset, released June 6, is a hit: The device is getting raves from technology reviewers, and officials at Sprint Nextel, the only phone network now offering the Pre, have said opening weekend sales outpaced their expectations.
Windows 7 is coming soon. But having a PC sales rebound come with it seems unlikely.
Apple on Monday unveiled a new, faster iPhone, lowered the price on its existing model to $99, and released details of its revamped operating system.
Apple is rumored to be working on something bigger than an iPod Touch, but smaller than a MacBook. Past patent applications filed by the company and whispers from contract manufacturers point to a midsize gadget with a screen of 7 to 8 inches in the works, perhaps scheduled to debut early next year.
Microsoft Corp. on Thursday offered Internet users a first glimpse at Bing, its fresh attempt to gain ground in the online search market.
Search engine wars are heating up.
No longer is the promised land of Apple's App Store reserved for technical wizards.
We may be coming upon a new era for the Internet search.
On May 19 Leo Apotheker will become SAP's lone CEO after sharing the title with Henning Kagermann for a year or so. He assumes the mantle at a troubling time.
At a table in Las Vegas, a town fueled by big bets, IBM software chief Steve Mills outlined one he doesn't want to make: Buying application provider SAP.
Digital cameras are now as common and affordable to the average family as the Polaroid of the '60s.
Palm's comeback attempt rests squarely on the notion that it has found a better way to manage your complicated digital life.
Thinking of floating your small business on the software-as-a-service cloud? Maybe it's time to step back down to Earth.
In the battle for corporate customers, BlackBerry reigns supreme. But will the iPhone become the mobile device of choice for small businesses?
Is the world finally ready for the mobile minitablet? It's become quite clear over the last several months that Apple is ready to bridge the mobile computing gap, with plans to develop a device that fits somewhere in between the iPhone and the MacBook.
Apple issued a statement Thursday apologizing for allowing the Baby Shaker application onto the App Store.
If mention of The Pirate Bay conjures up images of parrots, peg legs and planks, or geeky jargon like BitTorrent and jailbreak leaves you all at sea, this handy A-Z will help you navigate the choppy waters of the online piracy debate.
Mac computers are known for their near-immunity to malicious computer programs that plague PCs.
When it comes to downloading software from the Internet, I'm always getting conflicting advice from my geeky friends. Knowing my technological ignorance, some tell me that I should never download anything from the Web (recommending only boxed software from the store). Others say some software's okay to download -- but I should be aware of the dangers. How am I supposed to know where to begin identifying the difference? I'm lost!
Question: I have a small veterinary practice with 10 employees. What is a good program to use to make a database about my employees, with photos, contact info, salaries, information on their last raise, etc.?
The online world has gone totally multimedia: Web video and images have proliferated in recent years. Yet the go-to method for finding stuff on the Internet remains text-based. Looking for a site? Type words into a search bar, and the text results offer a hint of the relevant pages. Even if you're looking for images or video, the results are notated with words.
If the term "serial acquirer" were actually in the dictionary, it would probably be accompanied by a picture of Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison.
The acquisition of Sun Microsystems by International Business Machines' rival Oracle on Monday came just weeks after Sun's negotiations with IBM failed.
Business software maker Oracle Corp. said Monday it has entered into a definitive agreement to buy server builder Sun Microsystems in a deal worth $7.4 billion.
With the Conficker worm still hot and Microsoft patching multiple more software vulnerabilities last week, it might be reasonable to assume the bad guys are winning the battle to get control over Internet-connected computers.
One evening last winter, Mike Harris was watching his local TV news when he saw a segment that caught his attention: Parents were using software to monitor their kids' cell phones.
Ack! I was modifying data in a very complex Excel spreadsheet for a good part of the day and now...I can't find it! I'm always very careful to press the "save" button every five minutes or so, but where did it go? It can't have just disappeared, right? Help!
It used to be that only a few CEOs were known for their obsessive love of cost-cutting -- guys like Mark Hurd at Hewlett-Packard and Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase. But these days, with revenues everywhere grinding to a halt, everyone's getting into the act. Not surprisingly, a new breed of enterprise software has emerged to help the bean counters.
If my computer says it has a software update, should I install it?
Telizent Communications landed a $65,000 contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2007, which both thrilled and unnerved the owner of the Denver-based telecommunications firm.
By now most personal-computer users know not to post their Social Security numbers on the Internet or respond to Nigerian e-mails seeking help with suspicious bank-account transfers.
It's the last day of a first quarter that most investors would like to forget. Stocks may have bounced back a bit in March, but the Dow and S&P 500 are still down more than 10%.
To paraphrase a complaint from the late James Doohan, my computer's giving me all she's got, but Vista's more than she can handle! My system should be able to deal with this version of Windows just fine, but it's just not happening. I'd add more RAM if it were possible, but my slots are all maxed out. I've tried various freeware that promises to keep my RAM working at maximum efficiency, but it's just not enough. Is there anything out there for enhancing the memory I do have until I can get a newer, faster machine?
Software giant Oracle reported fiscal third quarter profits and sales that beat Wall Street's expectations, and also announced that it would be issuing a dividend to its shareholders. The company also reported "record operating margins."
Alan Minton, vice president of Cornerstone Information Systems, was hardly opposed to taking business trips. After all, travel is part of his core business. Cornerstone, a 70-employee firm based in Bloomington, Ind., makes automation software for the travel industry.
OK, it's California. So we are quite used to the rest of the country rolling their eyes in knowing exasperation at our fads. But often, they turn out to be harbingers of national trends. And so the question: Will AB-255 (a bill that would "censor" some aspects of Google Earth) number among them as well?
A decade ago Marc Benioff declared that software was dead. In 1999, while on leave from his job at Oracle, he convened a group of developers in his downtown San Francisco apartment building to build Salesforce.com. Soon thereafter he paid the quirky rockers the B-52's $250,000 to perform at a bash where he distributed buttons with the word "software" crossed out, Ghostbusters-style. And that was all before he had signed up a single customer.
Move over, Microsoft Money and Quicken. As tax season approaches, and the new realities of life in recession set in, consumers increasingly are turning to free, Web-based personal finance tools to manage their money.
The Web can be a great place to market and sell your goods to consumers all over the world. It can also help you communicate with customers and foster a community around your company. The only catch: Site visitors need to be able to easily access those features in order to reap the benefits.
With all the buzz about software served up over the Internet, you'd think old-guard enterprise software makers like Oracle and SAP would be panicking over the future of their businesses. You'd be wrong.
My daughter is starting college, and I was wondering if we should spend money upgrading to the latest version of Microsoft Office for her notebook computer?
Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex, Russia's largest online-search company, is playing with a set of nesting dolls (for real!). Instead of the traditional folk decoration, though, these figurines are outfitted with the names of Internet companies doing business in Russia. The first and biggest doll has Yandex emblazoned on its belly in bold red and black letters. A smaller doll bears the Google logo, followed by one representing Rambler, Russia's other homegrown search engine. "We were charitable with these dolls," Volozh says. "If we had been honest, we would have left the second doll blank and made Google third. We're that much bigger than them."
Microsoft is gearing up to take on rival Apple in the smartphone market.
Just because the Internet has broken down geographic barriers, don't assume that Google doesn't care about geography.
Significantly increasing the utility and competitiveness of its Web-based e-mail service, Google is enabling an experimental ability to read, write, and search Gmail messages even while not connected to the network.
Microsoft has made some stumbles in the mobile world, but a strategy shift made more than a year ago will soon pay dividends, the company's top Windows Mobile executive said in an interview with CNET News.
VMware hopes virtualization becomes a reality for corporate America in 2009.
The incoming Obama administration's plan to appoint the first national chief technology officer unequivocally emphasizes the new team's belief that technology isn't ancillary or extraneous to governance, and instead that it's an integral part of the effective running of a democratic superpower.
Google recently released its annual rundown of popular searches for 2008 - what they call the "zeitgeist" list - and it's a reminder, once again, of how much we reveal about ourselves every time we type into a search bar.
It's happened to all of us: You print something from the Web, and all you get is a sheet of paper with nothing but a URL or something equally useless.
Microsoft has applied for a patent on metered, pay-as-you-go computing.
Say what you will about Larry Ellison's style, but the in-your-face founder of Oracle knows how to manage a company through a recession, at least so far.
Many business owners regularly talk to inanimate objects. Don't believe me? I'm guessing that in the last week alone you've begged your PC not to lose valuable data or implored your notebook to recover lost documents. While we all have one-sided conversations with our tech toys, we generally don't expect them to answer, much less complete tasks simply because we say so. But today's voice-activated software promises to do just that, claiming faster speeds and an impressive 99% accuracy level.
You can't really blame technology executives and pundits for not wanting to go too far out on a limb in making prognostications and predictions about 2009.
Paychecks and payroll taxes are hardly the most exciting parts of running a business, so it's not surprising that most owners tend to think about their payroll service only when it fails.
What happens when a business throws out its scheduling and collaboration tools and replaces them with Google's low-cost, online business software? To find out, we at Blumsday migrated our entire shop of roughly a dozen employees and contractors to test out Google Apps.
Microsoft has announced it will offer an online version of the Office suite, but you won't see it until 2010. In the meantime, try Zoho or Google Docs.
Savvy Internet users know that downloading unsolicited computer programs is one of the most dangerous things you can do online. It puts you at great risk for a virus or another time bomb from a hacker
RealNetworks sure knows how to do a splashy product launch.
Slowly but surely, Microsoft's Zune is staking its claim as a legitimate alternative to Apple's iPod line of MP3 players.
TiVo Inc. and Nero AG of Germany were set to announce Monday that they will be launching a package that turns a Windows PC into a TV recorder, just like a TiVo set-top box
First announced at SEMA 2007, the Nokia 500 Auto Navigation system is finally hitting the streets.
The $150 HP Photosmart A636 is a slight upgrade to last year's A626, with a few minor software differences. The A636 retains the same body shape and design but adds additional photo customization and editing capabilities.
The current Republican vice-presidential candidate is shaping up to be not only a celebrity, but a sex symbol, according to popular Internet searches
During the campaign, voters are looking into rumors about the candidates far more than their policy positions
Steve Skinner, the head of information technology for a big Bay Area real estate agency, recently got his umpteenth call from Google. Would Skinner be interested in buying a package of e-mail, word processing and other software known as Google Apps for his company's 1,300 employees?
When Black Line Group, a Minneapolis accounting firm, wanted to drum up business, it hired telemarketers - lots of them. The effort was a bust, says Black Line marketing chief Scott Schmidt, largely because "so many companies have gate-keepers between the decision-maker and you."
After six hours of searching Hickory Hill Park Wednesday with an infrared-equipped plane, police were unable to find missing University of Iowa Professor Arthur Miller.
In a crucial win for the free software movement, a federal appeals court has ruled that even software developers who give away the programming code for their works can sue for copyright infringement if someone misappropriates that material
How's this for the ultimate digital-age, small-business irony: Want the best possible environment for Microsoft Office? Try running it on a Mac.
At Nittany Embroidery & Screenprinting in State College, Pa., the employee-appraisal process was in tatters. To determine raises and bonuses for her 35 workers, CEO Erin O'Leary-Rallis relied on scribbled Post-it notes, hazy memories, and self-promoting testimonials from the employees.
The much-hyped, heavily funded new search engine developed by a former Google whiz leaves users unexcited
Shares of Microsoft Corp. dropped more than 6% in after-hours trading after the software giant posted a fiscal fourth-quarter profit that fell short of Wall Street's estimates as it forecast lower-than-expected revenue for the following quarter.
It was too weird to be true. In late 2006, a series of videos appeared on YouTube about a Willow Springs, Ill., resident named Kyle Bone who'd created a successful product called "the anti-shirt" - a shirt that exposed the area of one's torso that a normal tee shirt would cover and revealed the area that would otherwise be exposed. In short, said Bone, it cured the age-old problem of "farmer's tan."
Steve Ballmer was sobbing. He repeatedly tried to speak and couldn't get the words out. Minutes passed as he tried to regain his composure. But the audience of 130 of Microsoft's senior leaders waited patiently, many of them crying too. They knew that the CEO was choked up because this executive retreat, held in late March at a resort north of Seattle, was the last ever for company co-founder Bill Gates, as well as for Jeff Raikes, one of the company's longest-tenured executives. "I've spent more time with these two human beings than with anyone else in my life," Ballmer finally said. "Bill and Jeff have been my North Star and kept me going. Now I'm going to count on all of you to be there for me."
The Flip Video Mino is the fourth generation of Pure Digital's popular straight-to-Web mini camcorder, designed to make shooting and sharing low-resolution videos very easy.
Think of software as a utopian tool. "Thirty-three years ago the company was founded on the proposition that software would be important," says Gates. "Looking at the next decade, the value that will be created by software and popular software platforms will be greater than ever."
When Jeremy Burton arrived as CEO at private-equity-owned Serena Software last year, he found a respectable but boring 25-year-old firm still profitably churning out mainframe-oriented products. But he also discovered some underplayed non-mainframe products as well as new technologies in R&D that could be killer in a mashup Web 2.0 world. Of course the company's owners at Silver Lake, wanted him to find ways to make the place grow. So he turned R&D loose to develop the new products, and then turned to Facebook to change Serena.
"Are you ready?" shouts Josh Ball, manager of GameStop No. 1,782 in Euless, Texas, near Dallas. He's standing before more than 100 fidgety young men and women lined up in the strip-mall parking lot outside his store. They've been here for hours in the warm spring air, waiting for midnight when the latest version of Grand Theft Auto - the ever controversial hoodlums-and-pimps videogame - goes on sale. It's getting close to the appointed hour, and these people can barely contain themselves.
He made his mark at Microsoft as head of the company's worldwide sales force at a time when it seemed everyone hated the company - most of all its customers. In 2 1/2 years Kevin Johnson achieved a miracle: He turned Microsoft's customer satisfaction numbers around.
Jerky might not top everyone's list of hot products for a cold economy. But recently I met an entrepreneur who is prospering in the jerky business against all odds. Her story is instructive for any business owner trying to swim against the economic current - which is most of us nowadays.
Something remarkable happened on Thursday - an Internet service provider and a peer-to-peer software company announced a collaboration and agreed to work together.
Software giant Oracle announced fiscal third-quarter earnings rose 30% from a year ago, in line with Wall Street expectations. But sales missed forecasts, a possible sign that big businesses may be starting to pull back on tech spending.
Roy Singham wants you to know that ThoughtWorks, the Chicago-based software company he founded 15 years ago, and where he is now chairman of the board, is a growing and profitable enterprise and not a socialist collective.
Since the early days of pop music, the music industry has been searching for the secret formula to writing a successful song -- for that special alchemy that separates a Grammy-winner from a dud. For a period in the 1970s and 80s, the self-styled King of Pop Michael Jackson seemed to have stumbled upon it, but somewhere along the line he, too, seems to have misplaced it.
Lloyd's Construction in Eagan, Minn., might not seem as if it needs flashy phone software. The $9-million-a-year demolition and carting company has been run by the same family for the past 24 years. Lloyd's takes down commercial and residential buildings, then hauls them away. What could be more simple?
A serious injury leaves a loved one in a coma. Relatives may face the hardest decision of their lives: to wait it out or turn off the life-support machine.
As anticipated, Apple announced a series of software developments Thursday to make the iPhone more useful to business customers while venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers said it is starting a $100 million "iFund" to finance startups developing applications for the iPhone.
In a dramatic about-face, Ask.com is abandoning its effort to outshine Internet search leader Google Inc. and will instead focus on a narrower market consisting of married women looking for help managing their lives.
Silicon Valley venture capital giant John Doerr said Thursdsay that his firm will launch a $100 million "iFund" to help finance the development of software applications for Apple's iPhone.
Microsoft is at a critical moment in its history and is taking brilliant steps to remake itself. Thursday's announcement that it would open itself up to far greater interoperability with other types of software, including open source, is the latest big move. But the bigger step is its $44 billion bid for Yahoo.
The Web used to be a place where we went to seek information. But with the rise of social networks, we're barraged with a constant stream of data, requested or not
A Microsoft-Yahoo ticket would significantly increase the Redmond, Wash.-based company's share of the online advertising you see on your PC. But it could also ramp up its presence on the smaller screen.
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