Archive

Yahoo has shut down its Yahoo Screen on-demand streaming video hub, according to news reports. The hub's offerings included a National Football League game played in London, licensed clips of shows such as "Saturday Night Live," and a number of original series, including "Community." The company had...

China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce on Tuesday launched the latest in a series of investigations against Microsoft for possible violations of the country's antimonopoly law. Back in July 2014, about 100 SAIC officials burst into four Microsoft offices in various parts of China and...

Before the Internet, messages were spread by television and newspaper ads and highway billboards. Today that is done through social media. Virtually everyone knows about it, and many people use it. Does it make any sense that a U.S. government agency could violate any laws for using social media to ...

Will 2016 be a breakaway year for virtual reality technology? Exhibitors at CES 2016 this week seem to think so. More than three dozen of them will be flogging their VR wares at the show, more than double the number from last year. "2016 will be the year of VR," said Brian Blau, a research director ...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is engaged in an internal struggle over how it should assess the effect on consumers when businesses fail to provide proper e-commerce security. The outcome of the debate, which surfaced last month, will have a significant impact on the commission's ability to initi...

General Motors has agreed to invest $500 million in Lyft, and the companies will work together to develop an integrated network of autonomous vehicles, they said in a joint announcement on Monday. As part of the agreement, GM will become a preferred provider of short-term vehicles to Lyft customers,...

Microsoft on Monday announced that its Windows 10 operating system is now active on more than 200 million devices. Windows 10 adoption accelerated at the end of 2015, with more than 40 percent of new devices activated since Black Friday, said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the online audience...

A recent Pew Research Center study found that adoption of traditional high-speed Internet in the U.S. has fallen to 67 percent, the lowest level since 2012. More consumers were using mobile phones, the study found. Thirteen percent of respondents said they were smartphone-only customers, compared wi...

Facebook recently launched a service for members that provides recommendations and ratings on shops and service providers, a move that puts it in direct competition with Yelp. The tool provides star ratings on local service providers, including doctors, veterinarians, event planners, health spas and...

Fitbit shares earlier this week climbed several percentage points after the company's app topped the iOS charts over the Christmas holiday. The Fitbit app was the top free app downloaded from Apple's App Store on Christmas Day. It was already the most downloaded app in the store's fitness and health...

Several factors have contributed to the sudden expansion of connected car services available or coming to the market, notably the expansion of mobile broadband networks, high penetration of smartphones in the consumer market, and auto manufacturers' re-evaluation of connected services as a competiti...

Amazon on Monday reported a record competition-shattering performance during the Christmas holiday, adding more than 3 million Amazon Prime members last week alone. Holiday sales of Prime devices more than doubled last year's record number, the company said. The Prime Now program, which offers free ...

The Federal Trade Commission and Wyndham Worldwide this month reached a settlement over allegations the company violated federal law regarding the protection of customer records. The settlement could have a significant impact on e-commerce in that it ended a major legal challenge to the FTC's extens...

Amazon has been negotiating a lease for 20 Boeing 767 jets as it executes on plans to start its own air cargo business, according to recent reports. It launched a pilot of the service in Wilmington, Ohio, where Air Transport Services Group, or ATSG, has been managing airfreight on Amazon's behalf. A...

Target, Walmart and other large U.S. retailers have extended their hours on Christmas Eve in an effort to snag last-minute holiday shoppers. It's a wider net for consumers during a season in which about 17 percent of shoppers last week said they hadn't starting buying gifts, in a Reuters/Ipsos poll....