Archive

With the ever-increasing use of the cloud by more and more businesses, there is good reason to be concerned about legal risks, which are an inherent part of the cloud. The term "cloud" may be relatively new, but the concept of remote computing started more than 60 years ago, when Dartmouth Universit...

A U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled, in essence, that the NSA's collection of metadata concerning Americans' communications is illegal. The court vacated U.S. District Judge William Pauley's December 2013 ruling in ACLU v. Clapper, and remanded the case to the lower court. Pauley had granted the gover...

Discover last week announced that it would allow its cardmembers in the United States to make contactless payments in participating stores through Apple Pay. Users will be able to pay for goods and services beginning this fall via iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch, as well as the iPad Air 2 an...

The wireless and wire line telecom industry completely reinvents itself every few years. Right now, everything seems to be changing. Seven years ago, the handset leaders were BlackBerry and Nokia. Today, those companies are struggling to stay on the charts. Today's handset leaders are Apple and Sams...

The guidelines make recommendations for accessory makers interested in making bands for the new smartwatch. "A well-designed band will securely attach to Apple Watch while not interfering with its operation," the guidelines explain. To be compatible with the watch's heart rate sensors, bands should ...

The U.S. Supreme Court last month granted a request from Spokeo, a data aggregator, to consider whether the legal basis litigants must meet to file a claim in federal court should be broadly or narrowly defined. In the case, Spokeo, Inc. v. Thomas Robins, Thomas Robins is a resident of Virginia acti...

T-Mobile on Tuesday launched "Never Settle for Verizon," an aggressive response to Verizon's "Never Settle" ad campaign that gives Verizon customers an opportunity to test T-Mobile's network for themselves. T-Mobile promises to pick up any fees incurred by customers who participate in the free trial...

Microsoft on Monday announced a slew of products and services for IT professionals at its first Ignite conference, being held in Chicago through Friday. It introduced the Microsoft Azure Stack, its next-generation hybrid cloud, which lets companies' IT departments blend enterprise software with dist...

Comcast on Monday reported a 10 percent earnings hike for its first quarter, driven by growth in its high-speed Internet business. Its total revenue increased by 2.6 percent to $17.9 billion for the quarter. Revenue increased 7.2 percent year-over-year, despite the $99 million in costs related to it...

Text-based usernames and password pairs should be replaced with biometric credentialing, such as vein recognition and ingestible security tokens, suggests Johnathan LeBlanc, PayPal's global head of developer evangelism. Celebrities have been mortified, Sony Pictures Entertainment brought to its knee...

Apple and IBM last week announced an initiative with Japan Post Group to provide seniors in Japan with iPads preloaded with apps and analytics designed to improve their quality of life. Japan Post Group will launch a pilot service later this year and gradually expand it to cover 4-5 million customer...

A production snag in making the component that provides tactile feedback in the Apple Watch could impact its availability in coming weeks. Apple was having problems obtaining sufficient vibration motors for its taptic engine, it was reported two weeks ago. Those problems apparently have worsened. Qu...

Federal agencies need to change course in handling IT spending quickly, particularly in reversing the inertia behind longstanding conflicts between CIOs and CFOs over the procurement of IT resources, according to IDC Government Insights Research Director Shawn McCarthy. Government IT managers need t...

Twitter's stock took a hit when investors got an early look at first quarter earnings, leaked just ahead of closing time on Tuesday, ahead of the company's Wednesday announcement. Shares plummeted about 18 percent from Tuesday's opening price of $51.84. The slide continued on Wednesday, with the los...

Now that the Comcast, Time Warner Cable merger deal has failed, what's next? I think it's likely that if Time Warner Cable is still around, the deal might be tried once again in a few years after the industry has transformed itself. Comcast obviously is still interested in expanding with Time Warner...