Archive

The Electronic Frontier Foundation this week filed a complaint against the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for secretly collecting data on all telephone calls to as many as 116 countries, possibly going back to the 1990s. The suit was filed on behalf of Human Rights Watch. Many of the calls wer...

Now that cloud computing has made it economically feasible to capture and collate large volumes of data, many organizations are trying to find an equally economical method to analyze and move the data across various business applications. The rapidly escalating demands for powerful analytic tools to...

LinkedIn on Thursday announced its intent to complete the acquisition of online business school Lynda.com by the close of 2015's second quarter. The deal, about 52 percent cash and 48 percent stock, is valued at around $1.5 billion. The terms are subject to adjustments, however, and there was still ...

Checking another item off its to-do list, Microsoft on Wednesday announced an update to its latest Xbox One console: support over-the-air television broadcasts. A TV tuner is necessary to pick up OTA signals, and Microsoft has partnered with Hauppauge, which provides one that can do the job. The OTA...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which is at the forefront of regulating the impact of information technology on consumers, is bolstering its technical resource capabilities through a new Office of Technology Research and Investigation, or OTRI. The FTC is concerned about the failure of commercial...

Child and consumer advocacy groups on Monday filed a complaint with the United States Federal Trade Commission asking it to investigate Google over unfair and deceptive advertising practices in connection with its YouTube Kids app. In essence, the complaint alleges that the app includes ads in a way...

IBM and Apple last week released an octet of iOS apps for the enterprise aimed at improving productivity in the healthcare, airline and insurance industries, as well as on the factory floor. The eight new apps are part of IBM's MobileFirst for iOS program, an offshoot of the alliance the companies f...

The fourth generation of the Apple TV set-top box won't support 4K video when it arrives later this year, according to a Monday report on Buzzfeed News, which cited unnamed sources in a position to know. This is a bit of a surprise, given that the third-generation Apple TV incorporated the higher-re...

All major U.S. government agencies employ a chief technology officer who generally deals with the management of IT resources including hardware, software, cybersecurity and the mechanics of the digital world. The U.S. Commerce Department has now gone a step further in addressing the challenges prese...

The European Commission reportedly is preparing to file a Statement of Objections detailing specific antitrust charges against Google. The EC is collecting testimony from companies that have filed private complaints about Google's business practices to gather more firepower in moving forward in anti...

What's more important when it comes to an Internet connection -- quality and reliability, or speed? This is a question I'm pondering as I sip a latte at Starbucks. I have come to the conclusion that while speed is sexy and sells, quality and reliability are more important. See if you agree. Like cou...

Tidal has launched the premium tier of its subscription-based music streaming service, which costs twice the amount of a standard $10 account with the company. While the $20-per-month price tag for Tidal premium may seem steep, that subscription serves users lossless audio. The MP3 format reached We...

IBM on Tuesday announced it will spend $3 billion over a four-year period on a new Internet of Things unit involving thousands of consultants, developers and research staff. The company intends to establish an IoT Cloud Open Platform for Industries, which will extract data for business intelligence,...

Amazon on Monday launched a new marketplace for professionals who can help with everything from basic home cleaning to skilled labor, including electric, plumbing and appliance installation. Amazon Home Services enlists professionals who have been prescreened through background checks and are offici...

After experiencing a data breach, most companies take a number of measures to strengthen security, including advising users to change their passwords and to make them strong. Although it stopped short of confirming that it was hacked or that any customer data had been exposed, Amazon-owned Twitch ...