Archive

The Federal Trade Commission last week charged DirecTV with deceptive advertising practices in a complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division. DirecTV, which has been in discussions over a potential merger with AT&T, currentl...

Microsoft later this year will offer its Cortana personal assistant as a standalone app for iOS and Android devices. Microsoft has been working on the engine behind Cortana "for decades, and it's arguably better than [Siri or Google Now] simply because it's far more mature and comprehensive," said t...

The ACLU earlier this week filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the NSA from indiscriminately snooping on U.S. Internet traffic. Using a technique called "upstream" surveillance, the NSA does a spinal tap of the Internet's U.S. backbone, which carries the communications of millions of Americans, the ACLU...

We see it all the time: a glowing 5-star comment on Yelp about a restaurant. At first glance, it looks authentic. However, what if the review actually were purchased by the restaurant? Would that change your perspective on the review or the restaurant? Of course, paying for advertising is hardly new...

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has released the final version of its controversial open Internet rules. In the introduction to the some 400 pages of new rules, which cover both wired and wireless broadband, the commission stated its "carefully tailored rules" would prevent specific pract...

Samsung has opened its Milk Music streaming music service to anyone via a Web browser, one year after introducing it on its mobile devices. "In a word, why?" questioned Mike Goodman, director of digital media at Strategy Analytics. "There's Pandora, there's Spotify, there's Google Music Play -- ther...

The wearable technology marketplace is already in place and growing. Now, enter the Apple Watch. Although it will speed up growth, this new space will be very different from the iPhone and iPad markets. Large companies like Google, Samsung and Sony, and smaller companies like FitBit and others have ...

Google on Wednesday launched a public beta version of Nearline Storage, the latest addition to the Google Cloud Platform. Nearline seeks to reel in enterprises to the wider Google Cloud Platform with the promise of low-cost, low-latency storage for limitless amounts of data. Nearline has all of the ...

Google last week launched an auto insurance rate comparison site in California. Mercury Insurance, MetLife and 21st Century Insurance are among the 14 firms already signed up as partners, and Google promises more will follow. Bolt Solutions last week announced that it too has joined up. "We have a G...

The U.S. government will increase IT spending for the third year in a row, if the Obama administration's proposed 2016 fiscal year budget passes. The 2016 budget request includes civilian agency IT spending at $49.1 billion and defense IT expenditures at $37.3 billion. The 2016 total of $86.4 billio...

Square on Monday introduced two new services for small businesses: instant deposits; and protection for disputed purchases. Square, which six years ago began offering square-shaped mobile credit card readers for smartphones and tablets, has shifted its focus away from point-of-sale operations and to...

Ellen Pao on Monday testified in a San Franciso courtroom that she was passed up for promotions and sexually harassed by a partner during her employment at prestigious venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Responding to questions from her attorney, Therese Lawless, Pao said that a...

Autonomous vehicles are on a roll, suggests a new report from McKinsey & Co., released last week during the Geneva Motor Show. Acceptance will increase substantially by 2050, accounting for as much of 20 percent of new car sales. The shift to self-driving technologies could reduce auto accidents...

Google Wallet, bitcoin and other payment systems have spent years trying to oust the credit card as the be-all and end-all of payment methods. Publications and pundits everywhere have been quick to hail new technologies as "credit card-killers," and they're not without justification. As a payment me...

Apple watchers likely will have to wait until September to see if the rumors about a bigger iPad are true. Apple suppliers reportedly have been told that production of the rumored 12.9-inch iPad Pro won't ramp up until the second half of this year. Rumors about a bigger iPad have been in circulati...