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Facebook on Thursday updated its ad policy with two changes. One gives users the option of explaining why they don't want to see a specific ad in their News Feed when they click to hide the ad. The second update takes this new policy a step further by giving more weight to the feedback provided from...

Google on Thursday announced its acquisition of online polling startup Polar. "At first, it was difficult to find the connection ... opinions and polls?" mused marketing and social media expert Lon Safko. Upon reflection, "the acquisition was about driving engagement and audience to websites," he sa...

DoD is committed to pursuing cloud-based services and steadily has been improving its capabilities to utilize the technology. The latest evidence of its embracing the cloud is approval of a protocol that will facilitate the use of the technology at higher security levels. The department's Defense In...

Despite the efforts of some big name tech players, consumers have been reluctant to turn their smartphones into wallets. That could be about to change with Apple Pay. Apple Pay is the new mobile payment system Apple introduced with its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus earlier this week. "Apple being Apple is goi...

Semiconductor company Marvell recently launched its Kinoma Create construction kit for consumer electronics on Indiegogo. Should a $6.5 billion company turn to crowdfunding to raise money? Are large companies drying up a source of funding that otherwise would be available to startups? Is that morall...

Apple made its annual iPhone announcement Tuesday, and there were several surprises, including one of those Steve Jobs "one more thing" moments. Now the question is, will the two new iPhones, Apple Pay and Apple Watch be a home run? Generally speaking, yes -- but with some caveats. The iPhone is com...

Despite the growing momentum behind cloud computing in recent times, security concerns have been a drag on adoption. IBM sought to reduce that resistance by announcing on Monday that it would start using Intel chip technology to better secure its SoftLayer cloud platform. When combined with hardware...

Apple is almost never first to market in a product category, but when it does make its splash, it usually swamps all boats. That seems to be the case once again in the smartwatch space. "Every other watch in the market is a beta version compared to what you're seeing coming from Apple," said Michael...

There is no question that one of the hottest topics in the tech industry is the rapidly evolving world of the Internet of Things. The seemingly infinite variety of use cases for capturing data from a widening array of connected devices and objects is inspiring the imaginations of corporate decision ...

Amazon on Monday dropped the price of its 32-gigabyte Fire Phone to a mere 99 cents from its original $199, with a two-year contract. The 64-gigabyte version now sells for $99, down from its launch price of $299. The offer is available exclusively for AT&T's network and includes a free year of P...

The BYOD trend offers pluses for both employers and employees, but sometimes there's a hitch. Under certain circumstances, the owner of a device suddenly might lose all of the data stored on it. Clients of Fiberlink remotely wiped 81,000 mobile devices between January and June. About 30,000 were cle...

Twitter on Monday began testing a new Buy button with a small percentage of its users in the U.S. -- one of the first steps in a larger initiative to build purchase functionality into the service. A small group of brands, including Burberry, Home Depot, Keith Urban, the Nature Conservatory and Sound...

Excitement is mounting as the countdown to Apple's mysterious Tuesday event ticks away. Apple is widely expected to unveil two new iPhones -- one in the usual smartphone form factor and the other a phablet. There's also a good deal of anticipation for an iWatch that will kick the sector into high g...

It is a given that a marketing campaign must include a social media element -- especially when a brand is rolling out a new product. What is less certain is on which channel the brand should focus its time and resources. An answer was provided last week by Aol Platforms, which released the results o...

The U.S. government spends tens of billions of dollars each year on information technology -- by some estimates more than $100 billion. As a result, IT is a highly visible target when the overall federal budget comes under scrutiny. Problems associated with IT operations -- such as the botched launc...