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Google has introduced a change to its search offerings -- a new feature called "Google Instant" -- that has online advertisers wringing their hands over its implications. Google Instant lets users see results as they're typing a query. Each letter and word triggers its own predictive search. The u...

Mark Hurd, the former CEO of HP who resigned in disgrace last month, has joined Oracle as co-president. At the same time, Charles Phillips, co-president and a member of Oracle's board of directors, has resigned. Hurd will serve alongside Co-President Safra Catz. Wall Street investors are excited abo...

HP has won the bidding war it waged with Dell for data-storage company 3Par, whose shares were trading at $9.65 when Dell first tried to acquire it in mid-August. Dell decided not to match HP's $2.4 billion ($33 per share) offer, which topped Dell's bid of $32 per share. Dell first tried to acquire ...

Sony has updated its e-reader family of devices: the Reader Pocket, Reader Touch and Reader Daily. The new Readers offer touchscreen functionality based on infrared sensors that read taps made by a finger or a stylus. They are smaller and lighter, and have redesigned user interfaces. In some respec...

Intel is acquiring Infineon's wireless business for $1.4 billion -- the second major transaction for the company in as many weeks, coming on the heels of its surprising announcement that it would purchase McAfee for $7.7 billion. Unlike the McAfee deal, however, the Infineon buy does not have analys...

HP is proving relentless in its bidding war with Dell over data storage company 3Par. Within hours after Dell matched HP's offer of $1.8 billion, HP countered with $2 billion. The battle for the company broke out in earnest in mid-August with the first public offer from Dell, for $1.15 billion. HP p...

It has been a roller-coaster week for 3Par, a company whose shares were trading at $9.65 when Dell first tried to acquire it in mid-August, with no sign that the ride will be ending any time soon. Since that event, HP made a counteroffer, which Dell has now topped -- but only slightly. Dell's latest...

Google has rolled out a new service that allows Gmail account holders to make voice calls to any traditional phone number from their Gmail account. It will require the installation of a voice and video plug-in, but users won't need to have a special phone number assigned to them. Google already has ...

Virgin Mobile is making an aggressive move in the mobile broadband arena, going head-to-head with the likes of AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Beginning Wednesday, the carrier is offering a $40 unlimited mobile broadband plan without a contract. Similar offerings from competitors are priced at $60 pe...

New generations of cellphones may be offering a feature that is a throwback to the analog age: FM radio. If they do, it will be because a controversial proposal gaining traction in Washington includes this functionality as part of the horse-trading. The National Association of Broadcasters has propo...

A lawsuit that is moving forward in the state of Hawaii adds another dimension to the ongoing debate over Internet addiction -- while prompting more than a few cynical guffaws from tort reform advocates. The suit, filed by plaintiff Donald Smallwood against the company NCSoft, claims that he became ...

HP has made an eyebrow-raising counterbid for a data storage company that Dell is trying to acquire. Last week, Dell made a play for 3Par, offering $1.15 billion. HP has topped that offer with its own bid of $1.6 billion -- a 33 percent premium on Dell's $18 per share bid, and a huge premium for 3Pa...

After a few days of absorbing the criticism of its joint proposal with Verizon, Google -- a company that was once counted as a stalwart in the push for Net neutrality -- is defending itself. In a nutshell, the plan calls for excluding the mobile Internet from most of the consumer protections that wo...

On Monday Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg proposed a far-reaching plan designed to address all the concerns the varying stakeholders have with Net neutrality. Twenty-four hours later, it is clear that at least some of those stakeholders -- particularly advocates for Net neutr...

A former employee's age-discrimination lawsuit against Google can proceed now that the California Supreme Court has cleared the way for "stray remarks" made by his colleagues to be included as evidence. The suit was originally filed in Santa Clara County in 2004 by Brian Reid, who served as director...

Conflicting reports are circulating about whether Google and Verizon -- once bitter enemies on the subject of Net neutrality -- have come to an agreement on how network operators should manage Web traffic. Several publications have reported that the two firms are close to negotiating an agreement un...

The Federal Trade Commission and Intel are settling charges of anticompetitive behavior the government agency has levied against the chipmaker. Intel, which hasn't admitted to any wrongdoing, has agreed to make several concessions to settle the charges, which the FTC brought forward in a lawsuit las...

Several mobile carriers, including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, are working on a project that would allow consumers to use their smartphones to make purchases, thus displacing debt and credit cards. The project, reported by the Bloomberg news service, appears ready to roll out with a test schedul...

At face value, Motorola turned in respectable second quarter earnings: It posted revenue of $5.414 billion, which, although down slightly from the $5.497 billion realized the same period a year earlier, nonetheless beat analyst expectations of approximately $5.19 billion. The company also posted mob...

Facebook, one of the most popular sites on the Web -- now claiming 500 million users -- also has the dubious distinction of being one of the lowest-ranked in terms of customer satisfaction. Facebook scored a paltry 64 on the 100-point scale of the 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business...