Spotlight Features

Blockbuster on Tuesday threw its hat into the increasingly crowded ring of set-top boxes with the announcement of a deal with hardware maker 2Wire. Blockbuster's system will bring video directly to viewers' televisions on demand via a broadband Internet connection. The move follows similar offerings...

Blockbuster on Tuesday threw its hat into the increasingly crowded ring of set-top boxes with the announcement of a deal with hardware maker 2Wire. Blockbuster's system will bring video directly to viewers' televisions on demand via a broadband Internet connection. The move follows similar offerings...

Blockbuster on Tuesday threw its hat into the increasingly crowded ring of set-top boxes with the announcement of a deal with hardware maker 2Wire. Blockbuster's system will bring video directly to viewers' televisions on demand via a broadband Internet connection. The move follows similar offerings...

Part 1 of this two-part series on five of the boldest decisions made by technology companies this year explores the launch of Hulu and Amazon.com's decision to go DRM-free with its Amazon MP3 store. Now, for the three remaining genius strokes in the E-Commerce Times' lineup of bold decisions that ch...

It's been said that the meek shall inherit the Earth, but in the cutthroat world of technology, only the bold survive. Some of the biggest names in the high-tech and media sectors launched initiatives in the last year that have changed the landscape -- perhaps permanently. All of their innovations -...

Lost in the furious run-up to the November elections was a Kentucky court ruling that could unravel a long-established legal argument supporting basic e-commerce activity: namely, that local or state governments cannot extend their reach into cyberspace to impose their own laws on a Web site. Becaus...

For those who are hungry for some good economic news, venture capitalists apparently are seeing green in clean technology. Indeed, so-called green technology -- everything from eco-friendly auto parts to alternative fuels to smart buildings to streamlined manufacturing processes -- appears to be blo...

Anyone who's used popular P2P applications such as BitTorrent, Gnutella or Limewire has probably been plagued by network slowdowns that make sharing heavy media files a time-consuming endeavor. However, a consortium of technologists at the Distributed Computing Industry Association has found a way t...

Immigration is becoming as nettlesome to high-tech companies as it has long been in the agriculture and construction businesses. Although technology firms don't reach into the same labor pool as do ag comglomerates or building contractors, their problems are converging. The challenge, advocates of i...

"[R]ailhead may actually degrade the ability to provide intelligence data for use in the consolidated terrorist watch list," according to the U.S. House subcommittee report. This massive government IT project is failing -- and it's not an isolated case. Large IT projects in agencies from the FBI to ...

Things are changing at eBay. eBay says it is evolving to adapt to changes in the larger market, but it's not clear how the auction giant will fare against an emerging army of specialized competitors, and it's far from clear whether sellers will warm to its new internal price structure. Changing the ...

Another front may be opening in the battle for mobile platform supremacy. Microsoft is rumored to be planning to launch its own mobile application store. If the buzz is true, Microsoft may not be as late to the party as some would think. Android hasn't yet debuted. Apple, for its part, is facing pus...

Internet radio station operators are concerned that skyrocketing royalty fees could zap an industry that's still in its infancy. However, technology may be bringing some solutions to the vexing problem of paying artists a royalty fee each time a listener hears a song. It just may take some time -- a...

Some two weeks after the FCC rebuked Comcast for its network management practices, the government agency has spelled out details of the cable provider's marching orders in a 67-page supplement. Within the next 30 days, Comcast must make a full disclosure to the FCC of the behavior that lowered the r...

I was once in the middle of an anchor dispute. Consultant-led mediation helped, but the best advice came from an older, wiser anchor who told me to keep smiling, be patient and wait for my coanchor to implode. Of course, all this was before the rise of computer hacking, spyware and keylogging device...