Articles by Kirk L. Kroeker

As part of its 20th anniversary celebration, Borland announced Enterprise Studio 7 for Java, an application lifecycle management system designed to help unify development teams and speed creation of business applications The company's new software brings together three products into one unified environment with modules for designing, developing and...

Microsoft has released its first voice-control software for Pocket PC devices that run the latest version of the Windows Mobile operating system. While there are many third-party applications available to control Pocket PC devices by voice command, Microsoft hopes its own Voice Command software will transform PDAs and mobile phones into "virtual personal assistants."

Dell has introduced the Dell Digital Jukebox -- or the Dell DJ -- and announced details of a partnership with MusicMatch to provide customers with an easy, legal way to download favorite songs and albums. As the next step in the company's overall strategy of moving into other markets -- especially consumer electronics and home entertainment -- bot...

Microsoft Office is one of the most far-reaching client applications in the world, used or customized by nearly 3 million developers and more than 400 million users. With today's launch of Visual Studio Tools for Office, Microsoft is hoping to provide developers with the tools they need to take advantage of the .NET Framework in the context of Office-based software...

Last week at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, the company announced that its Small Business Server -- part of the Windows Server 2003 family -- is now available on prebuilt systems from Dell, HP and other providers Instead of dedicating different computers to different server tasks, the Small Business Server software is designed to be load...

Sierra Wireless has announced a new line of phones that will use Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. The first of the Voq line of phones, which will include a flip-open computer-style thumbpad for text entry, is expected to become available in 2004, providing "compelling voice and data functionality in a single, pocketable device," Sierra Wireless said Wednesday...

Sierra Wireless has announced a new line of phones that will use Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. The first of the Voq line of phones, which will include a flip-open computer-style thumbpad for text entry, is expected to become available in 2004, providing "compelling voice and data functionality in a single, pocketable device," Sierra Wireless said Wednesday...

The rugged-computing industry -- which seeks to make computers compatible with environments that are at odds with delicate electronics -- is one of the fastest-growing segments of the mobile-computing marketplace. Surprisingly, research firm Venture Development estimates the rugged-computing market will reach US$6 billion in sales worldwide by 2005.

While fans of the Psion series of PDAs and palmtop computers have hailed the devices as the future of handheld computing, the Psion systems have caught on mainly in Europe, with the European market favoring a clamshell design and a thumb keyboard for its PDAs The Diamond Mako -- a rebranded U.S. version of the Psion Revo -- did have some widespread...

Adding value to the original Zire handheld while still keeping its US$99 price steady, Palm has introduced the Palm Zire 21, which has more software and a faster processor than the first version of the PDA With four times more memory than the original Zire, the Zire 21 handheld's 8 MB of RAM adds room for storing many years of appointments and thou...

After nearly two years in development, Borland announced today two updated tools for C++ developers: C++BuilderX and Enterprise Studio for C++. The company is calling the tools the first technology-independent development suite designed to address the complexity of modern-day application development While newer languages, such as Java, Jini, Perl a...

Microsoft's disclosure of three new security holes in Windows came just moments before its senior security strategist, Phil Reitinger, told lawmakers on the House Government Reform technology subcommittee about the company's efforts to help consumers defend themselves against viruses and other Internet attacks. Only a month after the Blaster worm ...

Hard-drive maker Seagate is shipping new hard drives that use a new digital video standard that, according to the company, makes them better able to store streaming video for digital video recorders (DVRs). Seagate's new hard drives are among the industry's first to implement the new streaming command-set adopted by the T-13 technical committee, which is responsible for all interface standards relating to the popular AT Attachment (ATA) storage interface.

This week, security software developer Symantec announced Norton Antivirus 2004, the newest version of the company's antivirus software. While this product will provide consumers with new kinds of protection against certain emerging nonvirus threats -- such as spyware and keystroke-logging programs -- what is particularly noteworthy about the announcement is that it marks a major move by the company to combat widespread software piracy...

The rugged-computing industry -- which seeks to make computers compatible with environments that are at odds with delicate electronics -- is one of the fastest-growing segments of the mobile-computing marketplace. Surprisingly, research firm Venture Development estimates the rugged-computing market will reach US$6 billion in sales worldwide by 2005.

Sony's digital camera line has reached new resolution levels with the release of the 8-megapixel Cybershot DSC-F828. The new camera is encased in a black, magnesium-alloy body, and is the first to incorporate Sony's recently announced four-color filter technology Recognizing that current digital cameras borrow a nearly 40-year-old color-reproductio...

Security software developer Zone Labs announced IMsecure Pro, a security package that the company is calling the first comprehensive instant messaging (IM) security system for the most popular messaging services, such as AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger. IMsecure Pro is designed to ensure that IM conversations are private a...

In an effort to provide businesspeople with an affordable, all-in-one mobile device, T-Mobile USA and Research In Motion have introduced the triband BlackBerry 7230 wireless handheld For many business travelers, the ability to use the same device for wireless voice and e-mail connectivity while traveling globally would be a big step forward. The Bl...

Most of us remember the scene in the 1977 movie "Star Wars" in which the robot R2-D2 projects a three-dimensional image of Princess Leia, who begs Obi-Wan Kenobi for help: "This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope." Seeing that film years ago planted the desire in many of us to see this kind of technology brought to life. After all these long years of waiting, portable holography has finally arrived...

Lexar Media is shipping the world's first 4-GB CompactFlash memory card. Specifically designed for professional photographers shooting high-resolution images -- and priced at an industry high of US$1,499 -- the card can store about 600 images captured in raw mode using a 6-megapixel camera Amateur photographers shooting with lower-resolution camera...