Articles by Peter Suciu

While Twitter restricts users to just 140 characters in a single tweet, its developers are limited to just three characters -- namely its "API" -- and it's cracking down on that. Twitter announced Friday that it will further restrict developer access to its API -- discouraging services that tend to replicate the Twitter experience, among other things...

Startup game company Goko emerged from its 2011 stealth launch on Thursday, officially unveiling its HTML5-based lineup. The company, which also has released its software development kits to independent developers interested in publishing and monetizing games for the HTML5 platform, has held its cards closely until now Fittingly -- as the company ...

Twitter cofounders Biz Stone and Evan Williams unveiled two new ventures this week, and this time they aren't limiting themselves -- or users for that matter -- to 140 characters. These new projects from Obvious Corporation, the startup headed by Stone and Williams, are Medium, a publishing platform that organizes user-submitted text and photos into collections that can be viewed and edited by the public; and Branch, a Web-based discussion board that will reportedly turn Internet monologues into online dialogues...

After posting revenue growth of 45 percent from a year prior, many companies would see an increase in stock price reflecting investor confidence. However, daily deal leader Groupon posted its first-ever quarterly profit as a public company and quickly saw its shares fall to new lows This isn't normally how things work -- why the investor worries?...

For employees at Motorola Mobility, there were probably better ways tostart the business week. On Monday, Google announced that it wascutting about 4,000 jobs at its mobile phone business division, andthat it will close or consolidate about one-third of its 90 locationsaround the world This represents about 20 percent of MotorolaMobility's 20,000 e...

While the promise of mobile payments still remains very much at the IOU stage, the Electronic Transactions Association on Thursday announced the formation of the Mobile Payments Committee, a task force that includes representatives from the four main U.S. carriers -- Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile -- as well as Google, Isis, PayPal, Verifone and Intuit...

Open source hardware startup Ouya looked to kickstart funding of its Android-based game console, and the effort has resulted in more than nine times the amount it sought. Ouya had asked to backers to pledge US$950,000 through the Kickstarter website, and the total climbed to nearly $8.6 million as of Thursday, the day the campaign was scheduled to...

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday overturned a rulingby a lower court judge who had awarded US$40,800 in damages and $2.5million in attorney fees to the now-defunct Al-Haramain IslamicFoundation. This is the latest chapter in what has been a five-yearchallenge to the Bush administration's Terrorist Surveillance Program The appeals co...

In the movies, hackers often type away at a keyboard and somehow -- movie magic, perhaps -- manage to crack a network's security and access encrypted files and protected data. In real life, bypassing security measures can be as simple as sweet-talking tech support That is how tech journalist Mat Honan, a former Gizmodo writer, came under attack. S...

On Friday Microsoft abruptly rebranded its Windows 8 interface, which has been known as "Metro" since it was introduced for Windows Phone 7. Instead of the simple "Metro," the tile-based interface will now -- and according to online reports, forever -- be known as "Windows 8 style UI." At the root of this change is a potential trademark dispute wi...

The Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday that it wasconsidering new rules to protect children's privacy online. Regulatorscalled for tougher privacy protections to make it harder foradvertisers and social networks to collect information about childrenwithout permission from the parents The newly proposed rules would require third-party part...

On Tuesday, mobile carrier Verizon Wireless made a "voluntary" contribution of US$125 million dollars to the U.S. Treasury, as part of a Federal Communications Commission consent decree that also slapped down tethering fees the carrier had been charging its customers Prior to this action, Verizon had required its customers to pay $20 a month for of...

The cloud -- as in, the offsite storage of data -- is becoming as vast and ever-changing as clouds in the sky, but DeepField Networks announced an analytics tool that could allow the flow of cloud-based data to be mapped This would include tracking traffic patterns, application performance and cost structure of networks for cloud computing companie...

In what promises to be a closely watched trial, Apple and Samsung headed to federal court on Monday. Apple has alleged that Samsung Electronics essentially produced illegal knockoffs of its popular iPhone and iPad products, and it is demanding US$2.5 billion damages. Samsung has countered that Apple's designs of its smartphones and tablets have been industry standards for years...

Ouya, the recently unveiled video game system, on Friday announced a content deal that will make OnLive's cloud gaming service available on the console when it launches next year. ...

Speaking at the Casual Connect game conference in Seattle this week, Gabe Newell, chief executive and cofounder of Valve, had some harsh words about Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 operating system. The award-winning game publisher is also the creator of the Steam digital distribution service for games, and Newell seemed rather "steamed" himself ab...

How much is a "bounce" worth on a tablet PC? It could be worth enough -- along with other patent disputes -- to add up to US$2.5 billion. At least, that's the figure Apple came up with in its patent infringement suit against Samsung, and it all comes down to the bounce, the scrolling API, and finally Samsung's use of Apple's "design patents or trade dress rights," according to Foss Patents, which compiled the per-unit royalty dispute...

Amazon is looking to expand its mobileplatform with a line of tablet devices, with up to five or six SKUs(stock-keeping units). On Monday, reports surfaced that the retailer --which is marketing its own tablets as a way to help sell more digitalcontent including movies, music, apps and games -- would likely beavailable in multiple sizes This move c...

DirecTV subscribers will soon be able to get their MTV, as well as their daily fix of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, plus Nickelodeon and the 14 channels owned by Viacom, under a new agreement the two companies announced on Friday While terms of the deal were not disclosed, it appears that Viacom will receive more than US$600 million a year in...

Mobile phone giant Nokia posted a loss of US$1.74 billion on Wednesday in its second-quarter earnings report. Overall sales for the one-time dominant company were down 26 percent year over year, while smartphone sales were down by a third in the quarter However, if there is a bright spot in this report it is that it could have been much worse. In f...