Spotlight Features

OPINION

It's a Mad, Mad, IP World

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was to publish the world's first "storyline patent" application yesterday. According to Georgetown University law professor Jay Thomas, "The case law of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has established that virtually any subject matter is potentially ...

Last week Microsoft announced its new online extensions to Windows and Office called, coincidently, Windows Live and Office Live. These say a great deal about both Microsoft's direction and the future of desktop software in general. In addition, HP announced an intent to eliminate the concept of the...

OPINION

Forward Future Requires Past Principles

The imperative to fight diseases like AIDS and cervical cancer is a no-brainer, yet new technologies that help in this quest are under assault from bureaucrats and advocacy groups. As technology advances, questions surrounding its control and use will only get hotter. A key set of guiding principles...

WiFi hot spots have become quite popular because they enable nomadic travelers to tap into the Internet. The ability to stay connected has reached another area: metropolitan buses. King County Metro Transit, which services the Seattle area, has begun offering WiFi services on a few of its bus lines....

When crises like the recent earthquake in Asia, the London terror bombings and devastating hurricanes such as Katrina strike, more people than ever turn to the Web for news and real-time updates on these history-making events. This is not a new phenomenon, but it continues to be a growing one. Rewi...

OPINION

Is Google the New Evil Empire?

I'm either fortunate or unfortunate enough to have gone through a couple of significant corporate cycles in the world of business in recent decades. In the 1980s IBM started as the most respected company in the industry and ended as that decade's "Evil Empire." In the '90s, and over what seemed to...

OPINION

Wanted: Government Leaders for Telecom

Revolutionary innovation and competition have shaken up the telecommunications sector, prompting at least three important mergers. Government officials who set the rules of the game are now faced with key decisions that will affect the future of communications in America. Federal regulators may app...

Lurking behind that spooky haunted house -- whether it be next door or at the local amusement park -- are embedded computing devices and other bits of engineering magic that, while not the highest tech gadgets on the market, sure come in handy when the Jedis, ninjas, princesses and witches come arou...

The Recording Industry Association of America may be feeding judges inaccurate technical "evidence" which is being believed as though it comes from a reliable source, according to Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who's representing victims being sued by the Big Four music cartel-owned organization.

Cellular data services have spawned an array of acronyms, including W-CDMA, WiFi, WiMax, and CDMA2000 1x EvDO. For those enamored by abbreviations, one more is about to emerge -- WiBro -- which stands for wireless broadband. South Korean government officials, network equipment companies, and cellula...

Last week was another interesting week. So far, this month the biggest announcements have largely been about Apple. As expected, Apple refreshed some of its product offerings. This should be the last significant release of many of these products before the Intel-based replacements start to arrive in...

OPINION

Printer-Spy Caper Threatens Freedom

The next time you print a summary of your favorite James Bond film, you should consider that there might be more than one spy on the page. That's because printer manufacturers and the U.S. Secret Service have been quietly collaborating to track documents -- a worrisome revelation. An announcement by...

At one time, the gap between wireless and wired network capabilities was so vast that wireless networks were used only on rare occasions. That has been changing recently, according to industry watchers. "A growing number of enterprises are taking a look at whether a wired or a wireless network offer...

The video solution on the new iPod sucks and, strangely enough, this showcases how much better Apple understands the current market and why others are either failing in it or have had to exit, like, respectively, Creative Labs and D&M Holdings (RIO). Two things are selling well in single vendor ...

Bold predictions about the future in The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, recently released by legendary inventor Ray Kurzweil, are causing reviewers to marvel in awe or disbelief. But while Kurzweil's forecasts are fascinating, the book's analysis of the present is just as impor...

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