Technology

It seems rarer than ever these days that a majority of Americans can get together, rally round a common cause, hash out their differences, and forge a consensus in support of a durable and lasting approach to a pressing and vital public issue. Yet that is what is happening as a groundswell builds fr...

Microsoft has tried to keep plans for its so-called iPod killer tightly under wraps, but the software giant is indeed developing a digital media player to compete with Apple's best-selling product, according to media reports. As the story goes, Microsoft is not merely developing one product aimed at...

Freescale Semiconductor staked out an industry first with the commercial availability of its speedy, non-volatile Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory technology, which the Texas company is already producing in volume. The MRAM solution joins the speed of static random access memory and the stabili...

Ratcheting up in its ongoing campaign against illegal file sharing, the British Phonographic Industry on Monday sent a letter to Internet service providers Tiscali and Cable & Wireless requesting that they suspend 59 Internet accounts used for the purpose. Until now, the BPI has concentrated its...

Two weeks ago CNBC asked me to cover problems that blogs pose for companies. To prepare I read official and unofficial blogs from a number of firms, and I found them fascinating reading. Google employees, for example, seem to be as outspoken about their management's lack of capability as anyone e...

Critics are cautious about early versions of 802.11n technology developed for WiFi applications, saying these so-called "souped-up" wireless fidelity networks have poor range, uneven throughput, and have difficulty interfacing with existing WiFi networks. Wireless manufacturers, including Netgear, L...

The number of U.S. households with a connected entertainment network will reach 30 million by 2010, according to a new report from Parks Associates. A connected entertainment network is a network composed of either a PC connected to at least one consumer electronics (CE) device or multiple interconn...

Nintendo is reportedly planning to best its price advantage over Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's Playstation3 (PS3) with a time advantage as well, aiming to beat Sony to the market by more than a month with the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo is sticking to gameplay, rather than pushing processor and graphic...

Two class action lawsuits are targeting Windows Genuine Advantage, one of Microsoft's initiatives to stem the massive piracy of its applications. Both suits claim that WGA, which is just a year old, functions essentially as spyware on licensed Microsoft users' PCs in violation of California and Wash...

It used to be that every few years, the business media would report on the latest "slump" in sales of flash memory semiconductors. This was a decades-long trend -- demand would "hot up," as the Brits say, when new PC sales soared, and drop as they dropped. The chipmakers' fortunes no longer parallel...

OPINION

Game On for HP, Dell, Apple

Last week, I attended the Dell advisory council meeting and the week before, a similar Hewlett-Packard event. These gave me a chance to look at how both companies are approaching similar problems and to observe that both are demonstrating improving capabilities. Of course, Apple doesn't do adviso...

The U.S. Senate on Thursday reached a landmark agreement to vote on controversial legislation that would allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The bill, which passed the House a year ago, is expected to gain broad bipartisan support in the Senate when it comes to a vote, likely in ...

Despite lingering concerns and objections from two top safety officials, the crew of the space shuttle Discovery continued with preparations for Saturday's planned launch. NASA reports a 60 percent chance that weather will delay the mission. The Discovery crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Cape...

This week, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee approved the Communications, Consumer Choice and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006, sponsored by Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). If passed by the full Congress, this massive telecom bill will bring consumers significant benefits, espe...

Five major Internet service companies on Tuesday announced that they are joining with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to launch a US$1 million campaign against child exploitation on the Internet. AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, EarthLink and United Online will fund a new Technology C...

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