InsideTech

Google could be heading for a showdown with Sun over the way Android, Google's new mobile phone software platform, handles Java.

More than 50% of people polled admit they have stolen WiFi Internet access

The heat is on server virtualization startup Virtual Iron to move from emerging player to market mover.

At Alaska Airlines (ALK) in Seattle, Senior Vice-President of Information Technology Services Robert Reeder is crafting his 2008 technology budget with one eye on competitors and the other on the economy. So he's got to account not only for rivals, including Delta Air Lines (DAL), but also lofty oil prices and lingering fallout from the summer stock slump and real estate ...

Amazon.com is expected to unveil its long-awaited e-book reader at a media event Monday in New York, according to CNet Networks's technology news site. Word of the Kindle, as the device is called, made its way onto blogs more than a year ago, but the Web retailer has remained mum on details. CNet reported that the reader will cost $399 and ...

Are you on the digital A-list? It's no longer enough to get invited to exclusive conferences or be asked to join professional organizations—many movers and shakers are taking their hobnobbing online, where a new crop of social networks aim to keep out the riff-raff by demanding credentials at the virtual door. As MySpace (NWS), LinkedIn, and Facebook have expanded to people ...

There's no question that blogs are multiplying in cyberspace. Now they're infiltrating businesses, too, even if the IT departments haven't sanctioned their implementations.

As users of Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking sites pile up hundreds, even thousands, of "friends," several commentators and news articles have cautioned that there is a natural limit to a friendship circle.

Want to know why FaceBook, MySpace and YouTube may not be dominant social-networking sites two years from now? Check out the proliferation of social networking sites that are cropping up to herd Web users into what Trip Chowdhry, analyst at Global Equities Securities, calls "micro social sites." Chowdhry believes that as Web users increasingly engage with one another online, sharing comments, ...

SEATTLE - The 80-gigabyte Zune media player Microsoft Corp. launched Tuesday has sold out across the Web, to the dismay of online shoppers and delight of the world's largest software maker. "Anyone know where I can get a Cabbage Patch Doll ... er ... I mean Zune?" asks an Amazon.com Inc. customer listed as Paul Taylor on the Web retailer's message ...

Within Silicon Valley, Yahoo! (YHOO) has a reputation for being bureaucratic and slow to innovate, especially in contrast to rival Google (GOOG). To infuse itself with startup energy, Yahoo began an offsite incubator late last year called Brickhouse (BusinessWeek, Feb. 26). Its job is to shorten the time it takes to bring new ideas to market. "The goal is to take ...

Streamlined IT is competitive IT. Here's how to use risk to solidify your policy management approach.

The role of the CIO is at a critical point of change. It's time for CIOs to step up -- or step back.

At Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ) Page Mill Road complex in Palo Alto, Calif., in the basement beneath the meticulously preserved offices of founders William Hewlett and David Packard, is a cavernous room that has the feel of a chaotic startup. Tables and chairs are strewn about and a giant, makeshift screen takes up an entire wall, even wrapping around a corner. HP projectors ...

EarthLink Inc., which has been a chief evangelist for blanketing cities with wireless Internet service, said Friday that it plans to consider "strategic alternatives" for that business. The company "decided that making significant further investments in this business could be inconsistent with our objective of maximizing shareholder value," Chief Executive Rolla P. Huff said in a statement. Huff in August said ...

Consumers chafe at having only two choices - phone line and cable - for high-speed Internet service. For businesses, there are often even fewer options - the offerings of the phone company - due to the limitations of cable. That's changing, at least in major cities. Internet service providers that use wireless technology to bypass the phone companies' near-monopoly now appear ...

WASHINGTON - A federal judge questioned the Veterans Affairs Department's computer security and ruled Friday that lawsuits can go forward over the theft of computer equipment containing data on 26.5 million veterans. U.S. District Judge James Robertson dismissed several aspects of the case but said the three lawsuits sufficiently made the claim that the agency failed to safeguard personal information, as ...

A rebuilt World War II code-cracking computer developed to intercept Nazi messages lost to a desktop computer Friday in a contest to decipher an encrypted radio message. The challenge marked the first time the Colossus machine had been used since former Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered models of the top secret computer destroyed, according to Britain's National Museum of Computing, which ...

Data breaches, Vista, spam, and the professionalization of cybercrime top the security firm's list of the year's security perils.

They're well beyond bells and whistles: Advertisers are flashing, honking, slithering, and sometimes delivering malware to get your attention.