Articles by Katherine Noyes

After a brief protest late last week, Amazon now says it will give in and sell e-books from Macmillan at the higher prices the publisher has requested "Macmillan, one of the 'big six' publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging (US)$12.99 to $14.99 for...

Following a month of testing at no cost to customers, Microsoft's Windows Azure platform will become a paid service on Monday. The Azure platform is a set of cloud computing services that can be used together or independently on a pay-per-use basis. Originally unveiled in October 2008, the service has been free for customers during the month of Ja...

The Chinese government won't block the use of Google's Android operating system on mobile phones in the country as long as the operating system abides by Chinese laws, a key government official said on Wednesday. "As long as it complies with Chinese laws and regulations, and as long as it has good cooperation with operators ... their use of the sy...

Linux inched ahead in the operating-system arena during the final month of 2009, even as Windows and Mac gave up some ground That's according to research firm Net Applications, which recently released its Market Share report covering operating systems in December....

The Chinese government issued a series of statements over the weekend that defended the country's Internet censorship policies and accused the United States of maintaining a "double standard" when it comes to online surveillance The comments, made through the state news agency Xinhua, were in part a reaction to statements made by Secretary of Stat...

American companies need to take a stand against censorship on the Internet, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Thursday in a speech on Internet freedom delivered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C "Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere," Clinton said, "and in America, American companies need to make...

Authors and publishers of select Kindle e-books will soon be able to earn royalties as high as 70 percent of a title's list price, net of delivery costs, under a new plan announced by Amazon on Wednesday The new option will be available starting June 30 for in-copyright Kindle books whose list price is both between US$2.99 and $9.99 and at least 20...

New software from Misys Open Source Solutions (MOSS) promises to provide what could be the world's first fully open source, standards-based platform for exchanging health information. The Misys Connect Exchange software was demonstrated and successfully tested last week in Chicago at IHE Connectathon, the healthcare industry's weeklong interoperab...

Following the news last week of a series of hack attacks on Google and other companies, the governments of France and Germany both issued warnings on Friday suggesting that Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is too dangerous to use Microsoft on Thursday acknowledged that a vulnerability in Internet Explorer was one of several attack mechanisms u...

The discovery of a series of cyberattacks from China targeting Google and other companies has prompted the Internet giant to threaten that it may pull out of the country The "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" on Google's corporate infrastructure resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google, David Drummond, senior vice presiden...

When Google unveiled its wildly hyped Nexus One phone last week, it described the device as more than just another Android smartphone Rather, it dubbed the new handset as one of an emerging class known as "superphones" and "an exemplar of what's possible on mobile phones through Android," as vice president of product management Mario Queiroz put it...

Just a month ago, Facebook overhauled the privacy settings for its 350 million or so users and was targeted in an FTC complaint as a result -- yet company CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday suggested that online privacy has faded in importance in recent years "When we got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was, 'Why w...

Despite long-standing concerns about the health effects of cellphones, a new study suggests that radiation from the devices may actually have a beneficial effect when it comes to Alzheimer's disease Specifically, long-term exposure to the electromagnetic waves associated with cellphone use may actually protect against -- and even reverse -- Alzheim...

AT&T and T-Mobile both announced on Tuesday that they have upgraded their 3G networks with technology enabling faster speeds Specifically, the carriers have both deployed HSPA 7.2 technology at their cell sites across the United States....

Google's Chrome may be a relatively new entrant in the browser arena, but already it's edged past Apple's long-standing Safari to assume the third-place spot That's according to market researcher Net Applications, which recently released year-end data indicating that Chrome now accounts for 4.63 percent of the browser market....

Even as the rumors continue to fly about a tablet computer forthcoming from Apple, Freescale Semiconductor on Monday unveiled its own reference design for a smartbook that will be priced at less than US$200 ...

Chinese-language consumers unwilling or unable to pay the cost of a legitimate copy of Microsoft's Windows XP now have a new alternative: a clone of the operating system that's based on Ubuntu Dubbed "Ylmf OS," the software is available from Rain Forest Wind Guangdong Computer Technology as a free download on a dedicated Web site....

Motorola appears to be gearing up to release its Android-powered "Sholes" handset in China, kicking into high gear the many rumors that have been circulating in the U.S. about the device ...

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, key privacy group, has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission arguing that the privacy changes Facebook made a little more than a week ago were unfair and deceptive "We think this is the most important matter now before the FTC, and the reason is that Facebook has more than 100 million subscri...

The European Commission is concluding its latest antitrust case against Microsoft by accepting the company's promise to offer Windows users a choice of Web browsers, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes announced on Wednesday Specifically, in March Microsoft will issue an update that enables the more than 100 million European users of Windows XP, ...