Articles by Katherine Noyes

IBM on Thursday unveiled a prototype green optical network technology that promises to enable the high-speed transmission of huge files with very little power consumption By using light instead of wires to send information, the new technology could allow the transmission of 8 trillion bits (terabits) per second of information -- equivalent to about...

Users of many Microsoft Windows Live services worldwide were hit by an outage on Tuesday that lasted most of the day before Microsoft managed to fix it The issue affected the Windows Live ID log-in process and for the most part spared customers who were already logged in, Windows Live product manager Samantha McManus said....

Imagine what you'd get if you crossed Gumby with a smartphone, and you've got some idea of what a new, nanotech handset from Nokia could be like The new Morph, which was jointly developed by the Nokia Research Center and the University of Cambridge in England, is a bendable, flexible and stretchable device that can be folded into pocket size and us...

High-tech rumors sometimes amount to little more than hot air, but a new one circulating about Google doesn't involve hot air -- it involves hydrogen That's hydrogen-filled balloons, to be exact, and it appears to be more than a rumor. Google is considering partnering with or even buying a company that provides such balloons as a way to bring wirel...

As myriad game makers displayed their wares at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, 10 leading companies in the industry announced on Tuesday that they have teamed up to form a new alliance The nonprofit PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) aims to unite hardware and software creators, game developers, publishers and others committed to the PC gam...

HP on Wednesday reached a financial settlement with the New York Times and four reporters who were spied upon as part of a scandal dating back to 2006 that brought about the downfall of the company's chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn, along with several high-ranking executives The reporters were BusinessWeek's Peter Burrows, Ben Elgin and Roger Crockett...

Microsoft needs to come up with a better offer if it hopes to win Yahoo's acceptance of its unsolicited takeover bid, Yahoo's second-largest shareholder said on Sunday "It has been reported that Microsoft has been discussing a combination with Yahoo for well over a year, and that it had been prepared to pay over (US)$40 per share previously," wrote...

Raising the bar a notch or two higher in its rivalry with Android and the Open Handset Alliance, a newly enlarged LiMo Foundation on Monday rolled out the first LiMo-compatible handsets and announced its software development kit (SDK) strategy Orange and Access are among nine new members that have just recently joined the LiMo Foundation, which unv...

Microsoft may have set its acquisitive sights on Yahoo, but that apparently doesn't mean it's neglecting its own digital advertising platform. In fact, the company on Tuesday demonstrated seven new technologies from Microsoft adCenter Labs Included among the technologies Microsoft unveiled were algorithms in content analysis and computer vision for...

Just a few short months after Google and the Open Handset Alliance announced Android, the LiMo Foundation on Monday began rolling out its own, competing Linux-based software platform for mobile devices The first release of the LiMo Platform will be available in March, and the application programming interfaces (APIs) are immediately available to de...

Quad-core processors from AMD and a hybrid-format optical drive are among the highlights of two new desktop PCs released by Gateway on Wednesday The Gateway GM5664 and GT5662 both feature an AMD Phenom Processor and DirectX 10 Technology, thereby enhancing the entertainment and performance capabilities of each line. A new Hybrid-SuperMulti drive in...

At the DEMO exhibition in Palm Desert, Calif., Livescribe on Monday debuted its much-anticipated Pulse smartpen Technically a computer within a pen, the Pulse smartpen simultaneously captures handwriting and audio, and synchronizes them together. The device is also a general purpose computer with rich I/O capabilities and a Java development environ...

Storm clouds are roiling anew over Washington this week as the impending expiration of the Protect America Act brings surveillance legislation to the forefront of congressional attention once again Not least among the rumbles of thunder was an address delivered Wednesday by Vice President Dick Cheney at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think...

Not to be bested by the likes of Apple and Motorola, Dell and Microsoft are joining forces to create (Product) Red PCs that will help African women and children with HIV/AIDS The PCs will be crimson versions of Dell's XPS One line running Microsoft Windows Vista, and as much as US$80 of the purchase price will be donated to The Global Fund via (Pro...

In the wake of several incidents in which batteries in AT&T U-verse network cabinets exploded or caught fire, AT&T is replacing 17,000 of the batteries in its streetside devices, the company confirmed Thursday The batteries were manufactured by Avestor, a Canadian company based in Quebec that closed its doors in late 2006....

Hackers are targeting users of some older versions of Microsoft Excel with a zero-day exploit that could compromise their data, according to a security advisory Microsoft issued Tuesday The vulnerability is in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, along with Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2002, Microsoft Office Exc...

Security providerWebroot on Tuesday released its namesake e-mail security Software as a Service solution Targeted at small to medium-sized businesses, Webroot's new offering delivers better protection, lower total cost of ownership, and better value than perimeter security appliances or software, the company said....

When Warner Bros. Entertainment moved all its high-definition eggs into the Blu-ray basket a week and a half ago, tremors could be felt throughout the digital entertainment world HD DVD champion Toshiba canceled a press event in response, and all eyes fell on Paramount and Universal, the last major movie studios still committed to HD DVD....

The Internet has become a key place to get news about the upcoming presidential elections, with almost a quarter of Americans now learning about the campaigns online on a regular basis That's one finding from a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Internet & American Life Project on campaign news and polit...

Researchers at Advanced Cell Technology have successfully created human embryonic stem cell lines without destroying human embryos The new technique, published in a report Thursday in the journal Cell Stem Cell, involves removing single cells from embryos using a technique similar to preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a procedure already used...