Articles by Katherine Noyes

More than two years after the filing of the first complaint, Take-Two Interactive Software announced Friday the proposed settlement of all U.S. consumer class action lawsuits over the "Hot Coffee" modification that could be used to enable sexual content in its "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" video game The settlement stipulates that class members w...

R&B recording artist Alicia Keys' MySpace page was hacked not once but twice this week, according to Exploit Prevention Labs The first attack, likely done early in the week, affected visitors viewing virtually any part of Keys' page, Exploit Prevention's Chief Technical Officer Roger Thompson reported on Thursday. For visitors running unpatched Win...

There's little doubt that Google and the other members of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) made one of the biggest technology marketing splashes in recent memory on Monday with their introduction of Android. What kind of lasting impact the platform will have on the cellular industry, however, is less certain Android is billed as the first truly open...

With Google's Android rollout this week, hand in hand with the creation of the Open Handset Alliance, the Linux community has had plenty to discuss regarding the platform, its openness, and what it would all mean for wireless users There was considerable debate on Slashdot, as you might expect, focusing on whether Android is essentially more of a p...

Flanked by landmark partners including Coca-Cola and Microsoft, Facebook on Tuesday unveiled a new advertising system that allows marketers to tap into the power of personal connections on the wildly popular social networking site Facebook Ads provides a way for businesses to connect with users and target advertising to the particular audiences the...

The holiday season may still be more than a month away, but you can be sure marketers and retailers already have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads Consumers are expected to spend roughly US$48 billion on consumer electronics in the fourth quarter, for example, and almost half of that -- $22 billion -- will come from holiday sales, accor...

At a hearing before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan were forced to defend Yahoo's testimony last year regarding its role in the Chinese government's arrest and jailing of journalist Shi Tao The executives were called on to address allegations by Committee Chairman Tom La...

Samsung has begun sampling new 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch 64 GB solid state drives (SSDs) aimed at enterprise servers and high-end PCs, the company announced Sunday Using a super-fast SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) II/native SATA interface, the drives offer a sequential write speed of 100 MB per second and a sequential read speed of 120 MB...

After months of speculation and rumors about its mobile plans, Google and a raft of supporting companies gathered Monday to announce Android, a new platform billed as the first truly open and comprehensive application for mobile devices The platform is the result of a collaboration including T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola and others through the ...

More than 300 completely new medicines, vaccines and treatments for more than 150 conditions have entered the U.S. market since 1990, with a raft of benefits for consumers The need for many surgeries has been reduced; survival rates are higher; quality of life has improved. Indeed, between 1986 and 2000, the average life expectancy for Americans an...

Eleven robotic vehicles will compete in the final race Saturday of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Challenge event, the group announced Thursday Selected from a group of 35 that participated in qualifying events over the past week or so, the 11 finalists will now have to successfully complete a complex, 60-mile urban cou...

As the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) geared up for its Town Hall meeting at the end of this week focusing on electronic behavioral marketing techniques, privacy advocates banded together to urge the agency to give consumers a way to opt out Specifically, nine privacy organizations have requested that the FTC consider implementing a "Do Not Track" ...

The OpenDocument Foundation, after five years of promoting the OpenDocument Format (ODF) for office applications, is switching direction and embracing a different format ODF, which is overseen by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), has been accepted as an ISO (International Organization for Standardizat...

Sometime in the next two weeks, Google will announce its much anticipated wireless plans, according to a Tuesday report in The Wall Street Journal Specifically, Google will unveil advanced software and services that enable cell phone makers to release "Google-powered" devices sometime in the first half of next year, the Journal reports, citing peop...

Vinton Cerf, known by many as one of the founding fathers of the Internet, will be stepping down at the end of this week as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Cerf, who is also Google's vice president and chief Internet evangelist, has served for three consecutive terms as chairman of ICANN, whi...

Second Life may be a virtual world, but six entrepreneurs operating there have filed a real-life lawsuit against Second Life users who allegedly copied their products The suit was filed last week in Brooklyn federal court against New York resident Thomas Simon, who reportedly goes by the name "Rase Kenzo" in Second Life, as well as 10 other as-yet-...

It's been a contentious few weeks on the Linux blogs, what with the big Microsoft news on Monday as well as a few key product happenings and subsequent evaluation The release of Canonical's Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon on Oct. 18 has been a particularly hot topic. Included in the release, which replaces Feisty Fawn, are streamlined Firefox add-on suppo...

SanDisk filed three patent infringement actions against 25 companies that manufacture, sell and import USB flash drives, CompactFlash cards, multimedia cards, MP3/media players and other removable flash storage products, the company announced Wednesday The actions -- two filed in the United States District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin...

Who's always there for you, has the power to make you laugh or cry, and wants to keep you entertained and engrossed around the clock? Forget your significant other -- for one out of four Americans, the Internet is just as good That's one conclusion of a new poll released Wednesday, which found that a full 24 percent of respondents said the Internet...

Mozilla's revenues for 2006 were up roughly 26 percent from 2005, reaching US$66.8 million, the company said Monday In a report including both the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, the maker of the Firefox browser also said that expenses for the year were just $19.8 million, leaving it with a rosy financial outlook in 2007....