Articles by Katherine Noyes

With an eye toward minimizing its carbon footprint, Wal-Mart Stores will partner with the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) to measure the amount of energy used to create products throughout its supply chain An initial pilot project will focus on seven commonly used product categories -- DVDs, toothpaste, soap, milk, beer, vacuum cleaners and soda --...

As the world watched the progress of the space shuttle Endeavour's mission to the international space station and back last month, it was hard not to suffer from flashbacks to past space disasters The presence of Mission Specialist Barbara Morgan, for one, evoked memories of the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster, since Morgan had served as bac...

When NASA sends astronauts back to the moon, they will likely have pressurized rovers to drive and large-capacity habitation modules to live in, NASA officials reportedly said Thursday Speaking at the Space 2007 Conference of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) in Long Beach, Calif., Doug Cooke, NASA's deputy associate adm...

In what promises to be a precedent-setting case, the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) announced Thursday that it has filed the first ever U.S. copyright infringement lawsuit based on a violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL) The case was filed on behalf of two principal developers of BusyBox against Monsoon Multimedia. BusyBox is a ligh...

President Bush wants to renew and expand the controversial temporary surveillance legislation he rushed into law last month The law, also known as the "Protect America Act," updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by permitting warrantless surveillance of any targets located abroad, even if they are communicating with someone in th...

DigitalGlobe successfully launched a sophisticated new satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Tuesday. The satellite, WorldView-1, has the potential to provide a raft of new imagery for geographical databases such as Google Earth The company launched WorldView-1 -- which it says is the most agile commercial satellite ever flown -- a...

Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, Time Warner has no plans to sell AOL, Chairman and CEO Richard Parsons said Tuesday "We are focused right now on building the best third-party ad platform we can within AOL and at the same time increasing our own inventory," Parsons told analysts at a Goldman Sachs conference....

Just two months after venture capital firm Bay Partners launched a fund for Facebook developers, Facebook itself and two of its backers have done much the same thing with a new US$10 million program Dubbed the "fbFund," the program aims to create continuing incentives for the development of Facebook applications by doling out grants of between $25,...

T-Mobile USA plans to acquire cellular company SunCom Wireless Holdings for US$1.6 billion in cash and assume SunCom's net debt of $800 million, the companies announced Monday The acquisition will extend T-Mobile's network coverage in the southeastern United States and the Caribbean through the addition of SunCom's roughly 1.1 million customers in ...

Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a new law on Thursday banning teenage drivers from using all electronic devices while behind the wheel Beginning July 1, 2008, drivers under 18 will be forbidden from using cell phones, pagers, laptops or other electronic devices while driving. Violations will result in a US$20 fine for the first of...

Less than a month after it launched Sky in Google Earth with astronomical images from around the universe, Google announced on Thursday that it is taking its space fascination a step further by sponsoring a contest to fly to the moon Offered in partnership with the X Prize Foundation, best known for the US$10 million Ansari X Prize for private subo...

With its eye on notebook users and photo-sharing fans, Microsoft on Wednesday rolled out three new wireless mouse products and two new webcams First, citing increasing U.S. retail notebook PC sales, Microsoft unveiled the Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 and the Wireless Notebook Laser Mouse 7000, both designed to make notebook computing more producti...

Environmental advocates won a major victory Wednesday when Vermont U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions ruled that states including Vermont and California can regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles In his 240-page ruling, Sessions rejected auto manufacturers' and dealers' claims that federal law preempts state rules and that the technol...

With a few notable exceptions -- the Internet, primarily -- advertising spending has declined for the second quarter in a row, according to a report released Tuesday from TNS Media Intelligence Total advertising expenditures in the first half of 2007 slipped by 0.3 percent to US$72.59 billion versus the same period in 2006, TNS found. The outlook f...

Yahoo and Bebo have forged a strategic partnership focusing on display advertising, Yahoo Answers and a branded toolbar, the companies announced Wednesday Under the agreement, Yahoo will sell the majority of Bebo's display advertising in the United Kingdom and Ireland, reaching about 11.6 million users, according to comScore estimates. Bebo is a Sa...

L'Oreal has begun legal action against eBay in four European countries for the online auction site's alleged role in allowing the sale of counterfeit cosmetics and perfumes As of press time, eBay had received writs from L'Oreal in England, Belgium, France and Germany, Nichola Sharpe, an eBay company spokesperson, told the E-Commerce Times. Other me...

SanDisk on Monday announced a new, pencil-thin video MP3 player that appears likely to go head-to-head with Apple's newly upgraded iPod nano The new Sansa View combines MP3 playback capabilities with full-motion video support, a large screen, long battery life and generous capacity. Perhaps even more notable, the device also boasts an optional 8 GB...

Adobe Systems on Thursday offered a sneak preview of its upcoming Flash Media Server 3, which will be released in the first quarter of next year The new release will offer nearly double the performance of its predecessor, Adobe said, as it combines traditional streaming media capabilities with a flexible environment for creating and delivering inte...

A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a man who allegedly used peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks to obtain individuals' tax returns, credit reports and bank statements in order to commit identity theft and fraud Gregory Kopiloff, 35, of Seattle allegedly used file-sharing software including LimeWire to steal a variety of sensitive inform...

Advocates of net neutrality suffered a blow to their cause Thursday, when the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division issued a filing cautioning against regulations that could hamper development of the Internet Prohibiting broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) from charging content providers directly for faster or more reliable servic...