Articles by Katherine Noyes

As the iPod world held its breath Tuesday in anticipation of Apple's mysterious press event scheduled for Wednesday, a Microsoft executive indicated that the competing Zune platform could soon include a phone Speaking at a Citigroup global technology conference, Mindy Mount, chief financial officer of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division,...

One might argue that China and the Internet are both like high-speed trains. Both are growing at an extremely rapid pace, and both are apparently unstoppable global economic forces that are reshaping the economic landscape. Unfortunately, one might also argue that they are on a collision course "While the Chinese government has embraced the Interne...

A new service from AT&T aims to give parents more control over their children's cell phone usage, the company announced Tuesday AT&T Smart Limits for Wireless is a Web-based service that allows a parent to set usage limits on a child's talk time, text messages, instant messages and downloads, as well as manage how and when a child can communicate, ...

When News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media unit reported its first annual profit earlier this year, a message was sent to naysayers everywhere about the future of online advertising Growth in advertising and search revenue at MySpace was largely responsible for the unit's profitability, and the result was a figurative sweeping away of many skeptics' c...

The fact that the name "Google" is often used interchangeably with the verb "search" today speaks volumes about the current state of the search market "Right now it's Google's game to lose," Kevin Lee, executive chairman and cofounder of search marketing company Didit, told the E-Commerce Times. "They are synonymous with search, and thus far they'v...

It's been a rumor-filled week leading into Labor Day, and Thursday was no exception, with reports surfacing that Microsoft might be considering purchasing BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) It's not the first time such a rumor has circulated, but it still had the effect of driving RIM's stock prices up on Wall Street. RIM shares increased US...

TomTom unveiled a new top of the line in its GPS (Global Positioning System) product set Thursday featuring the addition of voice recognition The TomTom GO 920 T global positioning system comes preinstalled with complete maps of Europe, the United States and Canada on 4 GB of internal memory, and it includes new enhanced positioning technology for ...

In what's likely an effort to defend itself against the wildly hyped iPhone phenomenon, cell phone giant Nokia on Wednesday unveiled several new wireless devices and services, including a music-download offering to rival iTunes Signaling a shift in focus away from hardware and toward software and services, Nokia debuted four new devices optimized f...

Pano Logic announced Tuesday an all-hardware, no-software desktop device designed specifically for server-based desktop virtualization The device connects keyboard, mouse, display, audio and USB (Universal Serial Bus) peripherals over an existing IP (Internet protocol) network to a copy of Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows XP running on a virtuali...

Intel has upgraded its vPro processor technology for desktop PCs with a host of new security features that protect against viruses, hacker attacks and other threats, the company announced Monday The upgraded vPro, formerly code-named "Weybridge," combines an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with an Intel Q35 Express chipset and several technology innovat...

A server problem at Microsoft over the weekend caused the company's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation system to falsely accuse legitimate users of Windows Vista and XP of running pirated software, resulting in the disbanding of some features for those users until the problem was fixed The problem began around 8 p.m. Friday, causing users t...

SoundExchange has agreed to implement a cap on the royalty rates large Internet radio webcasters must pay, the organization announced Thursday TheThe Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) recently ruled that webcasters must pay a US$500 minimum fee per station or channel, regardless of the overall number of stations or channels they stream. The new arrange...

The Internet is beginning to overtake TV as the preferred medium of consumers around the globe, according to a new survey sponsored by IBM In the survey of more than 2,400 households in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Australia, the IBM Institute for Business Value found that 19 percent of consumers said they spend six or more...

Although Google didn't get everything it wanted regarding rules for the Federal Communications Commission's upcoming auction of 700 MHz (megahertz) wireless spectrum, it will likely participate in the auction anyway, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Tuesday Asked by a T-Mobile executive at a conference if Google would still participate, Schmidt told th...

Google Earth turned its gaze upward Wednesday with the debut of a new feature that allows users to view the best images of the sky captured by astronomers around the globe Called "Sky," the new feature lets Google Earth users view and navigate through 200 million galaxies. The images presented are a combination of those from numerous scientific thi...

Adobe Systems has upgraded its Flash Player with support for the H.264 video-encoding standard and improved audio-compression technology, the company announced Tuesday Dubbed "Moviestar," the upgrade permits the playback of video encoded using H.264, the same standard deployed in Blu-ray and HD DVD high-definition video players for increased compre...

The battle over the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping efforts escalated Monday as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee threatened to hold White House officials in contempt for flouting an already-extended deadline to respond to a June subpoena The subpoena by the Senate Judiciary Committee requested documents providing the leg...

In the latest report from the front lines in the high-definition format wars, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures have both jumped with both feet into the HD DVD camp, the companies announced Monday The commitment by the companies, both of which are owned by Viacom, will include all movies distributed by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictur...

Twenty-five years ago Friday, the very first compact disc was produced by Royal Philips Electronics at a Philips factory in Langenhagen, Germany. It was Aug. 17, 1982, and the CD was "The Visitors" by ABBA Fast forward to today, and it's hard to imagine life before CDs were around. At the same time, though, it's not entirely clear what the next 25 ...

HP brought joy to the hearts of many investors Thursday when it reported revenues for the third quarter that blew away analyst expectations by more than US$1 billion Net revenue increased 16 percent over the year-ago period to $25.4 billion, while net earnings reached $1.8 billion, up 29 percent over the same quarter a year ago. Earnings per share ...