Articles by Katherine Noyes

Battle-weary Intel emerged from the price-war trenches Tuesday to report that its profits increased 44 percent and revenues were up 8 percent in the second quarter With revenues of US$8.7 billion and net income of $1.3 billion for the quarter, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker also reported that operating income increased 26 percent to $1.35 ...

Harry Potter may have the Marauder's Map to show him where his friends are, but Sprint customers will soon have Loopt to help them find and connect with each other Mountain View, Calif.-based Loopt announced Tuesday that it has launched its namesake service on Sprint technology, using the GPS (Global Positioning System) capabilities on select Sprin...

Firefox is gaining ground in Europe, according to a report released Monday by French Web analytics firm XiTi Monitor, and at least some of that progress seems to be coming at the expense of Internet Explorer Mozilla's Firefox accounted for nearly 28 percent of the browser market in Europe in the first week of July, XiTi reported, compared with 24 p...

As the July 15 deadline for new Internet radio royalty rates to take effect sailed by in relative peace, most Internet radio webcasters remained up and running following initial results of compromise talks late last week between webcasters and SoundExchange Most recently, SoundExchange, the arm of the Recording Industry Association of America that ...

There's no doubt that the technologies have arrived to make it possible for individual citizens to participate in the legislative process "We've already seen a shift in both software and the media where individual content is key and any one very talented coder or blogger can impact an industry," Amanda McPherson, director of marketing for the Linux...

In a momentous move to end a long-standing rivalry, Intel and One Laptop per Child (OLPC) announced Friday that the chip giant has climbed on board the nonprofit group's effort to produce low-cost laptop computers for developing nations OLPC aims to bring laptops and learning opportunities to the most remote areas and poorest children of the world,...

The northeastern United States will suffer severe consequences from global warming if efforts are not made to stop it soon, according to a new report that focuses on the impact of warming on the region New England and surrounding states are traditionally known for their dramatic seasons and picturesque terrain, but if climate change hits as it is e...

There's no doubt that terrorist organizations are making full use of the Web today to recruit, train, mobilize, publicize and raise funds, but finding and ultimately prosecuting them is no simple matter However, with fleeting URLs and anonymous communications, online terrorist activities are an ever-shifting landscape....

It's probably safe to say that most Americans, at one time or another, have felt they could do a better job of governing the nation than their elected officials. It may even be safe, in fact, to say that that has never been more true than it is today "Bush's approval ratings are as low as it's possible for a president to go, but they're still sligh...

In what could be a blow to rival social networking sites, venture capital firmBay Partners on Wednesday launched a program to fund developers who write applications specifically forFacebook Dubbed the "AppFactory," the program will grant awards of US$25,000 to $250,000 to Facebook developers using a fast-track approval process. The company hopes to...

Cisco Systems, EMC and Microsoft have formed an alliance to facilitate the protection and sharing of sensitive government information The Secure Information Sharing Architecture (SISA) Alliance, which also includes Liquid Machines, Swan Island Networks and Titus Labs, aims to develop IT architectures that permit only authorized personnel access to ...

Imagery on Google Earth revealed a new Chinese submarine to the public eye for the first time, according to a strategic security blogger with the Federation of American Scientists "A commercial satellite image appears to have captured China's new nuclear ballistic missile submarine," Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project for ...

Microsoft will release six security updates next week as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday update, the company announced Thursday Three of the updates being rolled out on Tuesday have been labeled "critical," two were called "important" and one was named "moderate" in importance. They are for vulnerabilities in Office, Windows and the .Net framewor...

There's no denying that the Internet has changed the world for both good and bad, but few elements of its dark side inspire more fear than its use by terrorists Observers around the world were horrified when a video of the 2002 beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl was disseminated on the Web, and other gruesome images have followed. It may...

Officials from Motorola are working with authorities in China to determine what caused a cell phone explosion that killed a 22-year-old Chinese man Xiao Jinpeng, a welder at the Yingpan Iron Ore Dressing Plant in Jinta county in western China's Gansu province, was killed on June 19 when the battery in his cell phone exploded, according to an Associ...

If one were to conduct a survey of technology publications over the past decade or so, it's a good bet there would be at least one instance in each of those years in which someone declared that "this is the year of biometrics." Full of promise but long constrained by a diverse set of obstacles, biometrics -- or the use of body or physical character...

The European Commission has asked major Hollywood movie studios to provide information about their choices of high-definition DVD formats as part of an informal examination for the possibility of antitrust activity The two competing standards -- HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc -- have each won exclusive support from different studios, causing concern that ...

From this day forward, consumers who purchase cable TV subscriptions will no longer be forced to lease integrated set-top boxes provided by their cable operators Instead, as a result of a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that took effect July 1, cable operators must now provide consumers with set-top boxes that include a slot f...

The Microsoft vs. Google rivalry took a bizarre turn Thursday in the blogosphere as speculation and controversy ran rife about a memo purportedly leaked from Microsoft featuring the impressions of an ex-Google employee about Google's work culture Apparently in response to a request from a Microsoft recruiter, the former Googler details the work-har...

Genome researchers have successfully transformed one bacterial species into another by replacing all of its DNA, according to a report published Thursday Biologists at the J. Craig Venter Institute transplanted the entire genome, or set of DNA, from one species of Mycoplasma bacteria into another. About three days later, the DNA from the first bact...