Clint Boulton

Using Napster’s months-old claim that blocking certain songs from file-swappers was technically impossible as a hammer, EMusic.com Inc. became the first of what could be multiple firms to sue the harried company for vicarious copyright infringement and unfair competition. The complaint was filed Tuesday on the same battleground where all of the Napster-versus-RIAA battles have […]

CenterSpan Communications Corp., the Intel Capital portfolio firm that picked up Scour.com after it filed for bankruptcy last year October, enlisted the help of some digital music and film outfits Tuesday to beta test the pending subscription service. Financial terms of the agreements were not disclosed, but EMusic, Moonshine Music, Crush Media and Management, FILMSPEED […]

Microsoft Corp. Monday debuted the core of its Open Tools Platform Visual Studio .NET, which was created to help developers and vendors build applications and services using such standards as XML, SOAP and UDDI. As promised months earlier, Visual Studio.NET sports an open automation model, allowing Web developers to customize and integrate the development environment […]

The National Football League Monday blocked an offer from ESPN.com to continue producing nfl.com. The issue was first reported in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal, but the paper was unable to gather the reason for the professional football league’s rejection. The NFL said the deal on the table was pegged at $250 […]

Napster Friday made the latest attempt to make good with the labels that accused it of enabling mass file-swapping by telling the U.S. District Court of Northern California that it would block users from accessing more than a million files. While technology experts had said in the past that this is nearly impossible to do […]

In a continuation of the torrid hammering of the e-consulting sector, Norwalk, Conn.-based Modem Media cut 10 percent, or 95 staffers from its global 950-member workforce. The outfit, which sports offices in New York City, San Francisco, Toronto, London, Paris, Munich, Hong Kong and Sao Paulo, will close its Tokyo unit as part of a […]

In a surprising decision, VeriSign Inc. and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Thursday said they had ironed out a deal in which VeriSign will cede control over .org and .net suffixes in exchange for keeping rights to manage .com names. Good until 2007, the deal inked between ICANN and VeriSign, which holds […]

Yes, thin racks are in and Network Engines Inc. wants to take advantage with a new line of “cooler” rack servers that aim to improve reliability. The server appliance specialist Wednesday rolled out WebEngine Sierra, the first 1.75-inch high platform in a new line of products that feature advanced thermal cooling to repel maximum heating. […]

Microsoft Corp. Wednesday offered a corporate preview release of Office XP, the latest version of its desktop application suite. Through the Corporate Preview Program, more than 500,000 corporate customers may preview the improved productivity of what is supposed to be the software maker’s most collaborative desktop application to date. Prior to Wednesday, Office XP beta […]

At least one player in the beleaguered consulting services market can rejoice that it has been borne up by a savior. Open source developer Red Hat Inc. Tuesday grabbed Atlanta-based consulting firm Planning Technologies Inc. (PTI) for $47 million in stock. Armed with more than 200 engineers and consultants, PTI’s forte is infrastructure consulting for […]

Aspect Communications Corp., a San Jose, Calif.-based customer relationship portal provider, did away with 6 percent of its workforce, or 160 employees Tuesday morning in the hope of returning to profitability. The action will yield a one-time charge to its first-quarter results woth $4 to $6 million. Aspect also plans to consolidate certain facilities. Beatriz […]

The Internet industry Monday learned wireless security protocols are not all that secure, as researchers at the University of California at Berkeley found that hackers could crack the Wired Equivalent Privacy algorithm, part of the 802.11b schema that prevents people from picking up wireless signals. 802.11b is used in home networks, on college campuses, corporate […]