David Miller

Online auctioneer eBay is an Internet phenomenon, a global garage sale that has forever changed how people think about the stuff they have stashed in their attics, closets and basements. One key to the company’s success is its ratings system. Users post positive or negative feedback, which results in a score that helps members determine […]

Hunting for something on America Online’s search site? Beware. You may be converted. And it’s not a religious thing, although advertisers do seem to see it that way. “Conversion” in marketing speak refers to people who start off as window shoppers and are transformed into customers. According to a study conducted by WebSideStory, a Web […]

Apple addicts who have been eagerly awaiting the mobile version of Intel-inside Macs can break out their credit cards now. Apple announced on Monday that it will begin shipping the new 15-inch MacBook Pro notebook computer this week. The first, top-of-the-line, Mac mobile will sport a 2.0 Intel Core Duo processor. Apple said the new […]

Microsoft’s Windows Media technologies will soon be integrated into a number of Motorola’s mobile phone/music handsets, allowing users to transfer downloaded music from their PCs (via a USB cable) to their phones. Motorola and Microsoft announced the collaboration at 3GSM, an annual meet-and-greet for those who conjure up new ways for people to communicate and […]

Apple’s announcement Tuesday that it plans to roll out yet another version of its popular music player and drop the cost of several existing machines means that some owners of iPods may want to upgrade. When they do, a Boston-area startup called NextWorth.com wants to help them unload their old machines. Assuming the iPod is […]

It was the cyber-slap heard around the world. BMW Germany, or an as-yet unnamed someone who worked on its Web site, apparently engaged in a bit of heavy-handed text tinkering to boost the site’s rankings on Google. The search giant responded on Feb. 6 by yanking BMW.de from Google’s index of Web sites. Search for […]

For 364 days a year, we avoid ads. We zap them off of our computer and TV screens, filter them from our e-mail, and pay extra for ad-free content. But on Super Bowl Sunday, advertisers will have their time in the spotlight. Half of the anticipated 130 million viewers of this year’s Super Bowl will […]

Film critics, take note. It turns out that predicting a movie’s success or failure at the Sundance Film Festival isn’t so complicated that a computer can’t do it. Unspam Technologies, an anti-spam consulting firm based in Park City, Utah, programmed a computer to sort through 32 contenders in the drama and documentary categories at this […]

You’ve got music, movies, multimedia and a brand new home page — if you’re planning to buy a new Sony Vaio this spring. America Online and Sony announced on Thursday that the two companies are partnering to provide a customized portal for users of Sony’s Vaio PCs. The portal page will provide Vaio users with […]

As if stopping spam weren’t challenging enough, imagine trying to use e-mail filtering software to pick the winners and losers at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. That’s what Unspam Technologies, an anti-spam consulting firm based in Park City, Utah, home of Sundance, tried to do. Unspam used a modified version of POPFile, an open-source program […]

Google News, the popular, automated news service that finally made it out of beta, has rolled out two new features designed to help readers find the news that interests them. Users can now sign up for a personalized news aggregator that serves up headlines designed to match their personal reading tastes. They can also click […]