David Needle

The European Commission has issued a complaint against Apple and major record companies over the way music is sold via Apple’s online iTunes store. The EC’s complaint focuses on the fact that European consumers can only buy from iTunes in their specific country of residence. “Consumers are thus restricted in their choice of where to […]

Worldwide semiconductor sales in February were $20.09 billion, a 6.5 percent dip over the January period of $21.48 billion, according to a report this week by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Sales were down 8.3 percent in the Americas in February versus January. However, the February numbers do represent a 4.2 percent increase worldwide from […]

In the old secret agent spoof TV show Get Smart, agent Maxwell Smart would always ask his boss to use the Cone of Silence to ensure security. The running gag was it took forever for them to get in position and wait for the cone to be lowered, and then Smart would start talking about […]

Reporter’s Notebook: Infoworld, R.I.P. That’s not quite true. IDG, publisher of the pioneering weekly tech magazine, has announced that April 2 will be the last print edition of the magazine. But it will continue to publish online. Infoworld was one of the first technology publications dating back to its start in 1979. I love the […]

TJX Companies said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week that as many as 47.5 million customer records were stolen, making it the largest data breach of its kind. The filing comes about two months after TJX released a report revealing evidence of intrusions of its customer database dating back […]

SAN JOSE, Calif. – “The market for mobile devices is about to undergo a dramatic fragmentation.” No one really argued this provocative statement in what was mostly a chummy discussion between four leading big name venture capitalists. Roger McNamee, co-founder and managing director of Elevation Partners, made the fragmentation comment as part the Churchill Club’s […]

HP today plans a series of announcements aimed at the small to medium sized business in the hopes of raising its profile in the SMB market. The news is the latest in a series of campaigns by HP and other major computer vendors to try and win more sales in the potentially lucrative, but often […]

Fewer than two months after Michael Dell resumed control of his company, things at headquarters are shifting again. Today Dell announced a new division focused on the needs of businesses operating “hyper-scale computing environments.” While Dell  is best known as a provider of computer products to the masses, the new Dell Data Center Solutions division […]

Sun Microsystems generated a lot of publicity with its innovative portable data center dubbed Blackbox, complete with a roadshow to show it off to potential customers. Since it fits in a standard shipping container, Blackbox adds mobility to what is generally considered a fixed-location computing resource, the data center. But now Blackbox has a competitor […]

You might take using a computer for granted, but for millions of people, it’s a challenge. One in five individuals, or over 54 million Americans, has a disability that makes it difficult to see a computer screen or navigate the Web, according to IBM. Specialized, usually expensive, software and hardware solutions have long existed. And […]

SAN MATEO, Calif. – Blogs, RSS feeds, cool mashups  of disparate applications, Web 2.0 . These aren’t just buzzwords for the mainstream consumer Web, but technologies making an inevitable march onto corporate desktops. So said a panel of computer company executives at the Dow Jones-sponsored Web Ventures conference here today. “I would say that most […]

Call it phase two. Google first launched its personalized home page for users almost two years ago. Today, the search giant is adding to the personalization options with its first set of “dynamic themes.” The six themes, or “skins,” are the first of many Google  plans to release. “Beach, City,” “Sweet Dreams,” “Teahouse,” “Seasonal Scape,” […]