David Needle

After an initial flurry of interest, can WolframAlpha keep up its momentum in the face of Google’s continued dominance and Microsoft’s recent Bing push? The search engine’s high-profile launch in May got a lot of attention for its innovative approach to search — but perhaps became just as notable for what it couldn’t do. Unlike […]

At a time of raging debate over what the government should do to improve health care, an IBM-sponsored survey set for release next week indicates the Web is vastly underutilized. Less than one-fifth of the 1,000 patients surveyed said their family doctor uses a Web site to communicate with patients. But among patients visiting the […]

Facebook’s vision of becoming a “utility” that offers activities to keep people online for hours could set it on a collision course with the Web’s giants. In recent days, the No.1 social networking company revamped its search engine and bought a start-up that some call a rival to hot micro-blogging service Twitter. It is also […]

Giant Microsoft doesn’t often find itself having to play the feisty upstart. But that’s the situation when it comes to its mobile application storefront. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is the big kahuna when it comes to online storefronts, having leveraged its iTunes music store expertise to develop the world’s most successful mobile storefront, the iPhone App […]

Fans of the potty-mouthed animated series South Park can find the “classic” pilot episode on the Web for a limited, 30-day period. The Web version of this “rarely-seen, original hand-made” pilot episode includes four minutes of additional footage that never made it to air when it was first shown in 1997. Like me, you’re probably […]

Job-seeking in this 21st century recession may just have gone viral and mobile. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, about 6.7 million workers have been laid off according to latest statistics — at a time the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have exploded, drawing millions of […]

Here Comes Everybody author Clay Shirky. Photo: David Needle SAN JOSE, Calif. — The one thing the rise of social media’s proven is most of us aren’t couch potatoes. In a wide ranging analysis of social media trends, author Clay Shirky said for years we’ve been operating on a “lousy understandings of human behavior.” Shirky, […]

What tech skills are in demand? One measure comes from Elance, a global online workplace of contract jobs. The company’s monthly Top 100 Online Work Index for August, set for official release Tuesday, shows a big jump in several tech-related positions. The Index ranks skills in demand by Elance clients. Graphic Design comes in at […]

After relying on a pacemaker for 20 years, Carol Kasyjanski has become the first American recipient of a wireless pacemaker that allows her doctor to monitor her health from afar — over the Internet. When Kasyjanski heads to St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, New York, for a routine check-up, about 90 percent of the work […]

Any hopes President Obama has of improving the effectiveness of the government’s cybersecurity efforts took another hit today. Mischel Kwon, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT), submitted her resignation letter this week, according to a story today in the Washington Post. US-CERT is the operational arm of […]

A European Union official will tell antitrust regulators that they failed to consider “potentially exculpatory” evidence in a ruling against chip maker Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The European Commission in May ruled that Intel had engaged in illegal actions to squeeze arch-rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) (NYSE: AMD) out […]