David Needle

SAN FRANCISCO — Can video conferencing save your company money? The vendors of such wares have been pushing that idea for years – meet online and respond quicker to customer demand while saving on travel costs. Cisco’s Telepresence system and HP’s Halo are among the high-end video conference systems costing more than $100,000. Both companies […]

Sun’s thin client customers are set to receive a little more video muscle today when Sun distributes new firmware for its Sun Ray Line. With earlier versions, the software decoding to transmit video files was done on the server; now with the newer Sun Ray 4 10/08 software, the video software is decoded locally at […]

Google’s in a legal tussle over images again. The search giant said it would appeal two decisions by a German court this week related to the use of thumbnail images in search results. In the first, Google had come under fire for its preview of a picture by photographer Michael Bernhard. In a second case, […]

Has Cisco found its next billion-dollar opportunity? If the winning team of the networking giant’s first annual I-Prize contest has a truly worthwhile idea, the answer could well be yes. The $250,000 prize — given by the networking giant in recognition of the best idea for a new business opportunity — went to a team […]

If you hadn’t heard of MobUI before today, you may not hear much about it going forward. And that’s fine with the company. “I would be surprised if you ever see the MobUI brand as something consumers recognize,” the company’s CEO John Burry, told InternetNews.com. “We’re working with the highest end media companies and we’re […]

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Way, way back in 1981, Apple ran a provocative ad headlined “Welcome IBM. Seriously.” The ad was in response to IBM’s debut of the company’s first personal computer — a market Apple helped pioneer years earlier, and which Big Blue’s entry was set to further legitimize. Apple’s competitors in the mobile […]

SAN JOSE, Calif. — It always seems to come down to the killer app. In personal computer lore, it was spreadsheets (VisiCalc on the Apple II and Lotus 1-2-3 on the IBM PC) that established the early desktop computers as an indispensable business tool. Desktop publishing helped the Macintosh get a foothold with professionals and […]

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A few years back when the Associated Press was mulling whether to make a big investment in mobile content distribution, it came to a somewhat counterintuitive conclusion — to go for the relatively few mobile phones capable of supporting full, rich Web experiences, rather than the far broader market of less-advanced, […]

The revamped Ask.com.Click to enlarge. Source: Ask.com Ask.com unwrapped a major set of improvements to its search engine today as part of its core mission to deliver better results to users more efficiently than the competition — even as it continues to be dwarfed by the likes of ever-growing Google. The site’s enhancements aim to […]

If we ever discover there really is a [Bizarro World](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World), perhaps the role of Apple CEO will be filled by Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. Kallasvuo, the CEO of phone giant Nokia, visited Silicon Valley this week to headline an event titled, “From Cell Phones to Software & Services.” The timing was great since it was the night […]

In its ongoing quest for a bigger share of the search market, Microsoft has unveiled another incentive program designed to get more consumers using its search engine. Consumers who enroll in the SearchPerks promotional program accumulate tickets for any searches they do using Microsoft’s Live Search service. The virtual tickets can be redeemed for prizes, […]

Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka KallasvuoSource: Nokia SANTA CLARA, Calif. — When you’re going to be interviewed about the mobile device industry, there’s a very good chance you’ll be asked about the hot-selling iPhone. Nokia’s president and CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, didn’t wait for the question. “I’m the first one to note, before being asked, that Apple made […]