Ed Sutherland

Verizon Communications’ patent lawsuit against Internet phone company Vonage got underway this week with both sides disputing whether the broadband phone service unfairly grew at the expense of traditional telecommunications. In court, Vonage refuted Verizon lawyer Daniel Webb’s charges that the disputed VoIP patents “lured” landline customers away. “Verizon has lost millions of customers, and […]

For nearly a month, users of the Google Desktop application were exposed to a vulnerability that allowed remote hackers to snoop through private computer files. The vulnerability was launched by malicious JavaScript code, enabling hackers to gain access to Office files, e-mails and chat logs. Google  updated its desktop application with a patch that bars […]

U.S. based cell phone distributor Brightpoint today agreed to pay more than $300 million in stock and assumed debt for Dangaard Telecom, Europe’s largest mobile phone distributor. The agreement highlights the maturity of the mobile phone market as logistics leader Brightpoint, known for creating a pipeline between handset makers and carriers, links up with Europe’s […]

Dell has hired Motorola executive Ron Garriques to head the computer maker’s new Global Consumer unit. Garriques is a Motorola Vice President and President of the cell phone maker’s troubled Mobile Devices business. In a statement, Dell CEO Michael Dell said Garriques will head the new organization charged with new product design, customer experience and […]

Security vendor Symantec  is warning broadband users of a potentially new threat able to reroute Internet traffic to fake Web sites. The hack could rewrite the internal address book of many home users’ routers, which, for example, are used for setting up wireless networks. “This attack has serious implications and affects many millions of users […]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation lost 116 laptops and discovered another 44 had been stolen in the last four years, according to a new report from the Justice Department’s Inspector General. Those figures are significantly less than the 300 laptops lost and 17 machines stolen the Justice Department estimated in a 2002 audit. Although the […]

UPDATED: A Belgian court today reportedly sided with European newspaper publishers, ruling Internet search giant Google must pay fines for violating that country’s copyright laws. Along with demanding the removal of all infringing links to Belgian newspaper articles displayed by Google or Google News, the court fined the search company $32,500 per day, The Wall […]

HP today unveiled its iPAQ 500 series Voice Messenger at the 3GSM cell phone tradeshow in Barcelona. The announcement comes only days after Microsoft announced Windows Mobile 6. Providing corporate customers enhanced Outlook Mobile and a built-in Microsoft Office Mobile suite, the device offers more than 20 voice commands, including e-mail dictation. The voice features […]

Social networking site MySpace today unveiled a pilot program designed to block videos that violate copyrights. Universal Music Group (UMG), which last year accused the site of “rampant copyright infringement,” is among the first customers. NBC/Universal and Fox are the first media companies participating in the free video filtering. News Corp. is the parent company […]

UPDATED: Rival printer makers have agreed on a standard to make comparing printing prices easier after blasting Kodak’s claims that it could cut inkjet printing costs in half. Manufacturers supporting the standard include Kodak, HP , Canon, Dell , Epson, Lexmark, Okidata, Ricoh and others. The standard, already in place for monochrome toner vendors, outlines […]

As people turn to the Internet for everything from e-mail to e-commerce, so have criminals increased their online interests. To handle the growing threats, VeriSign , which manages the .com and .net domains, plans to spend $100 million to beef up security with Project Titan. Although VeriSign said it escaped the recent attack on key […]

Internet users barely felt a ripple yesterday when hackers launched a concerted attack on several key Domain Name System (DNS) servers. Experts say legions of everyday users were enlisted in the attack on 13 root DNS servers, which translate a site’s numeric address to more familiar names, like internetnews.com. For a couple of hours, beginning […]