InternetNews Staff

A Google Lively room Google said it would shut down its three-dimensional virtual experience Web site, Lively, by year end to focus more on its core search, advertisements and applications business. The company said in its blog it supports experimentation but added: “We’ve also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks, not […]

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced today a new music subscription plan for owners of its Zune players, which would allow them to keep 10 tracks per month and add them to their permanent collection. The Zune Pass subscription service currently gives consumers on-demand access to millions of tracks for $14.99 per month. Effective Thursday, the software […]

Global semiconductor sales will fall in 2009, the first decline in eight years, as the financial crisis takes its toll on consumer spending, a chip industry trade group forecast on Wednesday, sending a key industry gauge to its lowest level in a decade. The Philadelphia semiconductor index, which tracks chip stocks, fell 7.7 percent to […]

Billionaire basketball team owner Mark Cuban responded to U.S. insider trading charges on Tuesday, saying on his Web site that he had not agreed to keep information about a proposed stock sale confidential. The response, posted on Cuban’s blogmaverick.com, disputes a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charge that he acted on nonpublic information to avoid […]

Microsoft said Wednesday it will discontinue sales of its subscription PC security service and instead offer free software to help protect computers from viruses, spyware and other threats. With the move, the software giant appears to be taking aim at McAfee and Symantec, its chief rivals in the PC security market. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) plans […]

Hewlett-Packard posted stronger-than-expected results and forecast full-year profit above Wall Street estimates, underscoring its resilience to an economic crisis that has dragged down other tech companies. Shares of HP (NYSE: HPQ) jumped 10 percent as its preliminary October quarter results suggested the world’s largest-maker of personal computers was winning market share and benefiting from recurring […]

Global sales of semiconductors are likely to fall 2.2 percent in 2009 due to weak demand for electronics worldwide, industry group World Semiconductor Trade Statistics said on Tuesday, reversing its May forecast of 5.8 percent growth. Chip giants Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Samsung Electronics are steeling themselves for weak computer sales in the holiday season […]

The search is on for the next Yahoo CEO. Yahoo on Monday said Jerry Yang will step down as chief executive as soon as the board finds a replacement, sending its shares up 4 percent on hopes his departure will clear the way for a deal with Microsoft. Yang — who will return to his […]

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK — Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team, was charged with insider trading in shares of Mamma.com Inc, an Internet search engine firm, the Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday. Cuban, one of the five finalists to buy the Chicago Cubs pro baseball team, faces civil charges by acting […]

Software maker Adobe Systems and chip designer ARM Holdings will collaborate to bring better Web services to ARM-powered devices including mobile phones from most of the world’s biggest handset makers. U.S.-based Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), which makes tools for the Internet’s most popular video software and made possible the rise of sites such as Google’s YouTube, […]

A British woman is divorcing her husband after discovering his online alter-ego was having an affair with a virtual woman in the fantasy world of Second Life, media reported on Friday. Amy Taylor, 28, said her three-year marriage to David Pollard, 40, came to an end when she twice walked in on him watching his […]

A senior U.S. lawmaker plans to introduce a bill in January that would bar Internet providers like AT&T from blocking Web content, setting up a renewed battle over network neutrality. Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, believes a law is essential to prevent telephone and cable companies from discriminating against Internet content, even though […]