Larry Barrett

Spam production continued its unabated growth in the fourth quarter and the U.S. remained atop the list of countries trafficking all manner of unsolicited missives. As eSecurity Planet reports, more than 18 percent of the hundreds of millions of spam messages distributed in the fourth quarter came from U.S.-based computing devices. That’s almost triple the […]

Security software vendor AppRiver this week is warning Internet users of a new phishing scam disguised as a benign public opinion poll that’s actually a ruse designed to perpetrate identity theft. As eSecurity Planet reports, the scam is contained in an unsolicited email offering a $150 reward for filling out a survey and submitting a […]

Apple’s App Store website more than doubled the number of applications available in 2010, bringing its total to more than 300,000 apps. As Enterprise Mobile Today reports, while that growth is impressive, Google’s Android Market enjoyed even more impressive growth on a percentage basis, surging six-fold to more than 130,000 apps. Meanwhile, Research In Motion […]

PayPal users over the years have become accustomed to a variety of malware and phishing scams looking to steal either their funds or their identities within a few clicks. As eSecurity Planet reports, the latest phishing ruse landing in PayPal users’ inboxes purports to be a security correspondence from the online payment service. The scam […]

The past year brought an alarming rise in the number of large-scale data breaches at major institutions such as universities and hospitals. It seemed as though just about every week, the same story appeared in the news, describing the latest institution to have seen its electronic records compromised. But without a centrally managed clearinghouse for […]

The pairing of television and the Web might hopefully be described as still in its early stages. Content providers have been reluctant to turn their programming over to the anything-goes, on-demand world of the Web, where monetization is a harder proposition than in the traditional distribution model. Then there are a new crop of Web-aware […]

Most of the news coming out of the annual Consumer Electronics Show turns on new whiz-bang gadgets and the emerging technologies that figure to shape the tech landscape of the coming year and beyond. But VoIP provider Skype bucked that trend, choosing the show as its venue for announcing the acquisition of Qik, a privately […]

Heading into this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, observers and analysts expected vendors far and wide to make announcements of new products and partnerships relating to mobile computing. Given the immense popularity of Apple’s iPad and the momentum building in the segment, it seemed a safe bet. It certainly was in Dell’s case. The computing giant […]

Verizon is looking to close the gap between the robust Internet users enjoy on fixed networks and the somewhat shoddier experience of mobile devices. And to get there, the carrier is banking on a robust, nationwide 4G wireless network. Launched in December, Verizon’s 4G LTE network “changes the game,” COO Lowell McAdam told an audience […]

Samsung has caught Android fever in a big way. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the firm unveiled a new, Wi-Fi-only version of its popular Galaxy Tab. Additionally, Samsung previewed the forthcoming Infuse 4G smartphone to run on AT&T’s next-generation mobile network. But that wasn’t all. Without getting into the details, Samsung also […]

Taking dead aim at Apple’s iPad, Motorola has unveiled a new 10.1-inch tablet PC, the first powered by Android 3.0, or “Honeycomb.” The new Xoom device comes just weeks after Motorola released a teaser video jeering the iPad as a “giant iPhone.” Additionally, Motorola and its carrier partner AT&T took the wraps off of a […]

Microsoft watchers might have been a little disappointed with CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote address to kick off the annual Consumer Electronics Show. After all, last year, Ballmer made a splash by announcing his company’s headlong entry into the tablet arena. But instead, this year Ballmer devoted his address to a mélange of topics, flitting from […]