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From 1981 to 1984 RCA marketed the CED VideoDisc system. It never had a chance.

A research note from Citigroup says Apple CEO Tim Cook is not leaning toward a future MacBook Air with iPad-like features. So, now what?

From Kickstarter project to startup to aspiring global power: The big ambitions of Romotive's robot phone.

day on the job At one of the biggest sports sites in the country, preparing to make its Super Bowl coverage as strong as possible is the most important job of the year. CNET was on hand to see the plan take shape.

Noise-reduction technology from a start-up called Audience accounts for the size of the iPhone 4S chip and keeps Siri off the iPhone 4, analyst Linley Gwennap concludes.

In Taiwan, a man dies while gaming In an Internet cafe. Reports suggest no one notices for nine hours. But, regardless of how long he was actually dead, how could it be that no gamer notices until a waitress finally thinks to check?

Ater implementing a lottery system for ordering the iPhone 4S, Apple's online store has resumed selling the device online and will ship by March 2.

Hours after pulling products from its online store, Apple got a ban on its products temporarily halted.

Apple's huge earnings have been shadowed by a New York Times report on harsh working conditions at Chinese plants that make Apple products. Are you reconsidering your Apple brand loyalty?

With a belief that consumers will continue to flock to its premium and more capable devices, Apple is unlikely to downscale its smartphones, says Morgan Stanley.

Patent filing shows that Apple intends to help people share workout info and performance data with others.

Poles stall, Slovenian ambassador calls for protests

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) treaty, signed by most European countries last week, may not be a done deal after all, as governments across the continent face a storm of protest.…

Google's Android remained the dominant platform in the U.S. last quarter, even as Apple gained ground in the market thanks to the iPhone 4S, according to ComScore.

The correlations between classic arcade games like Centipede and popular mobile games like Angry Birds are undeniable: they're simple, fun, and addictive. Seamus Blackley has hired a slew of old-school game developers to try to cash in on that fact with his company Innovative Leisure.

Motorola Mobility wins a permanent ban against Apple's push e-mail service, part of its iCloud offering. Apple had faced a ban on products in Germany, but received a temporary injunction on it.

Were you talking about us?

Members of Anonymous have released an intercept of a conference call between investigators at the FBI and Scotland Yard during which operations against hacktivist group were discussed.…

"Charlie Magnetico" is the second lost Henson film to be posted online in as many weeks. Crave hears from the AT&T archivist who unearthed these little jewels.

Apple could announce its next-gen phone at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, according to the latest scuttlebut from Daiwa Securities.

A glitch is causing iTunes Match to scrub explicit lyrics from some rap songs. Apple is working to fix the issue.

CNET tracks all the iPhone 5 rumors--from the likely to the crazy--that we've heard so far in 2011 and 2012.

Apple has quietly removed a number of iOS games that could readily be mistaken for their popular counterparts and that had climbed up the charts as a result.

What the heck is "frand"? No, not "fraud" but "frand." CNET breaks down what this obscure legal term means, and why it's so important to companies such as Apple and Samsung.

Apple has changed a controversial section of its iBooks Author end user license agreement, saying that users who want to sell outside of Apple's digital stores can do so, as long as they save in a different format.

Plus 'The horror!'

Quotw This was the week when Facebook finally filed for its IPO.…

Selling data ain't like shiftin' boxes, boy

History may record Scott McNealy as a straight-dealing leader of a major Silicon Valley tech company.…

Set-top box software to be torn out and replaced over the net

UK hybrid TV service BT Vision plans to be the first customer to discard Microsoft's Mediaroom software, almost imminently, after at least a year-long effort to put in completely new software building blocks to rejuvenate the service.…

Spying on virtual iron with virtual iron

Riverbed Technology upgraded a whole bunch of its appliances this week, including its Cascade Shark network-monitoring products and its Steelhead WAN optimizers.…

The issue with Apple's iMessage that puts one user's account on another device doesn't have a fix in sight, but the company has weighed in on what happened to one user, saying it was "extremely rare."

Did you have your hopes up for an iPad 3 debut this month? That rumor may have well been put to rest by its original source, who now says March is when it's all going down.

Amazon sold about 5 million Kindles in the first couple months of sales. So, what do users like and dislike about it? A survey provides some answers.

Apple's CEO announces that he spent $100 million of Apple's money on charitable giving--something Steve Jobs would not have done.

The thoughts of Chairman Bronfman

Outgoing media mogul Edgar Bronfman Jr has warned against the Universal-EMI merger – and taken a potshot at Google. Bronfman is stepping down as chairman of Warner Music, which was acquired by Russian entrepreneur Len Blavatnik last year.…

'My skin feels like plastic!' gasps blemish-free babe

Our piece yesterday on L'Oreal giving Rachel Weisz a intensive age-defying makeover prompted several readers to point us in the direction of this remarkable product:…

Fined for unfair competition in online cartography

A French court has found Google Maps guilty of unfair competition and ordered the Chocolate Factory to pay a fine and damages to a French mapping firm.…

We look at the numbers - and what's missing...

Analysis Is Facebook hugely overvalued or a solid business with some reliable growth ahead of it? A great deal of both.…

According to a new study, the overall quality of Apple's technical support by phone has declined significantly between 2010 and 2011.

Full-year forecast torn up after cash-draining Q3

Sony's new CEO will have his hands full at the helm of the loss-making Japanese firm - the entertainment megacorp announced today that its net loss in the quarter ending in December was 159 billion yen ($2bn) and it has slashed its full-year forecast to a loss of 220 billion yen ($2.8bn).…

Poked by a rabbit, figuratively and literally

One waits ages for a story about robotic carrot-crunchers, and then two turn up at once as Karotz the robot rabbit starts talking to Facebook while app-controlled vibrator Vibease looks to sell value-added orgasms.…

Open like their app ecosystem...

Android users are more likely to be slutty, it transpires – having more one night stands, signing up to dating sites more often and being more likely to have sex on a first date, according to a Match.com survey of single Canadian mobile users.…

IPO filing: Spamvalanche could kill us

Facebook has been the first internet company to baldly state the risks it faces from hacking and spam to the markets since the SEC issued guidance on the issue.…

Scotland Yard keeps mum

Scotland Yard officers investigating allegations of computer hacking by News International staff have declined to "give a running commentary" on their probe, batting away MP Tom Watson's narration of the saga.…

Poor wording breaks petition’s T&Cs

The White House has said it won’t be responding to a petition calling for an investigation into whether comments by MPAA head Chris Dodd about paying for political support constituted an admission of bribery.…

Ex-PlayStation exec grabs reins as Stringer rises to board chairman

Sony has announced that a new president and CEO will take over from Howard Stringer on 1 April, while Stringer becomes chairman of the board.…

Just how workable is the Euro commissioner's proposal?

Analysis It's been a busy few days for the future of data protection at a European level. However, the celebrations and commiserations are well and truly over for policy wonks, internet businesses and watchdogs who have all been eagerly poring over the Justice Commissioner's freshly-tabled draft Data Protection (DP) bill. Now the real work begins.…

That's a lot of bandwidth - how do we handle it?

Ofcom has launched a public consultation on the management of 37GHz of radio spectrum, looking for better ways to manage licensing of fixed wireless links.…

Just 'a bit of fun', responds beleaguered BlackBerry biz

RIM's latest marketing stunt has succeeded in attracting a high degree of attention – but not necessarily of the type that the struggling company may have intended.…

‘Piracy is the new radio'

Neil Young, who a few years back famously described Apple as the “Fisher-Price” of sound quality, is giving his “I hate digital music” can another kick, claiming that even the late Steve Jobs listened to vinyl rather than his own company’s inventions.…

A Galaxy of mobile TV

Samsung Galaxy slab-fondlers will soon get access to movies and TV shows, with IPTV aspirant Quickflix inking a deal with Samsung Australia.…

Today's fondleslab rumor 'pour les nuls'

Amazon France may have leaked the release date for Apple's next iteration of its überpopular fondleslab, the iPad.…

Dr Oompa Loompa will see you now

Google has created a sponsored academic post in France, the Google@HEC chair at the HEC Paris business school. It's "a worldwide first for Google", according to the Chocolate Factory's PR department.…

Chocolate Factory promises it's not locking your privates in a vice

Google has responded to US politicos who demanded answers after the advertising giant announced it was "simplifying" its privacy policies across its huge online estate.…

Slams music biz's 'terrible' attempts to crush pirates

Music industry chiefs must have been pleased to hear that the maker of pig-squishing iPhone game Angry Birds has learned from its mistakes in combating piracy.…

Promises 1,300 new jobs, drills into superfast fibre market

BSkyB has once again seen the number of new subscribers signing up to the broadcaster's products fall, compared to the same period a year before.…

UK.gov also talks up new national cybercrime fighting force

UK citizens can now gawp at the amount of crime committed around nightclubs, railway stations, parks and other hotspots on a revamped website launched by the Home Office. The same site will also eventually track arrests and charges brought against wrongdoers.…

ITV also coming to catchup service

Sky punters will be able to view BBC and ITV programmes in Sky's video-on-demand catchup service, Sky Anytime+, in a pact announced today.…

But Spotify is fine

Music manager Paul McGuinness has previously used the annual MIDEM show to chastise ISPs – but this year it's the Chocolate Factory that has earned his ire.…

Rage over high fees and SOPA support

The ongoing world protests against SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA have helped inspire a revolt among scientists over the role of academic publisher Elsevier and its business practices.…

Thousands roil Polish streets – more protests planned

Over 30 Polish lawmakers held up paper replicas of the Guy Fawkes mask, made famous by both Anoymous hacktivists and the Occupy movement, during a protest in parliament of their country's signing of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the EU's highly controversial online-piracy legislation.…

Switch hitting

Juniper Networks warned Wall Street earlier this month that the fourth quarter was going to be rough because key service provider customers are cutting back on spending at the same time that the company is putting the finishing touches on some new switches and routers.…

Incentivising the McJobs

Analysis Stephen Elop got a pretty indulgent reception from analysts, and most of the press yesterday, after delivering some shocking results. Nokia turned a profit of €2bn into a loss of €1bn in the new boss's first full year; volumes are down by 29 per cent; sales of the new Windows phone are unremarkable (to put it generously); and Elop has scrapped guidance for the rest of the year. [Summary] News like this would normally have analysts reaching for the panic button - but not today. Why would this be?…

Social network teams up with Washington State to hound marketing firm

Facebook and US state of Washington have filed lawsuits against marketing firm Adscend Media over alleged clickjacking and spam practices, as the social networking giant finally gets tough with scammers operating on the site.…

Takes pop at labels for withholding

Spotify executive Ken Parks says Spotify has 3 million paying customers, and 20 per cent of people who get on to the free, ad-supported part of the service are signing up to become paying punters. Most of those, 15 per cent, sign up to the premium tier, Parks claimed. The premium tier gives you offline and mobile access to the music.…

Politicos ask if Chocolate Factory's new rules violate an FTC agreement

Google is insisting that its new privacy policy will still give its users control, after criticism in a letter from US members of Congress.…

Pentagon hacking suspect has been waiting for 10 YEARS...

Senior judges have set a timetable to speed up resolution in the long-running Gary McKinnon extradition case, effectively setting a deadline for the Home Office to respond to evidence that McKinnon is too infirm to withstand the stress of a US trial and likely imprisonment over alleged Pentagon hacking offences.…

Privacy critic: 'It's dead. We just forgot to bury it'

CPDP Privacy advocates have expressed concern about Brussels' Commissioner Viviane Reding's decision to leave in place the Safe Harbour framework used by some companies to transfer data from Europe to the US.…

Tim Cook sends letter after Chinese factory horror exposé

Tim Cook has sent a letter to all Apple employees stressing how much the company cares about industrial accidents in its Chinese factories.…

Smartphone sales fuel massive multi-billion dollar investments

Samsung's smartphones have helped drive the company to an operating profit of ?5.3 trillion ($4.7bn) in the fourth quarter of last year.…

NFC belt buckle lets you show affection with a friendly hump

Seventies throwbacks who like big belt buckles, and pelvic thrusting in public, can now check into a location, or "Like" a friend, with no more than a flick of the hips.…

Replacement boxes rolled out due to faulty chip

National telco BT has been sending letters out to its Infinity broadband customers saying that it will swap their modems for a better version for free, but failing to mention that the real reason for the generous offer is because they could be faulty.…

Once more unto the breach, dear netizens

Put down the NOHO, victorious SOPA protestors – the mothership needs your help once again. Google needs to mount a SOPA-like campaign against European privacy protection proposals, says a US academic. It's for the greater good, apparently.…

The tweets must flow, unless we're told they shouldn't...

Micro-blogging phenomenon Twitter has modified its commitment to the free flow of information online by adding a new feature enabling the removal of users' tweets at a country level while allowing them to be viewed elsewhere.…

Murdoch, charity also face write-offs as digital music outfit goes bust

It isn't just scofflaw copyright criminals who cause grief for the music business. Sometimes it's quite capable of lining up its own feet for a shooting party.…

Steely Neelie: Agree on it by June, or I'll force one on you

Internet companies have been urged to establish a final standardised system that will allow users to control their privacy settings across websites.…

European Parliament observer resigns in protest

Representatives of 21 of the EU’s member states, including the UK, have signed off on the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) – the European version of the US SOPA and PIPA rolled into one and cranked up to 11.…

Rio Ferdinand and Jordan fingered for promo tweets

Updated The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is to investigate a promotional campaign by confectionery giant Mars, which hired B-list celebrities to push its Snickers candy bars.…

Turns in good Q4, will grow in 2012 despite price cuts

Having bought rival Voltaire, Mellanox Technologies has pretty much ruled the InfiniBand adapter and switching roost for the past several years. But this week Intel shelled out $125m to acquire the InfiniBand chip, adapter, and switch businesses from QLogic, and the big question now is: what does this mean for Mellanox?…

190 patents, 170 applications, and 'next-generation' video codec

In the latest maneuver of the tech industry's ongoing patent wars, Intel has struck a $120m deal with RealNetworks to purchase 190 patents and 170 patent applications, along with what both companies define as "next-generation video codec software".…

Infuriated customers want to know how the Goog got their addresses

Fuming Virgin Media customers have taken to the telco's forum to complain that their email addresses have been used by Google, instead of being kept private.…

Says certain aspects of article 17 are 'unworkable'

CPDP Google's privacy policy counsel in Brussels has questioned certain parts of European Commissioner Viviane Reding's freshly tabled draft bill on data protection law within the EU.…

Control freaking network configs from servers

IBM and NEC are joining forces to promote switches and controllers based on the OpenFlow protocol to their joint customers.…

Making it up in volume

Updated Mellanox Technologies is not happy about the 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch and adapter ramp, and it is doing something about it: slashing its own prices.…

Time for AMD to eat Mellanox

The high-performance networking market just got a whole lot more interesting, with Intel shelling out $125m to acquire the InfiniBand switch and adapter product lines from upstart QLogic.…

60GHz wireless links ease east-west traffic jams

People are using cell phones and killing their landlines. We have wireless networks in the home to connect our myriad devices. And maybe wireless is coming to the data center, as well.…

Anything Cisco can do. . . .

Juniper Networks is having its Cisco moment, but it doesn't look like it is much to worry about.…

All over the street

Based on a Reuters report, rumours of Brocade shopping itself to private equity buyers are pouring onto the net.…

Work in a data centre? No sign of pink slip doom yet

The data center networking market is keeping pace with sales of servers, according to the latest research from IDC. The company's box counters say that in the third quarter ended in September that revenues for switching and routing gear for the glass house rose by 6.1 per cent to $5.9bn.…

A pipe so fat it can satiate even the biggest boxes

Companies may be excited about doing Google-style analytics on all aspects of their business with Hadoop and other "big data" tools, but big businesses are bracing for bigger phone bills as big data is starting to generate big traffic across the distributed operations of enterprises.…

Mmmm. Get your chops around juicy pork barrel goodness

It's been a week since the Countryside Alliance made a noise about the lack of activity around the rollout of a broadband network in rural areas. That came after a Freedom of Information request from the pro-fox hunting group revealed that councils were bumbling along with the fibre upgrade process.…

Transmuting gigabits per second into dollars per quarter

Switch and router powerhouse Cisco Systems has released its data center traffic forecast – the "Global Cloud Index" – which shows data center traffic growing in leaps and bounds, and set to explode in coming years.…

Fibre-fat pipage for 'Blue Devil' aerial computer warship

Pentagon boffinry powerhouse DARPA has announced plans to fit a giant new US military command and control airship - known as "Blue Devil Block 2" - with through-the-air optical links offering bandwidth normally achievable only by fibre cables. This is to be done using newly-applied technology developed in the 1990s for use in astronomical telescopes.…

Hyperdrive mirror plucks light from the quantum vacuum

While “vacuum fluctuations” – one of the stranger predictions of quantum physics – have been observed for some time, a team comprising scientists from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and the University of University of New South Wales have gone one step further, creating their own photons out of empty space.…

Ex-FBI congressman burnishes microscope

US lawmakers have launched an investigation into the threat of cyber espionage from Chinese telecoms firms operating in the US, singling out Huawei and ZTE.…

Give the Transport minister an easy life. And buy our stuff!

Norman Baker, the UK's Transport Minister, has outlined a consortium dedicated to getting more people working away from the office, for the good of the economy, and the planet.…

And probably back again, in database admin compo

A UK company has launched a competition to send one lucky database administrator into space.…

Our intrepid reporter does it, but you'll still have to

Part 1 The threat from the fast-dwindling supply of mainstream "IPv4" Internet addresses for new users is a bit like Y2K creeping up on us all over again. Almost no one can see beyond the cost of code review, systems change, hardware upgrades and general upheaval into the brave fairly-old world of IPv6 - but putting it off forever isn't really an option either. And like Y2K, if it's handled well, no one will ever notice or thank us "IT professionals" for it: we'll be accused of make-work, scare-mongering and overcharging. What's not to like?…

Ex-military types to blow two-thirds of Blighty 'by 2014'

BT has brushed aside the possibility that it could be hampered by any number of problems that might delay its plan to push "superfast" broadband to two thirds of the UK come 2015 2014, by hiring 520 more ex-armed forces bods.…

Meg strokes Windows 8, unsure about webOS

HP will make another run at the fondleslab market.…

'So most of you don't think we need a firewall, eh?'

Dell and Intel expect that crowd-sourcing will be a challenge that IT managers and chief information officers will have to meet in the next 10 to 15 years. Businesses will want to do it, and IT managers will have to work out how deliver it, they predict in a survey about IT in the workplace commissioned from research group TMS.…

Nexus kit cosy up to blades

Server giant and networking player Hewlett-Packard and networking giant and server player Cisco seem to have buried the hatchet. Admittedly, it is a pretty small hatchet and they are still brandishing pikes pointed at each other's guts. But they are not fighting.…

Hits sales targets, thanks to switches

Profits at Juniper Networks have had a haircut after costs for manufacturing, research, development, and sales all grew faster than revenues in its third quarter. But revenue is growing and hitting targets, which is a good sign for the networking business in general, and for Juniper in particular.…

10GE and 40GE artillery

Networking giant Cisco Systems has been under attack for the past several years, and the company gearing up its high-end, converged Nexus switches to defend its data-center turf from encroachment by HP, Dell, Arista Networks, Juniper Networks, Brocade Communications, and others.…

Thanks anyway, have £5k for your trouble

Eco Strategy Boutique A Danish company has won a competition to design a new electricity pylon for the UK. The Department of Energy and Climate Change announced the winner, Bystrup, today.…

Sleepy BlackBerry bosses to wait for postmortem ...

Blackberry bosses held a short press conference at 10am EST (15.00 GMT) today to calm investors, answer media questions and shed (a little bit) more light on the faulty switch that caused the three-day service outages across the UK, Europe, Africa and Latin America.…

Telco now upgrading six (not 12) exchanges by end of 2011

BT won't hit its target of kitting out 12 exchanges with its new fibre network by the end of this year as originally hoped.…

John Chambers gets into prediction industry

OpenWorld Cisco CEO John Chambers predicts that video is the future of global communications – and, coincidentally, his company can sell you the hardware to deliver it.…

A day of HP sanity: no Apotheker, Whitman, or clueless board

Interop 2011 HP is polishing up some new switches and gussying up some others, following up on a broad set of announcements that it made back in May. The company is also trotting out some services to help customers make the transition from IPv4 to IPv6.…

Predicts doom for rival in not-so-secret document

Cisco quietly sat on the sidelines during the summer as a series of gaffes by a hapless senior executive team forced down HP's share price by a fifth.…

QLogic delves in trousers, whips out impressive tool

QLogic has a new FlexSuite adapter that can function as either 10 gig Ethernet or 16 gig Fibre Channel.…

First Brick, now Bonnett ...

HP UK and Ireland networking boss Barry Bonnett is leaving the role after less than a year in charge, The Register can reveal.…

25Gb/sec signaling for blade servers

The IEEE standards body has set up a task force of industry vendors to start work on the four-lane, 25Gb/sec signaling that will be required for future 100 Gigabit Ethernet.…

A new protocol for a new wavelength

Next week will see the formal launch of the Weightless radio protocol, designed for use in the soon-to-be-available white space frequencies. But can a protocol without weight really do it all?…

Chests filled for war and development

Updated InfiniBand and Ethernet networking chip and equipment maker Mellanox Technologies announced after the market closed in New York on Monday that it would be issuing up to 3 million shiny new shares to raise some cash for working capital and strategic investments.…

Secret internal wars of succession said to be underway

Rumours that Cisco CEO and chairman John Chambers may be considering his resignation have gathered pace. Chambers has spent 16 years at the head of the firm.…

Get a grip on MIPS chip

It's crunch time in the networking and communications chip biz, with Broadcom whipping out $3.7bn to acquire chip maker NetLogic Microsystems to fill a hole in its line.…

Military-grade encryption on a USB stick

Rich people and public sector workers can now get the kind of network security that used to be reserved for military organizations.…

Falun Gong content easy to spot, marketers boast

A group accusing Cisco Systems of helping the Chinese government commit human rights abuses against Falun Gong members said it has presented new evidence that the networking giant customized its technology to spy on people tied to the outlawed religious organization.…

Cisco/EMC hoopy froods know where their towels are

Two heads are better than one: Cisco and EMC's VCE joint-venture is moving forward with a chairman and a president, but no CEO.…

Network galleon beats into 'IT market headwinds'

Brocade has reported its quarterly results with a disappointing outlook and found itself the target of an activist hedge fund investor, Elliot Management, scenting under-valued assets it can profit from.…

Under fire networking Goliath clarifies changes

Cisco has given marching orders to nearly one in five of its senior execs included in its massive cost-cutting drive and now plans to hand 1,200 contract workers their pink slips too.…

Low-power chores to which Xeons won't stoop

As good as Xeon chips might be for lots of things, Intel obviously believes that it needs some other silicon: the chip giant bought privately held networking ASIC maker Fulcrum Microsystems on Tuesday.…

More power to ya'

Networking giant Cisco Systems has cranked up the amount of juice its Catalyst 4500E switches can pump out over Ethernet to 60 watts – another step toward its goal of making its switches the throbbing heart of the modern office.…

Company-wide axe massacre set for next month

Cisco may be bigger and bolder in its cost-cutting plans than first anticipated: it has been revealed the firm is getting rid of close to 10,000 staff worldwide.…

Shake-up looms as global channel boss waves goodbye

Cisco may fire up to 5,000 staff this August under a restructuring plan, according to analyst Brian Marshall at Gleacher and Co.…

Half million Big Brother cams

Cisco and other western companies are reportedly working with the Chinese government to install a network of one half-million surveillance cameras in the rapidly growing commercial and industrial metropolis, Chongqing.…

Saving your beacon

Want to significantly boost your smartphone's battery life? US Duke University researcher Justin Manweiler reckons he's worked out how.…

I see the light, and the light is fast

The European Commission is spending €7.43m on developing technologies for better fibre networking, with five member countries stumping up twice that for local funding.…

High-tech job growth isn't confined to the coasts: From Waco, Texas, to Bloomington, Indiana, pockets of ingenuity are everywhere.

It's no secret the Sprint, the nation's third-largest mobile service provider, opposes AT&T's proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile. Earlier this month Sprint's CEO testified before Congress that the deal could do "irreparable harm" to consumers. Now, Sprint has formally registered its objections with the Federal Communications Commission, which is scrutinizing the deal along with the Justice Department.

Apple has revealed the name of its upcoming online media service: iCloud. But don't let the cute branding fool you. The company has tried this service before, and the iCloud re-branding signals a do-over on one of Apple's greatest failures.

Google will announce a new mobile payments system on Thursday, according to Bloomberg, adding greater urgency to the all-out arms-race taking place in the point-of-sale digital money space. The announcement will include news of a partnership with Sprint to roll out a mobile-payments system based on Near Field Communication, or NFC, technology.

A Verizon executive says it’s all but inevitable that the company will eventually offer data plans that family members can share among multiple devices.

Electronic point-of-sale mobile payments at retail locations aren't quite ready for prime time -- but they're getting closer. The latest heavy hitter to enter the fray is Visa, the ubiquitous financial services company, who has announced plans for a digital wallet based on Near Field Communication, or NFC, technology.

Google's beta testers of its new Chromebooks for schools and businesses sang the praises of the web-centric devices Wednesday. It's not a song Microsoft will like.

The AT&T and T-Mobile show rolled into Washington, D.C., Wednesday for a Senate hearing on Capital Hill and, suffice it to say, there were diverging views of how the proposed $39 billion buyout would affect the national wireless market, as well as consumers and startups.

NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled the nation's first comprehensive, geographically targeted emergency notification system for mobile phones on Tuesday, declaring the launch to be a "quantum leap forward in using technology to help keep people safe."

Trust us. We're not going to screw up Skype. That was the message Microsoft delivered Tuesday, hours after formally announcing that it was buying the internet telephony pioneer for a staggering $8.5 billion.