Latest E-Commerce Information in the news

Google and Dish Network reportedly are testing a service that allows television users to search for television programming and Web content from set-top boxes. Google software installed in the boxes allows users to create a personalized programming lineup, anonymous sources told The Wall Street Journal. It's no secret that Google and Dish have been collaborating since 2007, when the companies entered into a partnership for Google to deliver ads to the satellite network's audience and develop mechanisms to more accurately measure how they are viewed. [More...]


Given the growing popularity of mobile devices and the great many applications to go with them, you would think that this new niche had plenty of room for newcomers. Many of those newcomers, though, will find it difficult to capture a great deal of consumer attention. Places like the Android Market and the Apple App Store are popular and growing fast, but they're awash in apps that struggle to stand out from the crowd. Urban Airship recognized the potential for mobile app sales. [More...]


When it comes to implementing a new CRM system, small companies have several options. If they have enough resources and experience to devote to the task, they can implement the system themselves. If they choose not to go that route, a third party can be brought in to help them implement it, Craig Klein, president and CEO of SalesNexus, told CRM Buyer. In many cases, however, the CRM vendor helps to implement the system. "We try to make the experience relatively straightforward and simple," Klein said. [More...]


Newegg, a well-established online Web site that sells electronic products, apparently had counterfeit -- or perhaps demo products -- make their way into its inventory that were then sold to customers. The site reportedly shipped several fake Intel Core i7 processors to customers. At least one of those customers contacted tech Web site HardOCP, which decided to write about it. The "processors," based on the customer accounts, were not processors at all. [More...]


With its $99 price, the new Android-based Motorola Backflip clearly stands apart from Apple's iPhone on more than just appearance. Both are smartphones, to be sure, and both are offered through AT&T. They also provide many of the same features and functionality. However, in addition to their different form factors and operating systems, the divergent pricing on the devices suggests that they occupy very different positions in AT&T's strategy. [More...]


Recently, Amazon announced that it was offering 70 percent royalty rates to authors interested in self-publishing for the Kindle platform. That rate is considerably higher than the 10-ish percent standard in the publishing industry today for print and 25 percent for digital. So where are all the new authors with books flying off the e-shelves and onto the iPads? And if publication is so cheap today, why can't authors demand higher royalty rates? [More...]


Users of apps from BIRT, the open source Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools project, will be able to access them on the iPhone starting Monday. Actuate, which founded the BIRT project and coleads it with the Eclipse Foundation, is putting its BIRT Mobile Viewer on the App Store. This viewer, which will be a free app, is a native iPhone application that will let users access and control BIRT content through Actuate's servers at no charge. [More...]


The growing interest and value in PC desktop virtualization strategies and approaches has its roots in both technology and economics. Recently, a lot has happened technically that has matured the performance and economic benefits of desktop virtualization and the use of thin-client devices. At the same time as this functional maturity improved, we are approaching an inflection point in a market that is accepting of new clients and new client approaches like desktop virtualization. [More...]


Tuesday's surprise $1 billion buyout offer for Novell from the New York-based private investment group Elliott Management came with a letter spelling out the investors' goal for the company. "Over the past several years, [Novell} has attempted to diversify away from its legacy division with a series of acquisitions and changes in strategic focus that have largely been unsuccessful," the firm wrote. "As a result, we believe the Company's stock has meaningfully underperformed all relevant indices and peers." [More...]


Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer extolled the benefits of cloud computing and spoke about the software giant's increasing commitment to it in a speech at the University of Washington on Thursday. Microsoft has clearly been moving toward the cloud over recent years. All of its products, including Windows, Office and Xbox, are in some way connected to it. However, reading between the lines of Ballmer's speech suggests the company may be ramping up for a major new cloud-based initiative. [More...]


TiVo stock skyrocketed Thursday following news that it had won its long-running court case against sister companies Dish Network and EchoStar. Specifically, a federal appeals court affirmed a previous contempt finding against Dish and EchoStar for violating a court-ordered permanent injunction to stop making and selling their digital video recorder technology, which had previously been found to infringe TiVo patents. TiVo expects to receive roughly $300 million in damages and contempt sanctions awarded for EchoStar's continued infringement. [More...]


While patent practitioners are well familiar with and accepting of the phrase that patentable subject matter may include "anything under the sun that is made by man," the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York recently heard arguments that may call the rationale behind that famous quote -- or rather infamous quote -- into question. The Plaintiffs argue that patents should not be awarded for the discovery of an "ancient secret of nature." Every invention in the history of man involves something to do with nature, counter the Defendants. [More...]

AP - Want to be the first one on your block with a 3-D television? It will cost you about $3,000.

AP - Google Inc. will sell the online services of other business software makers in an effort to fill its own product gaps and persuade more companies to rely on applications piped over the Internet.

AP - Long-ago lapped by Facebook in popularity and with fast-growing Twitter on its tail, social networking site MySpace is planning a series of updates over the next months that will link its users' posts to those sites more easily and carve out its niche as an entertainment hub more clearly.

AP - Google Inc. is adding a bike lane with its latest online mapping option.

AP - An upcoming musical video game lets players strum a real six-string electric guitar instead of tapping buttons on a fake instrument.

AP - A Microsoft Corp. researcher won the $250,000 Turing Award, one of technology's most coveted prizes, on Tuesday for his work helping design and build what is widely considered the first modern personal computer.


AP - NEW APPS STORE: Google is selling the online services of other business software makers.

Reuters - More than 100 Chinese consumers have filed an official complaint against Hewlett-Packard Co over faulty laptop computers, leaving the door open for a lawsuit against the U.S. technology company, a lawyer for the group said on Wednesday.

AP - Authorities say a man was stabbed in the neck with a meat thermometer after asking a woman to silence her cell phone during a screening of the film "Shutter Island" at a Southern California movie theater.


NewsFactor - On the heels of the big 3-D television presence at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Sony and Samsung are joining Panasonic, LG Electronics, and others in promoting the new technology. On Tuesday, Sony said it is aiming for 10 percent of its TV sales within the next year to be 3-D models, and Samsung announced a range of HDTV sets and Blu-ray players will ship later this month.


Reuters - The directors behind the Oscar-winning animated short "Logorama," are moving into the live-action world -- but they aren't going Hollywood just yet.


NewsFactor - With the stakes high in Microsoft's bid to add its search engine to the iPhone, a few words of praise by the software giant's CEO have drawn a considerable amount of attention.


Reuters - LG Electronics Inc, the world's No. 3 mobile phone maker, on Wednesday launched a smartphone based on Google's Android operating system in South Korea, as it seeks to boost its relatively weak smartphone line-ups.


Reuters - With shrinking audiences, deep layoffs and two management shake-ups, MySpace, the one-time leader in Internet social networking, has had a rocky year.

AFP - Microsoft on Tuesday warned that hackers are targeting a freshly-uncovered weakness in some earlier versions of its Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser software.

PC World - A number of former Sun Microsystems employees who worked on Drizzle, an offshoot of the MySQL open-source database, have ended up at cloud infrastructure provider Rackspace, where they will continue their efforts, developer Jay Pipes wrote in a blog post Monday.


Macworld.com - Parallels, whose Desktop offering lets you run a variety of operating systems without ever having to leave Mac OS X, has updated Parallels Desktop 5.0 to include support for Google’s Chrome OS.