Technology News on Comcast.net | Computer Software News | Gadgets News

With the technology industry looking on, the Supreme Court on Monday will explore what types of inventions should be eligible for a patent in a pivotal case that could undermine such legal protections for software.

This holiday season's biggest entertainment blockbuster likely will be a sequel to a popular franchise, with jarring depictions of war and an intricate story of good versus evil. It could easily rake in more than last year's record $155 million opening weekend for "The Dark Knight."

First it was books. Now it's DVDs.

EBay Inc. has settled a legal skirmish with the founders of Skype that threatened to complicate eBay's plans to sell most of the Internet phone service to a group of investors for $2 billion.

Since its debut in 2007, millions of people have gravitated toward Apple's iPhone, wooed by its sleek hardware, simple user interface and abundance of applications.

It's been a rough year for the video game industry, but Activision Blizzard Inc. reported a profit for its third quarter because of lower costs and a good response for games such as "Guitar Hero 5" and "World of Warcraft."

No Doubt has sued video game maker Activision for putting words in band members' mouths.

Google is offering a new privacy control that will make it easier for people to see some of the information being collected about them.

EU lawmakers and governments agreed on new rights for Internet users Thursday, aiming to protect them from arbitrary crackdowns on those who illegally download music and movies on the Internet.

Microsoft Corp. says it is cutting 800 more jobs. That's in addition to the 5,000 layoffs it announced in January.

Dassault Systemes, the French technology firm, has inked a $600 million deal to acquire part of I.B.M.'s sales and customer support unit.

IAC/InterActiveCorp, which runs Match.com, Ask.com and other Web sites, said that asset sales helped it profit in the third quarter while advertising revenue continued to slump.

Researchers at UCSD have created the Whole Brain Catalog -- a detailed, 3-D simulation of a mouse's brain that users can move through like Google Earth.

Google offers powerful online voice mail features of Google Voice without forcing users to get a new phone number.

HTC steps up branding efforts with a new global marketing campaign that emphasizes personalization, not unlike Yahoo's current "It's You" campaign.

Google offers powerful online voice mail features of Google Voice without forcing users to get a new phone number.

Hitachi and Toshiba said on Tuesday that their optical disc drive operations with South Korean partners were being investigated for possible anti-trust violations.

The electronics chain posted quarterly revenue above Wall Street expectations, helped by its push in cellphones and calling plans.

“Video Games Live,” a captivating, bombastic touring show that pairs live performers with game theme music and multimedia spectacle, sold out the Beacon Theater on Sunday night.

FairPoint, which bought Verizon’s landlines and Internet services for $2.3 billion in 2008, has been plagued with customer service and operational problems.

Nearly 6 million Web pages are infected with malware, double previous estimates earlier in the year, Dasient says.

Fisker Automotive plans to buy a former GM plant in Wilmington, Delaware to manufacture a plug-in hybrid sedan priced at about $40,000 after tax credits.

The Net retailer's cloud computing effort is getting more sophisticated with the arrival of a database service that more people will be familiar with.

If Qualcomm wants its new open-source subsidiary to be more than just marketing, it needs to start contributing actual code.

With the holiday-buying season just around the corner, Apple appears nearly ready to open the doors to its long-planned retail store on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

With a mix of research from universities and companies in Japan, the 2009 Digital Content Expo in Tokyo featured some eye-popping 3D technologies as well as whimsical gizmos ranging from robots to umrellas.

Open source has become as much about business as it has code. These people are seen as perpetuating the most market growth among the open-source set.

The Obama administration plans to detail a multibillion-dollar grid modernization program, which will bring two-way smart meters and energy monitoring to millions of U.S. homes.

With the holiday buying season just around the corner, Apple appears nearly ready to open the doors to its long-planned retail store on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Music search is everywhere, from Google's forthcoming offering to MySpace's new video portal. Is there any market share left for Blinkx, a U.K.-based video search company?

Think of the about-to-be-released N900 as atonement for past sins committed by Nokia. The disaster that is Symbian, the anemic-ness of the Ovi store, the conspicuous lack of CDMA devices all seem, wel, not so horrible after playing with this Linux based, open source, unlocked internet tablet.

When I was growing up, getting a phone in your room (or if you were really lucky - your own line!) was a major step in the process between feeling like a child and growing into an adult. Today E-mail, IM and social networks are the most common forms of communication between teens and new studies ha...

Ford says as many as one in four cars it sells by 2020 will be electrified, says Nancy Gioia, head of Ford’s EV program. She’s shooting for an ambitious target, considering hybrids currently compriseabout 3 percent of the market.

Google Voice is opening up to anyone with a cellphone number, not just those willing to force their friends to dial a new Google Voice number. That means every U.S. mobile user can get Google's voicemail transcription, personalized outgoing messages and the ability to save messages forever, even if...

Dutch elm disease spreads and starts an inexorable killer march across much of the United States.

A new crop of mix-sharing sites lets you put together your own mixes quicker, easier and in a more shareable way than cassette decks ever did. Just a year after the popular Muxtape music mix-sharing ite was driven offline by the RIAA, there are many new contenders.

The blogger who found a vulnerability in 65,000 Time Warner Cable routers says the routers are still vulnerable to remote attack. The company claims it patched the vulnerability last week.

Technology originally created to monitor oil wells is now being used by scientists to study some of Earth's most inaccessible places, from desert pools to Antarctic ice.

What's wired this month? A tricked-out atlas of world trivia, a generative art app for your iPhone. a Pixies box set as monumental as the band's music and Bar Bingo.

Design firm Cambridge Consultants showed gadgets such as a knob-free internet radio, implantable antenna and brain-computer interface as part of its "Innovation Day."

The recent release of the Symbian kernel source code under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) has generated some discussion in the open source software community about the challenges of building a trul open smartphone platform.

It's hard to talk about Turn 10's newest racing title, Forza 3, without mentioning its forthcoming competitor: Gran Turismo 5. Turn 10 even went out of its way to say that it created the better game t E3.

AT&T's government lobbying has a long and fairly sordid history. Before taking you inside our investigation of AT&T's recent anti-net neutrality lobbying (and the charges of "astroturfing" being thron around), let's take a stroll down memory lane.

From the early days of the printing press to the dawn of the VHS era, it's been a cliché that the first thing humans do upon inventing a new medium is distribute pornography with it. While this clich may hold true for most humans and most media, there is one conspicuous exception: the computer geek.

ALT TITLES: Behavioral changes can drive huge reductions in CO2 Cheap, available tech can drop US CO2 emissions For the most part, efforts to improve the energy efficience (and thus the environmental impact) of the US economy have focused on big, transformative technologies, such as renewable pow...

In April 2009, the US National Academies of Science suggested that it was time for the US to get serious about cyberwarfare, setting official policy for its offensive use and spearheading the developent of international norms governing its deployment.

Sun's ZFS filesystem, which the company has referred to as "the last word in filesystems," was widely expected to be adopted by Apple for use in Mac OS X. However, support never materialized, and theopen source project to port the filesystem was unceremoniously shut down last Friday.

Netflix continues its domination of the video streaming market by partnering with Sony to bring its service to the PS3. The two companies announced Monday that Netflix's "thousands" of movies and TV hows will be streamable to the PS3 as of November 2009, and at no extra cost to Netflix members.

You may know Lala as the music streaming service that recently struck a deal with Google to provide music in its search results. Or you may know it as the company that sells insanely cheap 10¢ music treams in addition to its MP3 store.

Social media, for all its downfalls, has proven to be a powerful tool for organizations to interact directly with customers and fans. This is especially true for athletes, musicians, and other celebrties—people love communicating directly with their favorite icons via Twitter and Facebook.

Most analysts see further gains in Apple's stock price, but the bigger the company gets, the harder it will be to achieve game-changing growth

Third-quarter results from telecom equipment makers show modest sequential gains. Companies involved in video and wireless gear have a clear advantage

An unusual show by Family Guy's creator was to plug the new Windows operating system, but it may have proven too edgy for Microsoft

CEO Ivan Seidenberg told investors on the company's earnings call that Verizon still covets the iPhone, says BW's Spencer Ante

Should the U.S. subsidize vast high-voltage lines to transport wind and solar electricity to the big cities?

Not everyone loves the new look and feel of recent changes in how the social network displays information on your home page, PCWorld reports

Former Silicon Valley allies are going head-to-head to pick the startups aiming to revolutionize clean tech

The surprise surge in demand for PCs and handsets has the industry scrambling to get the supply chain humming

Applause for Windows 7, cost-cutting, and an earnings surprise have stirred hope that Microsoft's stock will revive. Will businesses buy the upgrade?

With the Microsoft deal done and CEO Bartz making progress, there's not much reason for him to stick around

Software would enable users to run Mac OS X and six other operating systems on a PC called Rebel EFI.

Company's official blog explains that 'memorializing' allows "friends and family to leave posts on the profile Wall in remembrance."

Yahoo announced the impending closure in April, suggesting that users who would like to continue hosting with Yahoo could migrate to one of the company’s paid plans.

GiSTEQ is releasing a new version of their PhotoTracker GPS device, which adds geotagging information to digital photos. The $69 PhotoTrackr Mini DPL900 is...

Many bleeding-edge Mac geeks are mourning the death of the project to implement the ZFS filesystem on the Mac. The Apple-backed project to port ZFS to the Mac...

Verizon beat analyst estimates, but profits were still down although Q3 revenue was up. If the Droid lives up to the preliminary hype, Verizon can get profits back up.

A new IT law has come into force in India that allows the government to intercept communications and block web sites

Major security vendors who have long tried to crack China's market have met obstacles localizing their products and securing distribution channels.

Open Door Networks updated its DoorStop X Security Suite, adding compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 along with other enhancements to its collection of security...

Ubuntu Linux is ready to compete with this week's update, says Canonical CEO.