Datamation Staff

When gasoline spiked to $4 per gallon a few years back, Hummer salesmen were crying in their coffee while Toyota couldn’t make the Prius fast enough. Market researcher iSuppli thinks something similar is bound to happen to the netbook and notebook worlds. Netbooks, the smaller, less expensive portable devices that typically sell for under $300, […]

BOSTON (Reuters) – Oracle Corp, the world’s No. 2 business software maker, plans to expand its small line of programs that companies access via the Web, said a person familiar with the strategy. The person, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the plan, said that Oracle is developing Internet-based programs to help businesses manage […]

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc is hiring new employees from the semiconductor industry and is building the capability to design its own chips, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The iPhone and iPod maker hopes its efforts will lead to new features for its devices and enable it to share fewer details about […]

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Today’s Twitters are often tomorrow’s quitters, according to data that questions the long-term success of the latest social networking sensation used by celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Britney Spears. Data from Nielsen Online, which measures Internet traffic, found that more than 60 percent of Twitter users stopped using the free social networking […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department is making inquiries about a class action deal that Google Inc struck giving it the right to digitize and sell entire libraries, two experts on digitization told Reuters on Tuesday. Under a proposed settlement last October between Google and the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, […]

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook regularly attracts more than 200 million people to its website, but the company is now looking for ways to permeate the lives of its users without the need to check-in to the Facebook site. The Palo Alto, California company unveiled tools on Monday that allow third-party Web developers to harness […]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Network equipment maker Brocade Communications Systems Inc is bolstering its partnership with IBM, in a sign it may be gaining market share from industry leader Cisco Systems Inc. International Business Machines Corp will rebrand ethernet switching and routing products made by Brocade as IBM products and sell them to mutual corporate […]

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co, the world’s top PC maker, is launching a new line of inexpensive business laptops with fresh features targeting users at small and medium-size companies. The HP ProBook s-series, which starts shipping globally on Tuesday, is the company’s new mainstream business notebook, following the release of its higher-end, lightweight EliteBook […]

ZURICH (Reuters) – A Swiss insurance worker lost her job after surfing popular social network site Facebook while off sick, her employer said on Friday. The woman said she could not work in front of a computer as she needed to lie in the dark but was then seen to be active on Facebook, which […]

In an apparent move aimed at softening corporate resistance to Windows 7, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is readying a surprise addition when the new operating system ships, according to a tech blog. Windows 7 will sport a new feature called “Windows XP Mode” or XPM, said the Windows IT Pro SuperSite blog Friday. The new mode […]

BOSTON (Reuters) – IBM plans to launch several cloud computing services this year, taking on companies such as Amazon.com Inc, Google Inc, Microsoft Corp and Salesforce.com Inc. International Business Machines Corp spokeswoman Kelly Sims said on Thursday the first of these new services will enable developers to write software that works with the emerging, Web-based […]

SANTA CLARA, California (Reuters) – After one false start, weeks of speculation and roller-coaster swings in its share price, the company once synonymous with the rise of the Internet has finally landed an attractive-looking buyer. Faltering Sun Microsystems, pulling a rabbit out of a hat, rallied from the collapse of talks with International Business Machines […]