Datamation Staff

All About Windows Phone: Unofficially, the Windows Phone Marketplace has passed the 50,000 app mark, and 265 new apps are being added every day. The rate of growth is accelerating, with 17,276 apps added in the last 90 days and 8,010 apps added in the last 30 days. Microsoft’s mobile app store reached the milestone […]

InformationWeek: Responding to complaints about its Kindle Fire, Amazon has released an update to the software for the popular tablet. Release 6.2.1 for Kindle Fire addresses some security and privacy issues and improves performance, including the performance of the touch navigation system, which some users found difficult to use. Amazon is on track to sell […]

eWeek: Just before Christmas, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) delivered some bad news for Oracle related to its ongoing lawsuit against Google. Oracle claims that Google’s Android violates several Java-related patents that Oracle owns; however, the USPTO just rejected one of those patents–number 6192476. Google had requested reexamination of the patent. Because […]

ReadWriteWeb: 2011 was a big year for enterprise cloud computing, with many services taking off. ReadWriteWeb’s list of the top choices in this market includes the following: 10. Xeround 9. Bime 8. Okta 7. PubNub 6. SendGrid 5. Twilio 4. MongoHQ 3. Radian6 2. Hortonworks Hadoop 1. Heroku RELATED NEWS AND ANALYSIS Huawei’s AI Update: […]

Wall Street Journal: Italy’s Antitrust Authority has slapped Apple with fines of €900,000 ($1.2 million) for misleading consumers. Specifically, Apple received a fine of €400,000 for not giving customers adequate information about the length of product guarantees and a €500,000 fine for not providing complete information about the AppleCare Protection Plan. The company was cited […]

Computerworld: The past two years have seen a dramatic rise in sophisticated cyberattacks, particularly those targeting government agencies and defense contractors, and experts say the trend is likely to continue. “I absolutely expect this trend to continue through 2012 and beyond,” said Rik Ferguson of security firm Trend Micro. “Espionage activities have, for hundreds of […]

Bloomberg BusinessWeek: Hackers associated with “Anonymous” say that they have obtained credit card numbers, passwords, home addresses and other personal information for 4,000 clients of the Stratfor think tank. Stratfor’s client list includes Apple Inc., the U.S. Air Force, the Miami Police Department and many other high-profile organizations. Apparently, the hackers have been making donations […]

All Things D: According to a new report from research firm RichRelevance, mobile purchases accounted for about 3 percent of all sales between April and December 2011. In April, 88 percent of mobile purchases were made from Apple devices, but by December, that number had grown to 92 percent. “The numbers across our retailing partners […]

Cnet: 2011 was a pretty good year for Microsoft: record revenue, 500 million copies of Windows 7 sold, launches of Office 365 and Internet Explorer 9. But 2012 could be a really big year for the company. Here are five reasons why: Windows 8 tablets Xbox moves farther into live TV Windows Phone: We’re No. […]

CNN: Which tech news stories from 2011 could have the biggest impact for years to come? Here’s CNN’s list: Steve Jobs dies Social media’s role as a tool for protestors Hackers Tablet market gets dozens of new entrants Facebook and partners add ‘frictionless’ sharing Patent wars Google+ Apple becomes the most valuable company in the […]

NYTimes: If you regularly tweet for your job, do you own your Twitter account or does your employer? An upcoming court case will attempt to answer that question. Noah Kravitz, a writer who used to work for Phonedog.com, kept his Twitter account and his 17,000 followers when he left the company. Phonedog later sued him, […]

AppleInsider: Apple has filed for two new patents related to hydrogen fuel cells: “Fuel Cell System to Power a Portable Computing Device” and “Fuel Cell System Coupled to a Portable Computing Device.” According to the applications, the inventions could allow electronics to operate “for days or even weeks without refueling.” The proposed invention also “eliminates […]