Technology Industry Archive

If you paid attention at all to industry news yesterday, chances are you heard about Amazon’s book de-ranking kerfuffle. A large group of books, including many with gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender (GLBT) themes all lost their Amazon sales ranks. Supposedly all is again where it was and the company has apologized for its “embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error”. Story...

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Tight corporate budgets have some enterprise IT vendors looking longingly at the consumer market, no doubt inspired by the ease with which many consumer applications, from instant messaging to social networks, have crossed into the enterprise space. One case in point is EMC, which is hoping its market leadership in enterprise storage translates to households looking to protect their digital...

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Last week, the Associated Press put the online publishing world on notice about the organization’s new “content protection initiative” . AP’s idea is to protect news content from misappropriation online. Unfortunately, when I asked to interview someone from AP about the intent, the response from the media relations department was to point to its “AP Intellectual...

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The Federal Communications Commission has just kicked of a public comment period seeking input on how exactly to implement the $7.2 billion of stimulus dollars earmarked (oops) for broadband. One the main bones of contention is whether to allocate funds to projects run by public-private partnerships managed by municipal governments, or only to private companies. The Australian government of...

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Given the dual interests in global warming and economics, it’s easy to understand why many tech companies would focus on double-green marketing messages. Lower power consumption and you give customers the double benefit of being kinder to the environment and to their wallets. Unfortunately, in their quests for self-promotion, some businesses are straining credulity and common sense....

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A look at highlights of the past week in the high tech legal world. France kills Internet piracy bill — French legislators voted 21 to 15 to kill a bill that would have allowed the government to cut Internet access to people who downloaded illegal copies of movies and music. The government plans to reintroduce the bill for another vote. [Source: Associated Press] Microsoft ordered to pay...

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In my previous article about Apple, Skype, Kodak, Adobe, and others paying to have Twitter users pretend to use their products and services, there was one question I realized I didn’t even consider. Companies are taking big risks to their brands and reputations to promote themselves through something that is no better than Belkin paying for reviews. But what are they getting out of it? A...

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It was only back in January that we saw Belkin make itself look like a fool by advertising to pay consumers who would write glowing product reviews, whether they had used the products or now. Well, it seems that companies never learn, and now there’s a veritable flock of magpies — Apple, Skype, Kodak, Flip Cisco [UPDATE: Cisco's acquisition of Flip has not yet closed], Adobe, Roxio,...

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Last week, the U.S. Product Safety Commission announced a recall of Insignia brand 26-inch flat panel LCD televisions because of two reports that power supply had caught on fire. The interesting part: Best Buy was the manufacturer. The appeal for retailers to either become manufacturers through outsourced relationships or to private label models from manufacturers can be counted in extra margin...

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Apple is going to start charging higher prices for hit songs, a sharp reversal to a policy it had maintained despite vociferous opposition from the music industry since launching the iTunes music store in 2003. Apple is introducing a three-tiered pricing scheme, with price points at 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29. While most songs in Apple’s catalog will remain at the original 99 cent...

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