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After ranking first in 2006, the United States has fallen to seventh place this year among 122 economies in its network readiness, or ability to leverage the opportunities of IT, according to a report released Wednesday by the World Economic Forum. In its evaluation of each country's ability to take...

Biometrics -- or biometric authentication -- refers to technology that measures and analyzes human physical characteristics for security purposes. Physiological, or biometric, characteristics include, for instance, eye retinas, facial patterns and hand or foot measurements, whereas examples of behav...

Japanese Linux vendor Turbolinux last week announced a couple of big deals in China, as the company looks to take advantage of China's pro-open source government backing and the replacement of SCO-Unix servers in a Turbolinux bid for market expansion. Turbolinux said Qinzang Railway, part of China's...

This week, a group of legal scholars, high government officials, Nobel prize recipients, and economic experts gathered for the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, to discuss e-government, telecommunications, and intellectual property, among other issues. One of the more colorfu...

The Internet is helping to change the face of tax season, with as many as half of all U.S. taxpayers expected to use a free Web service to file their tax returns this year. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said that its free E-File program is on pace to grow some 44 percent over last year's record...

Using the Internet to ease access to government services seems obvious today. When Ed Trimble founded EzGov five years ago, however, he had to play the role of evangelist, touting the security and capabilities of the Web. A few months after EzGov incorporated, it sold its first application -- a prop...

Microsoft today announced that it is working with Accenture to offer standardized technologies for governments in Europe. These "blueprints" are customizable sets of software strategies tailored to the needs of public sector organizations. Currently, blueprints are available from Accenture in seven ...

The German government has decided to move its federal, state and local agency IT systems to Linux, citing reliability issues and a desire to reduce its dependence on Microsoft. Toward this goal, the country has signed an agreement with IBM, which will provide related hardware, software and services ...

With the first 100 days of his presidency coming to a close at the end of this month, U.S. President George W. Bush has yet to articulate a formal e-commerce strategy. As a result, there is some disagreement among experts on how much Bush will help the industry. Forrester Research group dir...