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Turning Back the Clock on the Social Revolution

We have this idea of modern computing that is closely tied to social media, and rightly so. Social media is a kind of glue that ties us together in new and bigger configurations than our own human capabilities. However, it is also the unspoken issue in the Yahoo brouhaha about working from home -- t...

WHICH APPS DO I NEED?

All Things Appy: 5 Best Windows 8 Sports Apps

You can do a whole lot more than watch your favorite sports on television these days if you take advantage of a second screen. The concept is simple: The big TV screen provides the visual action, while your laptop or tablet dishes out in-depth analysis and social media commentary on the side. Window...

Yahoo Weather, Email Mobile Apps Aim for Elegance

Yahoo last week unfurled two new apps that should help strengthen its mobile bona fides: the Yahoo Weather App for iPhone, iPod and iPod touch; and Yahoo Mail Apps for iPad and Android tablets. The new releases are in keeping with CEO Marissa Mayer's intention to pare Yahoo's extensive mobile portfo...

Yahoo Investors Waiting to Exhale

Yahoo's latest earnings report was a mixed bag, and Wall Street didn't seem to know how it should react. Following Tuesday's report, the company's stock dropped slightly on Wednesday, then rose slightly and ended the day a tiny bit ahead. On Thursday, Yahoo shares were off by about 2 percent mid-day...

Google Takes Another Step Toward Omniscience

Google has engaged the Behavio team in a "hiring exercise." The startup uses mobile sensors to collect data and predict behavior. Its technology recognizes data such as location, contacts, nearby destinations, recent phone activity, daily movement, and even surrounding physical information such as t...

VCs Throw Foursquare a Hail Mary Pass

Foursquare, the poster child for check-in tech when the trend was hot, announced this week that it has raised $41 million in a new financing round. The funding was provided by private-equity firm Silver Lake and existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Spark Capital, and ...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Trusteer Ventures Into the Chinese Hackers’ Den

China has a reputation as a center for international hacking, so why would a U.S. security company want to set up shop there? Before hackers launch their international escapades, they typically cut their teeth in their local markets, explained Rakesh Loonkar, president of Trusteer, which announced l...

ANALYSIS

Yahoo and Summly: CliffsNotes for the Mobile Era?

The IT industry is no stranger to youth worship, but Yahoo's multimillion-dollar deal for Summly pushes that notion into cradle-robbing -- well, high school-robbing, anyway -- territory. That's because the punchline beneath the headlines is the age of Summly founder. Nick D'Aloisio, 17 -- and a litt...

Dutch Spam Fight Boils Over Into Largest-Ever DDoS Attack

A week-old squabble between two Dutch groups -- the spamfighting Spamhaus Project and Web hosting service Cyberbunker -- has resulted in what has been called the largest distributed denial of service attack in Web history. The cyberfight reportedly has spilled over onto the global Internet and slowe...

Yahoo Pays Big for Teen Coding Whiz and His App

Yahoo has paid a reported $30 million for Summly, a newsreader app founded by 17-year-old programming prodigy Nick D'Aloisio. The move makes D'Aloisio, based in London, both an instant multimillionaire and Yahoo's youngest employee. The Summly app, which delivers 400-character summaries of news stor...

TECH TREK

US Judge Tosses Censorship Claims Against Baidu, China

At long last, China and the United States are on the same cyberpage. A U.S. district judge in Manhattan dismissed a lawsuit brought by activists who claimed that Baidu, China's largest search engine, should be punished -- along with China itself -- for censoring them on the Web. First filed in May 2...

INSIGHTS

2 Steps Back: The Social Revolution

We have this idea of modern computing that is closely tied to social media, and rightly so. Social media is a kind of glue that ties us together in new and bigger configurations than our own human capabilities. However, it is also the unspoken issue in the Yahoo brouhaha about working from home -- t...

ANDROID APP REVIEW

Slices Pro for Twitter Cuts Through the Chaos

We're seeing an entire genre of Twitter clients proliferating within the Android ecosystem -- each app with its own idea about the best way to interact with the monolithic, 500 million-strong social network. OneLouder's Slices Pro for Twitter is the latest client to grab my attention -- not least ...

Yahoo Could Take Zynga Under Its Wing

It appears Yahoo may be interested in acquiring Zynga. Both companies have been through rough patches in recent times, but Zynga's stock actually spiked 10 percent following speculation in an analyst's research note. While some things have been looking up at Yahoo since Marissa Mayer took over as CE...

GOVERNMENT IT REPORT

Feds Tiptoe Into Telecommuting Territory

Yahoo's recently adopted ban on telecommuting is designed to boost creativity and cooperation by having employees work on-site. That may work for the search company, but elsewhere employers regard telework as a useful and productive option. That includes the single largest U.S. employer -- the feder...

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