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Russia successfully launched a rocket on Tuesday carrying the last three satellites to complete a navigation system to rival America’s GPS.
The military-run Glonass mapping system works over most of Russia and is expected to cover the globe by the end of 2009, once all its 24 navigational satellites are operating.
A space rocket blasted off Tuesday […]

Russia may soon prosecute the authors of the “Pinch” Trojan, an easy-to-use malicious software program available on the Internet that steals a variety of data.
Nikolay Patrushev, who heads Russia’s Federal Security Services, said earlier this week that Pinch’s authors had been identified and would be taken to court, according to a blog posting by Russian […]

What do you get when you cross an iPod with a Mac?
A super-slim laptop that uses chip-based flash memory in place of a spinning hard drive, of course. If the rumors are right, Apple (AAPL) will unveil one at the annual Macworld confab next month.
Before you begin salivating from gadget lust however, be forewarned. The […]

There’s little doubt that Google Inc. is indeed king of online media. In August 2007 alone, Google captured 57% of worldwide market share among search engines, with more than 37 billion search inquiries, according to analyst firm comScore Inc. in Reston, Va. Add to that a mind-boggling stock price of $711 per share on Nov. […]

The Federal Trade Commission cleared Google’s purchase of DoubleClick Thursday morning, bringing the search giant one step closer to closing the $3.1 billion deal.
After reviewing complaints from Microsoft (MSFT) and AT&T (T) that Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, which serves graphical ads, would create a monopolistic ad company, commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of Google. […]

Nine-year-old Shea O’Gorman sends a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting ideas for improving her beloved iPod Nano, including adding onscreen lyrics so people can sing along. She gets back a letter from Apple’s legal counsel stating that the company doesn’t accept unsolicited ideas and telling her not to send in any more suggestions.

 
To test Google’s ability to block harmful advertising, Belgian IT security consultant Didier Stevens posts an ad that reads “Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here!” It is accepted by Google and displayed 259,723 times; 409 web surfers actually click on the ad.

In the consumer-technology blogosphere, the rivalry between Engadget.com and Gizmodo.com is as lively as a big-city tabloid war. Instead of a headless body in a topless bar, a scoop for these two sites would be running a photograph of a never-seen-before iPod.
To understand how far each will go to break a story, consider that at […]

You’ve decided on a domain name for your new business, and the domain is already registered and for sale. How much should you be willing to pay? This is becoming a common question, as so many quality domain names have already been taken. While there is no scientific method to determine a precise value for […]

What does Apple (AAPL) have in store for Macworld? Four weeks before Steve Jobs’ Jan. 15 keynote, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has offered his best guess. The report to clients he issued today hews pretty closely to conventional wisdom, but provides a handful of new details.

Silicon Valley loves its buzzwords, and there’s none more popular today than Web 2.0. Unless you’re a diehard techie, though, good luck figuring out what it means. Web 2.0 technologies bear strange names like wikis, blogs, RSS, AJAX, and mashups. And the startups hawking them — Renkoo, Gahbunga, Ning, Squidoo — sound like Star Wars […]

For Apple, the transition from the 2G (or 2.5G) iPhone to the 3G iPhone is a tricky one.
We know the new model is coming sometime in 2008. Steve Jobs hinted as much in September, and AT&T’s (T) Randall Stephenson confirmed it last month.
The problem for Apple is that it must get formal FCC approval before […]

Many companies are thinking about how they can take advantage of social-networking technology, but analysts at Gartner are warning against getting caught up in the hype.
Businesses are advised to consider certain issues before investing in or developing internal social-networking tools. These include protecting personal intellectual property, as well as people’s preference for using existing nonprofessional, […]

If you’d like to beat up on Advanced Micro Devices CEO Hector Ruiz, now would appear to be a good time. Ruiz has won praise for helping the chipmaker mature into a worthy challenger to industry heavyweight Intel, but as he prepares for a Thursday meeting with Wall Street analysts, AMD has the look of […]

Wondering why your corporate Information Technology department won’t buy you an Apple (AAPL) iPhone or support the one you bought yourself? Here’s your answer.
Or, rather, 10 answers. Channeling the thought processes of IT managers who don’t need many excuses not to support yet another platform, Forrester Research(FORR) has put together the definitive top 10 reasons […]

While there are many excellent e-commerce sites around, many online retailers are still making some schoolboy errors on their websites which can have a negative effect on sales and customer satisfaction levels.
Customers want a smooth experience when visiting a website, and if they encounter errors, or are frustrated by usability problems, then many will abandon […]

1. Lemonade.com
Making extra cash through lemonade-stand sales isn’t just for kids anymore. You, too, can now get in the game at Lemonade.com by setting up a virtual “stand” filled with products you’d recommend to friends. Add the widget to your Facebook, MySpace or blog pages and when purchases are made through your site, you receive […]

While the influx of free and low-cost video has hurt the sale of pornographic videos, the chief executive of the Penthouse Media Group remains so bullish on the sex-related entertainment industry that he is investing $500 million in a group of social networking sites.
Marc H. Bell, chief executive of Penthouse Media, said the company had […]

There was a time–2004 to be precise–when spam “only” consumed 70 percent of all e-mail. Those were the good old days. Today, as Barracuda Networks’ annual spam report shows, upwards of 95 percent of all e-mail is spam. In 2001, the number was 5 percent.
We’ve come a long way, baby.
Ironically (or not), the United States’ […]

A few years ago, I spent three months in-between jobs. It wasn’t by choice; I ran a company that filed for bankruptcy along with hundreds of others when the tech bubble burst. It took a while to find a new job. I made the best of it and built a greenhouse.
I never had so much […]