Spotlight Features

Take-Two Interactive, the U.S. company that lied about secret animated sex scenes stashed in one of its brutally sadistic "Grand Theft Auto" Rockstar video games, is counting on Bill and the Boyz, a.k.a., Microsoft, for a little extra lift. Next month, Take-Two plans to set an all-in-one, M for Matu...

Technology intended to untie the American worker is actually taking a tremendous toll, according to new research from IT analysis firm Basex. The report indicates that technology tools, including e-mail and instant messaging, are the main culprits when it comes to unnecessary interruptions that cost...

This weekend's mass service outage, though troubling, is being overshadowed by the Government of Pakistan's pursuit of permanent restrictions on Internet use in order to raise revenue for the government-owned telephone company there. Consumers in Pakistan were reportedly hit hard by the recent outag...

Last week's column covered much of the breadth of software inside Windows Vista. The piece addressed some of the features that probably were not widely known and covered likely competitive threats to Apple and Linux. To refresh, Apple is going into the Vista launch weaker and much less differentiat...

With worldwide ringtone sales reaching more than US$4 billion last year, some industry experts have speculated that phone tones will soon outsell CDs. Others, however, speculate that ringtones' success will be shortlived, and that they will eventually go the way of beepers: virtually extinct. The qu...

We've been having a debate in the graduate-level International Marketing course I am teaching regarding whether or not you can buy your way into entirely new markets through high levels of R & D spending. The knee-jerk reaction is to say the bigger the spending in R & D, the higher the inno...

Chinese officials recently announced they will no longer consider death tolls and other relevant information about natural disasters to be state secrets. On the same day, China Telecom blocked Internet phone service from Skype. That left observers wondering whether freedom is growing or decreasing i...

Internet technology is unquestionably poised to transform home entertainment. A quick scan at technology news headlines reveals companies like SBC, Alcatel, Microsoft -- and a host of ancillary service providers -- are gearing up for what some are calling an Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) revolution. T...

Darknets, Greynets. Dark traffic. The words are frightening. The reality behind them is even more frightening. Increasingly clever hackers, thieves and scoundrels are using the Internet, peer-to-peer products, instant messaging and e-mail to wreak havoc, in ways and for purposes never before seen. ...

Our system of law in the United States is what is called a "common law" system. When judges make decisions in such a system, they rely on what is called case law -- the written opinions on matters of law that are previously published by other judges. The other legal principal that lucky non-lawyer...