Articles by Rachelle Dragani

Twitter unveiled a new design for its iPad, iPhone and Android users this week, offering a more streamlined look on its mobile apps and asserting more control over how its mobile users interact with the social network Twitter's revamped apps are now common across Apple and Android phones. TThe iPad app gets a makeover that adds the Home, Me, Connec...

HP CEO Meg Whitman revealed the company plans to launch another smartphone, in what would be a second attempt at the mobile market for the PC giant Whitman noted last week in an interview with Fox Business News that since HP is a computing company, it should ultimately offer a smartphone....

Samsung's legal battle against Apple took another hit Friday after a preliminary decision from the International Trade Commission preliminary ruled Apple did not infringe on four of Samsung's patents Samsung filed its original complaint regarding five mobile device patents about a year ago, asking that Apple products violating five of Samsung's pat...

Microsoft won court approval to pursue cybercriminals infiltrating its supply chain as part of an ongoing investigation into malware-infected computers. The company's Digital Crimes Unit bought computers from PC malls in China only to find brand-new laptop and desktop computers infected with preinstalled malware that may have spread to millions o...

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended his company Tuesday and outlined plans for growth in the mobile space in his first public appearance following Facebook's botched IPO and stock plunge Since Facebook's debut on the public market in May, its value has halved and investors have worried the world's most popular social network can't sus...

EarthLink and Clearwire announced a new partnership Monday that will enable EarthLink to resell mobile broadband service on Clearwire's 4G network The new service should begin by early 2013, and will focus on in-home consumer use. Later, EarthLink said it might include more offerings including broadband for mobile devices and enterprise customers.

Twitter is ahead of its social networking competitor Facebook in mobile advertising revenue, but that lead could reverse given Facebook's recent ad initiatives, according to new research from eMarketer The study tallied U.S. mobile advertising revenue for major companies including the competing social networks, and offers projections for future rev...

New questions are being asked about how much accountability the crowd-funding website Kickstarter should have when things go sour The site, launched in 2009, is a crowdsourced lending site designed to help amateur inventors, artists. innovators or organizations receive funding for their ideas. Donations usually come in relatively small monetary amo...

The White House launched new versions of its mobile app Tuesday, releasing the app source code along with the new version in an invitation for developers to tinker with the revamped iOS and Android apps The apps, which have been rebuilt from the ground up, now feature live video streams of White House events, access to 99 percent of the content on ...

AMD CTO Mark Papermaster outlined his vision of the future of computing at this year's Hot Chips semiconductor design conference, detailing his plans to build systems where natural human communication could allow greater interactivity between users and computing hardware, a concept he called "Surround Computing." Papermaster outlined a world in wh...

The Federal Aviation Administration announced Monday it will study the use of portable electronic devices on airliners, potentially opening the door to allowing greater use of smartphones, tablets or e-readers during flights Currently, the FAA requires airlines to determine which devices can safely be used in-flight, and all U.S. airlines now ban t...

Amazon has a big announcement to make on Sept. 6, according to invitations to an upcoming event in Santa Monica the company recently sent Amazon's announcement will come about a year after the online retailer launched the Kindle Fire. The timing has given rise to speculation that this time Amazon plans to announced an upgrade to the tablet -- and p...

Facebook has given its Messages feature a redesign, endowing it with a two-panel layout that makes the social network's private communication platform look more like an e-mail client than its previous single-column interface. The revamped Facebook Messages has two sides. On the left, users will see a small panel that shows the latest contents of t...

Facebook is integrating sponsored results into its search function as part of the social network's ongoing effort to increase advertising revenue. The ads appear when a user looks for a person, place, app or other item through Facebook's search bar. Advertisers can choose which search terms to target with their ads. They pop up ahead of the other ...

Dell announced an 18 percent drop in profit for its fiscal second quarter on Tuesday and warned that PC sales could continue to decline in the second half of the year. The company is in the midst of a transformation that will switch its focus from consumer PCs toward enterprise and commerce customers as increased competition from rival PC and mobi...

Major changes may be in store for Hulu that will loosen up the exclusivity of content on the online video site and pour more ads into the mix, according to a confidential internal memo obtained by Variety. The document discusses the possibility that in September, Hulu owners Comcast, News Corp. and Disney may buy out Providence Equity Partners, t...

Best Buy has named Hubert Joly the company's new CEO, the electronics mega-retailer announced Monday The struggling chain, which faces growing competition from online and discount retailers, said it chose Joly for his expertise in turnaround and growth....

Oracle has released information regarding financial relationships it had with bloggers following a court order that demanded it and Google to disclose their ties with commentators reporting on their recent patent dispute. Google, however, maintained it never paid any individuals to write about its intellectual property battles.

Shoppers and merchants hoping to buy and sell supernatural and occult items will have to head somewhere other than eBay starting Aug. 30, when the online auction site will enact a ban on selling such things as magic spells and potions. eBay updated its fall seller's guide this week. Among the newly banned items are "advice, spells, curses, hexing,...

The United States Department of Justice approved Verizon's US$3.6 billion bid for additional spectrum, albeit with changes mandated by antitrust regulators to ensure the deal won't lead to diminished competition, lower-quality products or higher consumer costs. Verizon Wireless will be allowed to pay Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cox Communications ...