Articles by Rob Spiegel

IBM looked into its crystal ball and saw five technologies becoming ubiquitous in the next five years. While IBM spends most of its time, effort and intelligence in the innards of big organizations, the five technologies it sees on the horizon are very personal. Personal energy. We'll be able to use our own motion, as well as motion around us, to ...

British Telecom has filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming the Android operating system infringes of six of its patents. The suit attacks Google on a number of fronts, including Google Maps, Google+ and Google Music The gist of the six patents, according to patent blogger Florian Mueller:...

Kindles have caught fire this holiday season. The e-readers and tablets are the top-selling products on Amazon, according to numbers released by by the e-commerce giant this week. Consumers have purchased more than a million Kindles in each of the past three weeks, the company said. The new Kindle Fire tablet -- which sells for US$199 -- is Amazon...

Sprint Nextel and C Spire have agreed to postpone their lawsuits against AT&T's troubled merger with T-Mobile. A federal judge approved motions filed jointly by the companies and AT&T on Tuesday. Sprint originally sued to block the merger in September The deal has drawn attention from the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commiss...

Sprint Nextel and C Spire have agreed to postpone their lawsuits against AT&T's troubled merger with T-Mobile. A federal judge approved motions filed jointly by the companies and AT&T on Tuesday. Sprint originally sued to block the merger in September The deal has drawn attention from the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commiss...

Scientists are getting very close to proving or disproving the existence of the subatomic particle known as the "Higgs boson." The list of possible hiding spots for the Higgs boson particle has been narrowed down, according to teams carrying out experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in Geneva Switzerland....

LightSquared's signal may interfere with GPS devices, according to a draft summary of a report on tests commissioned by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which was leaked to Bloomberg. Results of tests conducted between Oct. 21 and Nov. 4 indicate that up to 75 percent of GPS units were negatively affected by LightSqu...

Samsung just got a gift from the top of its wish list. Australia's high court has lifted the ban on its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, just in time for holiday sales. The ruling ended a legal dispute with Apple over alleged patent violations The saga began in April when Apple launched legal actions against Samsung in several countries, claiming...

AT&T plans to continue with its plan to acquire T-Mobile, Chief Financial Officer John Stephens told reporters, in spite of strong disapproval from regulatory organizations including the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. AT&T plans to use the US$10 billion cash accumulated on its balance sheet to prepare for quick cl...

AT&T plans to continue with its plan to acquire T-Mobile, Chief Financial Officer John Stephens told reporters, in spite of strong disapproval from regulatory organizations including the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. AT&T plans to use the US$10 billion cash accumulated on its balance sheet to prepare for quick cl...

The ICM Registry on Monday launched the general availability of .xxx domain names on a first-come, first-served basis. The .xxx domain is meant to function as a responsible alternative for sites that offer adult entertainment content and services, ICM noted. All .xxx sites will be appropriately labeled, giving Internet users a clear indicatio...

Gowalla CEO Josh Williams acknowledged on Monday that the location technology company has been acquired by Facebook. Rumors had been swirling over the weekend Gowalla will wind down its service by the end of January. However, user data will not make the trek to Facebook's Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters with the rest of Austin, Texas-based Gow...

RIM announced on Friday that it would record a pre-tax provision in the third quarter of fiscal 2012 of about US$485 million, or $360 million after tax. The provision is related to the high level of its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet inventory. The charge is expected to be mainly non-cash Increased promotional activity is necessary to drive sell-throug...

The chatter around a Yahoo deal increased on Tuesday and Wednesday as potential buyers and investors starting lining up. It appears Yahoo will be considering a deal to acquire a minority stake in the company by year's end, according to The Wall Street Journal. Offers for roughly 20 percent of the company reportedly came in this week from a number ...

The Federal Communications Commission has released a report attacking AT&T's proposal to buy T-Mobile as a damper on competition. The 157-page report was released on Wednesday, after the FCC accepted AT&T's move to withdraw its request for approval of the US$39 billion deal The report evaluates the impact the merger would have on competition i...

The Federal Communications Commission has released a report attacking AT&T's proposal to buy T-Mobile as a damper on competition. The 157-page report was released on Wednesday, after the FCC accepted AT&T's move to withdraw its request for approval of the US$39 billion deal The report evaluates the impact the merger would have on competition i...

Facebook is getting ready for an initial public offering in the second quarter of 2012, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The company is looking to raise US$10 billion, which would value it at more than $100 billion. The IPO papers will reportedly be filed by the end of the year The proposed valuation is double the value placed on Faceboo...

AT&T threw in the towel on its planned US$39 billion T-Mobile merger over the holiday weekend. On Thursday, it posted a blog entry saying the deal was off. The announcement came two days after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said he would oppose the deal. This is the first time the FCC has moved to block a deal since 2002. The Department of Justice also filed a suit to block it in August...

AT&T threw in the towel on its planned US$39 billion T-Mobile merger over the holiday weekend. On Thursday, it posted a blog entry saying the deal was off. The announcement came two days after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said he would oppose the deal. This is the first time the FCC has moved to block a deal since 2002. The Department of Justice also filed a suit to block it in August...

Penguin Group, one of the largest book publishers in the U.S., has delayed the availability of new e-books in local libraries and will no longer allow OverDrive to loan out digital copies of its titles to Kindles. [*Editor's note - Nov. 23, 2011] The publishing group cited security concerns as the reason for the change. Penguin finds it necessary t...