Articles by Tim Gray

Blockbuster is offering lower-price plans for its Web rental service to steal business from online video rental star Netflix The Dallas-based Blockbuster is cutting prices $1 a month for customers ordering movies online just a month after the company's CEO suggested raising prices....

Electronics maker Toshiba lowered its sales target for high-definition DVD players and recorders based on slumping sales figures in the United States The Tokyo-based company now expects to sell 1 million of its optical disc players in the country by the end of this year, down 44 percent from its previous estimate of 1.8 million unit sales....

Adobe Systems has released the beta version of its new runtime software, Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) -- formerly called "Apollo." The software allows Web-native applications to run just like desktop programs The new tool and Adobe's next version of its Flex development environment -- called "Moxie" and also released in beta on Monday -- further ...

HTC has launched a Windows Mobile smartphone with a touch screen interface strikingly similar in concept to Apple's upcoming iPhone The new phone, dubbed the "HTC Touch," is a multimedia handheld system with an animated 3-D user interface called "TouchFLO" that allows users to move through on-screen options by sweeping their fingers across the scre...

Intel unveiled its 3 Series chipset family designed for playing high-definition media and for supporting the company's 45nm Penryn processors due later this year The highly anticipated chipsets, formerly codenamed "Bearlake," were presented at the Computex Taipei trade show in Taiwan....

Microsoft and Linux distributorXandros announced a broad agreement on Monday based on several technical and intellectual property commitments aimed at extending the software giant's relationship with commercial open source vendors The technology-sharing agreement with the Linux distributor marks the latest in a series of deals designed to help the...

Flextronics International is set to buy rival electronics manufacturerSolectron for US$3.6 billion in cash and stock in a move to cut costs and expand its product line The smaller Milpitas, Calif.-based Solectron will become a subsidiary of Flextronics in a merger that will create a single contract electronics manufacturing company with more than $...

Online search giant Google andEMI Music have agreed to let users of Google's YouTube video-sharing site access music and clips produced by EMI artists The London-based publisher contracts popular recording artists including Coldplay, Norah Jones and David Bowie. EMI will now work with Google to develop business models through which YouTube users ca...

Google has created new Web software that runs both online and offline, allowing users to work just about anywhere -- even in places with spotty or no Internet connections The new open source technology for creating offline Web applications, Google Gears, is a browser plug-in that will let people run Web applications at home or work, or in planes, t...

Google's mapping technology is zooming down from its overhead views and placing users on the street with the freedom to check out restaurants and landmarks and even home in on bus stops or street signs to make travel plans The new feature in Google Maps provides panoramic, 360-degree street-level images for maps of San Francisco, New York, Las Vega...

Microsoft garnered a lot of buzz this week after reports broke the software giant had shipped its 1 millionth Zune -- putting it ahead of a company goal set shortly after it launched its MP3 player in November. However, those reports apparently were jumping the gun Robbie Bach, the president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, was qu...

Sony has developed a display screen so thin it can bend like a piece of paper while at the same time showing full-color video In the continuing race to shrink the size of gadgets while increasing the amount of cutting-edge technology crammed inside, Sony has topped its competitors with the release of a 2.5-inch display that is only 0.01 inch thick....

Google may be violating European Union privacy laws by storing user information on customer queries for prolonged periods of time, advisers to EU regulators informed the company An independent European Union committee has begun an investigation to determine whether Google adheres to privacy guidelines set by the EU....

Following weeks of anticipation, open source software fans can now buy three Dell computers preloaded with Linux The machines -- the XPS 410n and Dimension E520n desktops, and the Inspiron E1505n notebook -- have factory-installedUbuntu 7.04 Linux operating systems....

More Americans are taking a carefree attitude toward the nuisance of spam clogging their e-mail in-boxes, according to a new study Better familiarity, spam filtering and a decrease in pornography-laced spam have eased users' concerns over the scourge, the study concludes....

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed an antispyware bill that would impose specific penalties for scammers accessing computers without authorization while attempting to commit other federal crimes The bill, sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans, would make the fraudulent use of spyware a crime punishable by to up to five years in pris...

The recording industry appears to be changing its tune, now offering to defer hefty new royalty rates for smaller Internet radio stations that might otherwise be forced to tune out due to high costs. However, it doesn't appear the proposed new price structure has won over any fans in the opposition's corner SoundExchange, the organization responsib...

Cisco Systems said Tuesday it will purchase privately heldBroadWare Technologies, a provider of IP-based video surveillance software, for an undisclosed amount Although Cisco is much better known as a leading maker of routers and switches that provide the backbone for directing traffic over Internet, the San Jose, Calif., networking equipment compa...

Dell reportedly will launch three models of its much anticipated laptop and desktop computers loaded with Ubuntu Linux this Thursday Although the company has refused to provide any details, blogger Jeremy Garcia -- a Linux advocate who runs the Web siteLinuxquestions.org -- released an e-mail from an unnamed Dell employee providing a sneak peak int...

The record label home to some of the world's top pop groups, such as the Beatles and Coldplay, has agreed in principle to a US$4.7 billion takeover by private equity group Terra Firma Capital Partners The London-based music companyEMI Group spurned a proposal from Warner Music Group earlier this year, but now considers Terra's offer to be "fair an...