Matthew Hicks

The overseer of the Internets domain names gained a legal victory this week in a case challenging its approval of a Web address back-order service being created by VeriSign Inc. A federal judge earlier this week denied a preliminary injunction against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN has given preliminary approval to […]

A little bit of consolidation hit the still-developing social networking space on Thursday as Tickle Inc., the new name for online media company Emode.com Inc., announced the acquisition of a key company in the space. Tickle bought Ringo—a Walnut Creek, Calif.-based social networking site that, like leader Friendster, connects people with friends of friends—in a […]

Social networking got a boost on Wednesday—at least financially—as two burgeoning companies in the space gained additional funding. LinkedIn Ltd., of Mountain View, Calif., announced that it has secured $4.7 million in financing, while Palo Alto, Calif.-based Spoke Software Inc., according a posting on its blog, has secured an additional $10 million in funding. Social […]

When Comdex Las Vegas 2003 opens next week, gone will be the massage tables, the luxury cars and the consumer trinkets and gadgets that once dotted the trade show floor disguised as enterprise IT. This year, Comdexs organizers are promising to focus solely on business IT in a markedly downsized show being billed as “year […]

The Web browser patent behind a $521 million verdict against Microsoft Corp. is undergoing a reexamination, the United States Patent and Trademark Office confirmed on Wednesday. Eolas lawyer as well as the patent-holder, the University of California, however, remained confident in the patents claims and the eventual outcome of the reexamination. The patent office on […]

The Web browser patent behind a $521 million verdict against Microsoft Corp. appears to be headed toward a reexamination. The United States Patent and Trademark Office on Oct. 30 ordered a reexamination patent No. 5,838,906, which is a basis of Eolas Technologies Inc.s patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft, according to a Weblog column published late […]

ScanSoft Inc. on Tuesday released a new version of its OmniPage optical character recognition software that incorporates new speech technologies and improves the accuracy of converting scanned documents into electronic ones. With OmniPage Pro 14 Office, ScanSoft has incorporated its automatic speech recognition technology into the product. It allows a user to speak commands in […]

Microsoft Corp. is seeking the rejection of consumer claims filed through a Lindows.com Inc. Web site in a California antitrust lawsuit settlement, arguing the claims dont meet the requirements of the settlement agreement. The Redmond, Wash., software maker filed a motion earlier this month asking San Francisco Superior Court Judge Paul H. Alvarado to resolve […]

Microsoft Corp., about two weeks after Apple Computer Inc. released the Panther release of its Mac OS X, quietly unveiled a new version of its Windows Media Player for Mac users. Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X, made available for download in English on Friday, includes an updated user interface to match the […]

Led by a surge in the amount of data being analyzed in data warehouses, the worlds largest databases are pushing new heights as they double and triple in size, according to a survey being released on Tuesday. For the first time in database consulting company Winter Corp.s five surveys of the largest and most heavily-used […]

Latitude Communications Inc. on Friday launched a new version of a rich-media content creation tool that it acquired in April in a prelude to the further integration of Flash capabilities into its overall Web conferencing platform. MeetingPlace iCreate 2.0, the first release of the software since Latitude acquired software maker Wanadu Inc., allows users to […]

Two weeks after launching its Office 2003, Microsoft Corp. has released its first update to the productivity suite. The Office 2003 Critical Update, dated Tuesday on the companys support site, fixes a problem that can cause the loss of graphic content in certain Word 2003, PowerPoint 2003 and Excel 2003 documents. According to the warning, […]