Roy Mark

WASHINGTON—It could cost as much as $12 billion and take as long as three years to build a national wireless network from scratch, Googles Washington telecom and media counsel said Sept. 25. That would be on top of a minimum of $4.6 billion to buy the spectrum. Whether the Mountain View, Calif., search and advertising […]

WASHINGTON—Dell plans to be a carbon-neutral operation by the end of 2008, Chairman and CEO Michael Dell said Sept. 26. The ambitious plan follows the computer makers June announcement that it plans to be the “greenest technology company on the planet.” To be carbon-neutral, a company takes inventory of its total GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions […]

Satellite television provider EchoStar Communications plans to acquire Sling Media for $380 million in cash and EchoStar stock options. EchoStar, of Englewood, Colo., the operator of the Dish Network, already owns a stake in the popular Sling Media, which allows users to stream their television signals to a PC or cell phone. “With todays increasingly […]

WASHINGTON—The topic was education and the talk was not optimistic at the Institute for a Competitive Workforces Sept. 25 workshop. A part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ICW drew several hundred participants to its event, held with the goal of promoting effective and sustainable business and education/work force partnerships. “Our continued leadership is not […]

WASHINGTON—For China to truly become a nation built on innovation, Beijing must improve its intellectual property rights protections, the National Chamber of Commerce said Sept. 24. While software piracy rates have declined by 12 percent over the last two years, the theft rate is still 80 percent. “China must take steps to protect foreign investors. […]

Lawmakers are accusing government contractor Unisys of incompetence and possible illegal activity related to its handling of Department of Homeland Security network security and hacks originating in China. Unisys, based in Blue Bell, Pa., won a $1.7 billion contract with the DHS in 2002 to build, manage and protect the networks at the Transportation Security […]

A special agent for the Department of Commerce is facing up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for using a Department of Homeland Security database to cyber-stalk his former girlfriend. Benjamin Robinson, 40, was indicted Sept. 19 by an Oakland, Calif., jury for unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and making […]

Google emphatically denied on Sept. 20 that it is interested in bidding on 3G spectrum that the U.K. may put up for sale. Ofcom, the British telecom regulator, announced on Sept.19 it was considering a spectrum auction as early next year and press reports immediately circulated citing Googles interest. “I can tell you definitively its […]

Based on a new round of field trials, Microsoft and Philips are asking the Federal Communications Commission to renew testing on devices that can access the Internet using empty buffer spectrums—known as white spaces—between television channels. Microsoft and other members of a powerhouse group of technology companies called the White Spaces Coalition covet the spectrum […]

A European courts ruling against Microsoft not only once again fueled the debate over the software makers business practices but also raised concerns about how U.S. technology companies doing business on the continent will be treated. The European Court of First Instance Sept. 17 upheld the findings of the European Commission in 2004 that Microsoft […]

The Bush administration may be running out the clock in its efforts to resist a congressional inquiry and two lawsuits seeking the whereabouts and contents of more than 5 million missing White House e-mails, according to one of the organizations that has filed a suit. “The White House has known for a number of years […]

Interest in cell phones that can switch from traditional mobile networks to broadband-based calls continues to grow with Nokias Sept. 20 announcement of a new phone with WiFi capabilities. The 6301 uses UMA (unlicensed mobile access) technology to allow users to take advantage of either a GSM network or a broadband Internet-connected WLAN (wireless LAN) […]