Roy Mark

President Obama said April 9 the United States has taken the first steps to create portable electronic health records for all military personnel. Under the plan, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs will ultimately be able to seamlessly communicate the health records of veterans. Currently, there is no comprehensive system in […]

News reports of Russian and Chinese spies hacking into the U.S. power grid and planting destructive malware for a later date is not as potentially threatening as it might sound, according to several cyber-security experts. While serious, they point out, both the White House and Congress are moving to pass tougher cyber controls and standards […]

The economy seems to have taken a major bite out of the mobile PC data card business, with new subscriber growth plunging in the fourth quarter of 2008. According to comScore, the number of subscribers signing up for Internet connections through mobile ISPs was up by five percent over the third quarter, breaking a string […]

Demand for the controversial H-1B visas is falling sharply, at least in the early going of the annual lottery for educated foreign workers that began April 1. The U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services reported April 8 that only about half of the 65,000 allotment had been taken. In 2008, the USCIS filled the […]

Taiwan chip designer Elan sued Apple April 7, claiming Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and MacBook infringe on touch-screen patents held by Elan. The amount of damages sought by Elan was not included in the lawsuit filed in San Francisco, but, at a minimum, Elan wants an injunction halting Apple from producing and selling any devices […]

Hard as it might seem to believe, the Federal Communications Commission finally got around to deciding it needed a plan to get broadband to more Americans after a decade of falling behind other nations when it comes to penetration and speeds of high-speed Internet. At the FCC’s monthly open meeting April 8, the agency voted […]

When taxpayers bailed out General Motors, demanding that the automaker restructure for the future, President Obama may not have had this in mind: GM and Segway teaming to showcase an electrically powered, two-seat prototype vehicle that has only two wheels. They are calling it Project PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility), which debuted April 7 […]

The British Identity and Passport Service has selected Computer Sciences Corp. and IBM to build and run core elements of the country’s National Identity Service that aims to ramp up a large-scale deployment of U.K. passports and biometric ID cards.CSC won the lion’s share of the 10-year, $971 million IT services deal with a $570 […]

When Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act in 2003, it included cell phones by banning the sending of spam e-mail to cell phones. At the time, no one contemplated the phenomenal growth of Short Message Service text messaging, or SMS. By 2007, more than 1.1 million wireless spam text messages were delivered in the United States.Hoping […]

Skype’s introduction of its VOIP service for the iPhone may well be the tipping point for wireless network neutrality. While the right of hardwired Internet users to use the applications and services of their choice has been established by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), network neutrality for wireless networks is still an unresolved issue.Then came […]

Patent reform moved closer to reality April 2 as the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 15-4 for a compromise bill that seeks to bridge the longstanding dispute between technology companies and the pharmaceutical industry over patent infringement damages.Through six years of debate in the Senate and the House of Representatives, high-tech firms have fought to more […]

Touting a familiar theme while still playing to his audience April 3, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore told a crowd at the annual CTIA wireless show in Las Vegas that the wireless industry should be a major player in solving climate change. In particular, Gore said, the wireless industry would play a central role […]