Roy Mark

Technology companies and trade groups rushed to praise patent reform legislation introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate March 3. One of the top items on the tech industry’s agenda, patent reform has failed in the last two Congresses and opponents to reform from biotech companies to big pharmaceutical companies to small inventors are […]

Google is not happy about media reports that the White House has switched from Google-owned YouTube in favor of a flash-based embedded media player powered by Akamai Technologies. The White House made the unannounced move Feb. 28 after privacy advocates questioned the implications of having users of WhiteHouse.gov-the White House’s official site-getting tagged with a […]

So much for the game plan. With high hopes and greater hype, on Feb. 25 Nokia announced its first North American touch-screen rival to the Apple iPhone. By March 2, Nokia had halted U.S. sales of its much-ballyhooed 5800 XpressMusic amid user complaints of connectivity problems.Nokia introduced the device in October 2008 in Europe and […]

Four Indian IT outsourcers topped the 2008 list of companies obtaining H-1B visas, followed by Microsoft as the top U.S. user of the controversial temporary work visas. Leading the list of 2008 H-1B permits was Infosys Technologies with 4,559 visas granted by the U.S. Bureau Citizenship and Immigration Services.Following Infosys were Wipro Technologies with 2,678 […]

The Obama administration Feb. 26 proposed to tax wireless carriers as much as $550 million per year for the right to hold a spectrum license. The fee would be in addition to the billions carriers have already paid in spectrum auctions held by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission).Under the budget outline provided by the Obama […]

Alaska Airlines joined the industry race to add in-flight Wi-Fi service Feb. 26, debuting the service on a handful of Boeing 737-700s. The service is initially being offered for free on flights between Seattle and San Jose, Calif.After the trial period, Alaska Airlines said it would determine a schedule and pricing for rolling out the […]

In the aftermath of a Feb. 10 hack at the Federal Aviation Administration that exposed more than 45,000 current and former FAA employees to potential identity theft, the agency plans to use a crawler-type application to inventory the FAA’s sensitive data. Once the inventory is done, the FAA will determine what data contains sensitive information […]

It didn’t take long for three lawmakers in the 111th Congress to reintroduce legislation that was widely ridiculed in 2008 as an attack by brick-and-mortar retailers on online marketplaces. Ostensibly targeting organized retail crime, the legislation would mean online retail Web sites would be subject to take-down notices if a retailer claims the goods are […]

Two months before federal authorities issued indictments charging two New Jersey IT firms with using small Iowa towns as mail drops in an H1-B visa fraud scheme, the hammer had already fallen on a Massachusetts’ scam where a state employee allegedly created bogus H1-B job certifications.In the scheme, four men were charged Dec. 4 with […]

Nokia released Feb. 25 its first North American touch-screen rival to the Apple iPhone. Not only does the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic squarely target the iPhone, but the $399 unlocked device also runs on AT&T’s 3G network.The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic’s North American debut follows Nokia’s January announcement that the smartphone, Nokia’s first mass-market touch-screen device, had […]

Motorola unveiled two new solutions Feb. 24 that the company claims will simplify and reduce the costs associated with the maintenance and management of enterprise wireless networks. The new technology allows IT managers to remotely analyze and perform network testing from a central location as well as take advantage of next-generation self-healing features.By providing IT […]

After prying $19 billion for health care IT initiatives from lawmakers in the stimulus package, the White House indicated Feb. 23 that efforts to reduce a trillion dollar deficit will almost certainly include even more health care reform.“The path to fiscal responsibility must run directly through health care,” Obama’s budget director Peter Orzag told a […]