Wayne Rash

About

Wayne Rash is a content writer and editor with a 35-year history covering technology. He’s a frequent speaker on business, technology issues and enterprise computing. He is the author of five books, including his most recent, "Politics on the Nets." Rash is a former Executive Editor of eWEEK and a former analyst in the eWEEK Test Center. He was also an analyst in the InfoWorld Test Center and editor of InternetWeek. He's a retired naval officer, a former principal at American Management Systems and a long-time columnist for Byte Magazine.

Supreme Court Affirms Cell Phone Searches Require Warrants

The U.S. Supreme Court summed up their thoughts on searches of cell phones by police in one short comment. “Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in the Court’s opinion covering warrantless searches of […]

Microsoft, Google Chime in With Apple on Smartphone Kill Switch

The long-awaited and much-demanded cell phone “kill switch” is finally coming. It’ll show up in drips and drabs and in fits and starts. It won’t be universal. But it’ll be here, sort of. For reasons that remain open to speculation, mobile phone makers besides Apple have been reluctant to provide their customers with a means […]

Supreme Court Narrowly Limits Business Method Software Patents

The U.S. Supreme Court’s long-anticipated decision on an important software patent case turned out to be something less than many hoped, but it is still important. The Supreme Court decided on June 19 that the patent for computer software designed to implement a settlement risk protection method was not patentable. As such, the case didn’t […]

FCC Report Finds Most ISPs Deliver Broadband Speeds Users Pay For

Chances are you probably hate your cable provider. You hate them for their arrogance, their broken promises and their many customer service failures. But don’t hate them for giving you slow Internet, because an exhaustive series of tests by the Federal Communications Commission show that if anything, your broadband provider probably over-delivers. But that’s not […]

70 Percent of U.S. Credit Cards to Include EMV Chips by 2015

The good news for companies that accept credit cards is that most banks will be issuing credit cards with EMV chips well before the coming liability shift in October 2015. The bad news is that merchants that don’t accept EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) chips will have to absorb the cost of fraudulent transactions due […]

AT&T, DirecTV Merger Heading to Streamlined Senate Hearings

The planned merger between communications giant AT&T and satellite television provider DirecTV appears to be moving ahead with little opposition. On June 12, the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Greg Walden (R-Ore.) told The Hill newspaper in Washington that he has no plans to hold hearings on the merger. While House Judiciary Committee […]

Microsoft Wages Court Fight to Prevent U.S. Search of Overseas Data

Microsoft has just made public its court filings objecting to demands by the U.S. government that the company turn over email files that are located on servers outside the U.S. Microsoft has declined to provide the emails saying that a search warrant isn’t valid outside the territory of the United States. In response, the U.S. […]

BlackBerry Z30 Unlocked GSM Smartphone Opens Door to Android Apps

When Michelle Maisto reviewed the BlackBerry Z30 in November 2013, the phone was only available from Verizon as a CDMA device and it came with a subsidy and a mobile service contract. Since then a great deal has changed. The phone is now available in a GSM version, meaning it can be used worldwide, and […]

Big BlackBerry Z30 GSM Smartphone Delivers Eye-Catching Features

Big BlackBerry Z30 GSM Smartphone Delivers Eye-Catching Features By Wayne Rash This Is a Big BlackBerry The BlackBerry Z30 shown here next to the Z10 is a very big phone. The 5-inch screen can display an additional row of icons, and because it’s larger, it’s easier to type on than smaller devices. BlackBerry’s excellent predictive […]

EU Court Finds That Web Browsing Doesn’t Violate Copyright Law

A decision on June 5 by the European Courts of Justice that the act of browsing an Internet site does not constitute a copyright violation may sound obvious. But this concept isn’t necessarily clear cut in the field of copyright law, even in the United States. In this particular case, a group of newspaper publishers […]