Wayne Rash

The idea of a faster, higher-capacity WiFi sounds great, doesn’t it? But right now the best you can do, realistically, in public places is to access 802.11n WiFi and hope for the best. Unfortunately, in busy sites such as airports, trade shows or even in offices with a lot of wireless traffic, that may not […]

Dish Network offered a premium purchase price for the part of Clearwire not already owned by Sprint in a last-minute effort to disrupt the carrier’s purchase of wireless spectrum it must obtain to stay competitive with AT&T and Verizon. But why is Clearwire suddenly so attractive to Dish? Dish Network has thrown up a potential […]

The Consumer Electronics Show, which opened its doors on Jan. 8 but started hyping products days before that, is missing some notable players. Apple and Microsoft chose not to attend. Google isn’t showing Android and Amazon isn’t there with Kindles. But that doesn’t make CES less important to your enterprise. In fact, it’s just the […]

The Federal Trade Commission has ordered Google to abide by its promises to offer reasonable licensing terms for “standard-essential” technology in the mobile industry under fair and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Patents are considered standard-essential when the technology they cover are incorporated into products in such a way that adherence to an industry standard requires use […]

Let’s get one thing out in the open right away. I really like Windows 8, and I’ve installed it on most of the computers in my lab where I do product reviews. And yes, I’ve gone out and spent my own money to do this. The primary reason I’ve moved many of the test machines […]

When I told my editor what my last column of 2012 would be about, I said that I would write about how glad I was that it’s over. But my response may have been colored by the fact that I’d just been writing about the apparently endless patent wars. That’s enough to make anyone feel […]

I like flying at Flight Level 380, or 38,000 feet for you non-pilots. It’s usually peaceful up there. Most turbulence doesn’t reach that high and the view is great. But suppose you’re not interested in the view because you have work to do? Unfortunately, when you’re back there in Economy, the best you can do […]

Apple was supposed to have won big in the suit against Samsung in a massive series of claims of patent infringement. This was the apparent result of a jury verdict last August in which there were charges of attorney misconduct, juror misconduct and trial errors before the ink was dry on the decision. But a […]

For all practical purposes, the digital divide in the western world has vanished. Computers and computing platforms are available to anyone, sometimes at very little cost, and sometimes for free. Training on how to use those devices is now readily available in schools and elsewhere, also for free. By the time students reach middle school, […]

If there is one thing that investors hate more than nearly anything else it is a surprise. In fact, investors, and their joined-at-the-hip financial analysts apparently hate surprises even more than taxes, the Fiscal Cliff or boardroom fraud. So when RIM CEO Thorsten Heins told investors on a conference call that RIM planned to change […]

The commercial is entertaining. A man brags about the great deal he just got on a pan he found using shopping results from Google. Then the pan bursts into flames, and the woman with him quickly puts out the fire with a handy industrial-strength fire extinguisher. “You just got Scroogled,” she said. The ad then […]

As I wrote in my Dec. 12 column, I went to the Apple Store and bought an unlocked Apple iPhone 5 to see what it takes to get it running on T-Mobile’s network. A week later I went back to the Apple Store and returned it. The story of my ill-fated fling with the iPhone […]