Kenneth Corbin

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that would give the Department of Justice new authority to crack down on website operators at home and abroad trafficking in knock-off or stolen goods and pirated digital content. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) now heads to the Senate floor, where it […]

WASHINGTON — Google has leapt back into the international discussion over Internet freedom, releasing a lengthy policy paper alleging that governments that restrict access to online content are erecting trade barriers that impair the global economy. In the paper (available here in PDF format), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) alleged that China has violated its obligations under […]

Facebook has announced plans to begin construction this week on a $450 million data center in southwestern North Carolina, slated to open in 2012. The facility near Forest City in Rutherford County will be Facebook’s second owned and operated data center in the United States, continuing the company’s efforts to move away from a leasing […]

Computing heavyweight HP has reached a settlement with federal authorities investigating allegations that the firm offered gifts to city officials in Dallas and Houston to win contracts under a federal subsidy program that provides Internet service and equipment to schools and libraries. Under the agreement, HP (NYSE: HPQ) will pay $16.25 million to settle the […]

After a slow start, the Android smartphone is taking the world by storm. Kenneth Corbin reports on the eye-popping sales figures for the open source smartphone OS. Thanks to a nearly 100-percent increase in smartphone sales, the global market for mobile phones surged 35 percent in the third quarter, according to a new report from […]

Google made a big splash in September when it began serving up search results in real time as users tapped out their queries. Now it’s adding images to the Google Instant feature. On Tuesday morning Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) rolled out an update that it’s calling “instant previews,” which displays an image of the sections of […]

In a bid to layer in more social features to its core Web offerings, Yahoo has retooled its email service, offering an opt-in beta version that promises simpler navigation and integration with social services like Facebook and Twitter. The revamped Webmail also offers new slideshow features offering integrations with Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube and Picassa […]

A Google exec concedes: “We work hard at Google to earn your trust, and we’re acutely aware that we failed badly here.” Kenneth Corbin reports. Google has announced a set of changes to its internal privacy controls in response to the revelations earlier this year that the search giant had inadvertently collected users’ Internet transmissions […]

Challenging the iPad’s multimedia offering, the HP Slate 500’s two cameras include an outward-facing 3 megapixel camera, and a VGA Webcam on the front of the device designed for applications such as video conferencing. HP has released the latest entry into a fast-expanding tablet market, unveiling this week the Slate 500, a Windows 7-powered mobile […]

The Federal Communications Commission this week moved closer to advancing its goal of reallocating large swaths of wireless spectrum to power new, next-generation mobile broadband networks. In a speech reiterating warnings of a looming spectrum shortfall, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski referred to spectrum as the nation’s “invisible infrastructure,” an essential ingredient to support economic growth […]