Five Major League Baseball stars linked to phone card
scam
Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, Baltimore Orioles shortstop
Miguel Tejada, New York Mets starter Pedro Martinez, New York
Yankees reliever Octavio Dotel and Tampa Bay Devil Rays shortstop
Julio Lugo reportedly were named in suit filed by Salvador
Delgado, who is representing convenience store owners who
say they unknowingly sold defective phone cards -- known as
"Grandes Ligas" -- that were advertised by the players. Full
Story
Thursday, December 15 2005
RIM Pressured to Settle BlackBerry Case
This week, a tiny patent holding firm battling the device's
creator, Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM), announced a license
agreement with RIM rival Visto Corp. With the deal in hand,
Visto went straight to court and sued Microsoft Corp. for
similar infringement claims. The announcements could put more
pressure on RIM to settle with its little challenger, NTP
Inc., perhaps for up to $1 billion. Both sides, however,
show no signs of letting up, even with the looming threat
of a court-ordered shutdown of U.S. BlackBerry service. Full
Story
Tuesday, December 13 2005
HP introduces state-of-the-art video conferencing system
In an effort to ease the pains of jet-lagged executives who
are burned out on business travel, Hewlett-Packard has unveiled
a high-priced video conferencing system that can simulate
real-time, face-to-face meetings over long distances. The
set-up, however, comes at a steep price. It costs $550,000
per room for the equipment and installation. Customers will
also pay an $18,000 monthly service fee per room. Full
Story
MTS acquires Bitel, enters the Kyrgyz market
Mobile Telesystems, a mobile phone operator in Russia, has
announced the acquisition of a 51 per cent stake in Bitel,
a mobile phone operator in the Kyrgyz Republic. Full
Story
Microsoft and MCI team to offer PC-to-phone calling
Microsoft and MCI yesterday announced a global partnership
to provide software and services that enable customers to
place calls from a PC to nearly any fixed-line or mobile telephone.
Full
Story
Friday, December 09 2005
BellSouth Teams With 8x8, Inc. to Deliver VoIP Phone Service
to Residential Customers
BellSouth's agreement with 8x8 calls for the development
of BellSouth® Digital Phone Service based on 8x8's internally
developed technology. This includes a suite of VoIP service
components including a call switching platform, feature servers,
customer portals and consumer premise equipment. Full
Story
Thursday, December 08 2005
Yahoo to offer Net calls
Internet giant Yahoo plans to offer a service allowing computer
users to communicate with regular telephones over the Web,
the company said Wednesday. The service will be similar to
eBay's Skype, with slightly lower prices. A customer,
using a microphone and earphones, will be able to place an
inexpensive call from a computer to a telephone or cellular
phone. Full Story
Newmark, whose free Web site listings have wreaked havoc
with the newspaper business model over the past few years,
acknowledged Wednesday that he is working with other people
on a new media venture involving "technologies that promise
to help people find the most trusted versions of the more
important stories." Full Story
Wednesday, November 16 2005
Sony offers free Skype competitor
Sony on Wednesday announced a free Internet-based phone service
similar to the popular computer-to-computer calling provided
by Skype, but with an emphasis on video conferencing. Full Story
Saturday, November 12 2005
Justice Department intervenes in BlackBerry patent dispute
The Justice Department, filing on behalf of various government
agencies, requested a stay of 90 days to put together an electronic
database of government users whose service should not be cut
off in the event Research In Motion loses its final legal
battles and does not reach a settlement. Full Story
Saturday, November 05 2005
Head of Corporation for Public Broadcasting ousted amid
accusations
Kenneth Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees
most U.S. government broadcasts to foreign countries, including
Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, is the subject of
an inquiry into accusations of misuse of federal money and
the use of phantom or unqualified employees, officials involved
in the inquiry said. Tomlinson was ousted from the board of
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on Thursday after
its inspector general concluded an investigation that was
critical of him. Full Story
Tuesday, November 01 2005
Over-the-air downloads latest Sprint offering
The service, called Sprint Music Store, will allow subscribers
to select from a catalog of 250,000 tunes supported by four
of the biggest music labels. After paying $2.50, a user
can download a song in about 30 seconds to two new handsets,
using Sprint's fast data network, called EV-DO, which
is available to 130 million people. Full Story
Thursday, September 29 2005
Most Americans using high-speed internet at home
More than 60 percent of Americans who use the Internet at
home now do so with a high-speed connection, a new study finds.
Full Story
New wireless video ready to beam in to your cell phone
Watching television has long been a pursuit best experienced
from the comfort of your living-room couch. But wireless industry
leaders are betting that the television is ready to go mobile
and that subscribers, who are normally glued to their sets
each night, will soon flock to cell phones that give them
a similar experience on the move. Full Story
Tuesday, September 27 2005
Palm bets future on Microsoft OS
Palm Inc., a pioneer in handheld devices, took a vital step
toward expanding its reach Monday when it announced the release
of its latest Treo smart phone with a Microsoft operating
system. Full Story
Monday, September 19 2005
EBay's $2.6 billion deal to buy Skype will provide
online auction sellers, buyers with another way to communicate
The introduction of Internet telephony is having profound
effects on the way people communicate, making it easier and
bringing down the cost, in some cases, to nothing. The emerging
technology is also creating new opportunities in e-commerce,
which has largely evolved into a virtual marketplace where
consumers make purchases without ever speaking a word. Full Story
Friday, September 16 2005
Price gap between cable, DSL widening
Cable-modem service was, on average, 75.8 percent more expensive
than DSL during the month, up from a 53.3 percent gap in July.
While phone carriers cut prices — the average DSL price decreased
by 9.2 percent — cable companies raised them. Full Story
Monday, September 12 2005
EBay to buy Skype for $2.6 billion
Online auction leader eBay took a huge step into the Internet
telephony business Monday when it announced it was purchasing
Skype Technologies SA for $2.6 billion in cash and stock,
plus other considerations. Full Story
Monday, August 22 2005
3G allows cell phone users to access internet with DSL
speed
The four major U.S. cell phone carriers are in different
phases of rolling out wireless broadband that will offer average
speeds of 400 to 700 Kbps with bursts up to 2 or 3 Mbps. By
contrast, DSL service runs from 380 Kbps to 1,500 Kbps. Full Story
Tuesday, August 09 2005
Cisco rumor sends Nokia stock up
Shares of Nokia, the world's largest wireless phonemaker,
jumped more than 3 percent Monday after a news report that
said that Cisco Systems Inc. is interested in acquiring some
or all of the Finnish company. Full Story
Saturday, July 23 2005
New mobile dating services allow people to browse profiles
via cell phone and message potential matches - even on the
spot
The technology has advanced to the point where a person can
turn a cell phone into a sort of homing device to find a date
just a short distance away. SmallPlanet (www.smallplanet
.net), a mobile social networking company, has come up with
a way for its compatible users to be alerted when they are
within range of each other, in most cases about 30 feet for
now. Full Story
Monday, July 04 2005
New cell phones to combine music player, internet access,
higher-resolution camera, PDA
"This new generation of phones is in a sphere where they
do everything at least well and some things potentially very
well," said analyst Andy Castonguay of the Yankee Group. "That's
a big breakthrough. It's the first generation of phone
that will be able to really handle the functions of a general
PDA along with imaging and music functions." Full Story
Sunday, June 26 2005
Ring tones make cell phones personalized fashion accessories
A recent study by M:Metrics, an industry analyst with offices
in San Francisco, found that more than 24 million U.S. mobile
phone subscribers downloaded a ring tone in April. To contrast,
fewer than 15 million used their phone to send a photo message
to another phone or e-mail. Entner estimates that the ring-tone
industry, which didn't exist three years ago, will grow
to $1.5 billion by 2007. Full Story
Saturday, May 28 2005
180.6 million cell phones sold worldwide during first
quarter of 2005
The industry reported that 180.6 million units were sold
in the first quarter of this year, a 17 percent increase from
the same period a year ago. That continued a buying boom that
began two years ago and really took hold last year, according
to market research firm Gartner Inc. The new figures prompted
Gartner to revise its mobile-phone sales estimates up to 750
million units from 720 million for 2005. Full Story
Wednesday, May 25 2005
PalmSource sells rights to Palm Inc. for $30 million
in saga that began in early '90s
PalmOne Inc., the Milpitas company that makes the popular
Treo mobile devices, announced Tuesday it would reassume its
old name, Palm Inc., this fall. In order to do so, PalmSource,
the Sunnyvale company that makes the software for the Palm
devices, said it would sell the rights to the Palm name to
its former sister company for $30 million. Full Story
Tuesday, March 15 2005
Ebbers found guilty on all counts
Bernard Ebbers, who built WorldCom from a humble Mississippi
long-distance concern into a telecommunications titan, was
convicted Tuesday of engineering the colossal accounting fraud
that sank the company. A federal jury in Manhattan deliberated
eight days before returning guilty verdicts on all counts
— one count of conspiracy, one count of securities fraud and
seven counts of false regulatory filings. The crimes carry
up to 85 years in prison. Full Story
Monday, March 14 2005
Orb software lets you watch all favorite TV channels while
away from home
While everyone was talking about "the digital living room''
at a technology conference in Foster City last week, one interesting
new software on display showed how you can stretch your living
room around the world. The software, called Orb, lets you
watch live the same TV channels you get at home -- even if
you're across the country. All you need is a computer
with a high-speed Internet connection, a compatible cell phone
or handheld digital assistant. Full Story
Tuesday, March 01 2005
Ebbers pleads ignorance
Bernard Ebbers, the former WorldCom chief executive once
hailed as one of the most brilliant telecommunications entrepreneurs
ever, told a packed courtroom on Monday, "I don't know
about technology, and I don't know about finance and accounting."
Full
Story
Wednesday, February 23 2005
AT&T slammed over calling card policy
Federal regulators ruled Wednesday that AT&T skirted the
law by failing to pay fees on its popular prepaid calling
cards, a decision that could cost the long-distance company
about $500 million. Full Story
Saturday, February 19 2005
Telephone industry mergers blend services
The acquisitions of AT&T and MCI by larger rivals are the
most dramatic evidence of long distance calling's steady
decline as a business distinct from "local" phone service.
Full Story
Thursday, February 10 2005
Verizon Enters MCI Bidding
Telecom giant Verizon Communications Inc. has reportedly
floated an informal buyout offer for MCI Corp., the long distance
telephone company that has been awash in takeover speculation
in the wake of regional phone company SBC Communications Inc.'s
$16 billion deal for AT&T Corp. Full Story
Tuesday, February 08 2005
Ex-WorldCom Finance Chief Says Bernard Ebbers Pressured
Him on Earnings to Please Wall Street
Scott Sullivan, the government's star witness at Ebbers'
fraud trial, said the former chief frequently talked to him
about Wall Street expectations and how WorldCom stock was
performing. Full Story
Friday, February 04 2005
MCI and Qwest reported to be in merger talks
Word of the talks is being interpreted in the industry as
a thinly veiled attempt by Michael Capellas to generate interest
from two other much larger Bell companies - Verizon Communications
and BellSouth - so that they might make competing bids for
MCI. Full Story
Thursday, February 03 2005
Ex-WorldCom accountant takes the stand
His voice quavering, a former WorldCom accountant described
Thursday how his bewilderment turned to defiance when he was
repeatedly asked to book bizarre, baseless accounting entries.
The accountant, Mark Abide, testifying for the prosecution
at the fraud trial of former CEO Bernie Ebbers, appeared close
to tears as he recounted being instructed to tally billions
in assets he'd never heard of. Full Story
Tuesday, February 01 2005
SBC, AT&T merger to cut 13,000 jobs
SBC Communications CEO Ed Whitacre and AT&T CEO Dave Dorman
told analysts Tuesday that they plan to eliminate about 13,000
jobs after their $16 billion merger closes. Full Story
Monday, January 31 2005
SBC votes to approve deal for AT&T
SBC Communications last night was close to concluding a $16
billion deal for its former parent, AT&T, that would lead
to the virtual disappearance of one of America's best-known
corporate icons, executives close to the negotiations said.
Full Story
Friday, January 28 2005
SBC reportedly trying to buy AT&T - again
Telephone giant SBC is reportedly holding talks to buy AT&T
in a deal that would create the nation's largest phone
company, spell the end of the iconic Ma Bell and, critics
fear, saddle consumers with higher bills. Full Story
Thursday, January 27 2005
Backstage battle over cell phone rules
U.S. Cellular, a mobile phone company serving Humboldt County
and other rural sections of Northern California, has threatened
to pull out of the California market within months unless
state utility regulators suspend a new set of consumer protection
rules. Full Story
Wednesday, January 26 2005
Ebbers defends himself on tapes
Jurors at the fraud trial of former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers
heard his voice for the first time Wednesday, sheepishly saying
on a tape, "Remember, I'm a P.E. graduate, not an economist."
Full
Story
Friday, January 14 2005
Covad tests new phone technology for local service
Covad Communications Group Inc. is testing a technology that could enable non-Bell telephone companies to sell traditional
local service – a potential new mode of competition and consumer
choice after a series of Bell regulatory victories which prompted
AT&T Corp. and others to retreat from the market. Full
Story
