E-commerce

Would anyone ever sit through a 30-minute ad for the iPad?

Wednesday, quite a few people did. One whole episode of the critically acclaimed ABC show "Modern Family" was dedicated to the deep and desperate desire associated with becoming one of the first to own the magic and revolutionary item that launches before your hangover disappears on Saturday morning.

In the show, the rather cool dad, who I believe is called Phil, is desperate to get an iPad for his birthday. In the great tradition of the sitcom dramatic arc, the script suggests he will be deeply disappointed. … Read more

With the iPad's launch just days away, several publishers will begin setting e-book prices on Amazon.com starting Thursday, according to published reports.

CBS' Simon & Schuster and News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers have struck deals with Amazon.com to determine their own prices for electronic titles, according to The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek reports. (CNET is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.) Additionally, Macmillan, Hachette Book Group, and Penguin Group will begin setting their own prices on Thursday, according to a Sony letter cited by BusinessWeek.

Most e-books will cost between $12.99 and $14.… Read more

Yahoo on Wednesday announced that it has decided to close the Yahoo Publisher Network, the company's answer to Google AdSense.

The Yahoo Publisher Network, an advertising platform enabling small Web publishers to place ads on their sites to drive revenue, will officially close on April 30. The service has been in beta testing since its launch nearly five years ago.

In an e-mail sent to Publisher Network users, Yahoo said users of its service might want to consider moving to Chitika, another ad platform that the company says serves more than "2 billion monthly impressions across more than … Read more

Security firm Symantec on Friday released results of a survey on password management that showed 63 percent of respondents don't change their passwords very often, 45 percent use a few passwords that they alternate for all accounts, and some 10 percent don't change their passwords at all.

These are a startling numbers as, according to the survey, 44 percent of respondents said they have more than 20 accounts that require a password.

Worst of all, the survey also found that about 10 percent of respondents have used their pet's name as a password. This is as bad … Read more

Google does not violate the trademarks of companies when it allows online advertisers to use keywords identical to those trademarks, according to a ruling handed down by a European court.

On Tuesday, the European Union's highest court cleared Google in a trademark lawsuit filed by luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton and two other companies. One of several businesses owned by LVMH, Louis Vuitton had argued that the search giant was infringing on its rights by allowing other advertisers to use its trademarks as search terms for Google's AdWords. The concern is that by using such keywords, competing products … Read more

We read so that we can experience something true. You remember true--it's the thing you see so little of during a day at work.

So why do so many believe that books, publishing, and even reading are dead? Steve Jobs, after all, made books a considerable feature of his iPad launch presentation a few weeks ago.

Still, the management at U.K. educational publisher Dorling Kindersley asked a production company called the Khaki Group to create a film that showed what publishing would be like in the future, if anything.

The filmmakers came up with an enchanting piece that … Read more

Google has proclaimed that the conventional PC will become "irrelevant" within the next three years, and it insists that it puts mobile first in development.

That's a bold statement indicating just how much Google is betting on the mobile Web. But it's also an indication of just how critical synchronization technology is going to become--especially syncing to an open Web.

Traditionally, sync has been that thing you do between your desktop and your one mobile device to ensure that calendars, address books, and even browser bookmarks are current between the two islands of computing. But in … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The next generation of Windows Phone, due out toward the end of the year, is a big focus at Microsoft's Mix conference here this week, and I'm starting to learn a few things about how Windows Phone 7 Series will--and won't--be different from the Zune HD.

Windows Phone 7 Series, the next-generation mobile-phone platform from Microsoft, is set to offer a great value to music fans: every phone will basically include the complete functionality of the Zune HD. Joe Belfiore, Windows Phone program management vice president, on Monday confirmed that the Zune HD's wireless sync--one of my favorite features--will be carried forward to the phone platform.

When you bring your phone home and plug it in, it will automatically scan local wireless networks to see if it recognizes your home Wi-Fi network. If it finds it, and your PC is turned on, the Zune software will launch and automatically do a two-way sync of all your music, videos, and pictures. … Read more

Hans Pandeya, the man who tried to acquire The Pirate Bay last year, has purchased controlling interest in a tiny U.S. company that makes and sells wall calendars, according to records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pandeya paid $325,000 for Business Marketing Services, a printing company that trades its over-the-counter stock on the OTC Bulletin Board (OTCBB), according to the SEC filing.

In January, Pandeya took control of 15 million shares, or 78 percent of the company's stock, records show. Business Marketing Services didn't report any revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2009, … Read more