Evan Schuman

A recent report that raised serious scientific questions about how secure the new contactless credit cards are could ultimately depress online sales, as consumers might doubt overall credit card security protections, according to retail analysts. The chief author of the report, Kevin Fu, a computer science professor at the University of Massachusetts, said it was […]

Retailers for years have argued that their online and offline operations should be seen as one. A recent survey suggests customers are viewing them as one and that some retailers may regret it. The survey by Gomez, an Internet performance tracking company, shows that many consumers who have a bad online experience are avoiding the […]

Accusations that RFID-based contactless credit cards can be easily read by thieves are nothing new, but this time a group of scientists at the University of Massachusetts has gone quite far to try to prove it. The group—calling itself the RFID Consortium for Security and Privacy—is a group of computer scientists from the University of […]

IBMs recent lawsuit against Amazon for infringing an 18-year-old patent has little to do with attacking the underpinnings of e-commerce, nor does IBM truly believe that Amazon ripped off its ideas. Its just the same schoolyard tactics that have been around for centuries. Think about the classic advice given to the new boy in school. […]

IBM is suing Amazon.com, accusing the bookseller turned Web megastore of knowingly using IBMs techniques for selling things online. Initially at issue was an IBM request for hundreds of millions of dollars in license fees, but the federal court could expose Amazon to even stiffer penalties. Amazon spokesperson Patty Smith said Amazon has not yet […]

The latest batch of test results from Keynote Systems released Oct. 17 provides supporting evidence for those who argue that e-commerce sites must be simplified, reliable and fast even if that means being less gorgeous than other sites. Consider the clothing retailer that came out as No. 1 in Keynotes rankings both for speed and […]

A report due out Oct. 17 from the IHL Consulting Group sees grocers aggressively moving to upgrade to self-checkout systems, even before they replace or upgrade the aging point-of-sale systems they are based on. But another retail technology report—released Oct. 16 by the Aberdeen Group—has a very different self-checkout take, calling retail self-checkout “an absolute […]

One of retails most important IT executives—Circuit City CIO Mike Jones—has left the $11.6 billion chain, with the chief IT job going to his VP of business applications. Jones had a creative and visionary perspective for the chain and a company statement left unclear the circumstances of his departure, although the phrase “to pursue other […]

Early on the morning of Oct. 10, reports started circulating that German police had arrested a man they accused of being Osama bin Ladens Webmaster. It was at that moment that I realized how different a war this is and how the Internet—and particularly its multimedia-friendly Web component— truly has changed all. Imagine if during […]

As retailers and consumer goods manufacturers struggle with achieving the supply-chain nirvana of complete item-level tagging, $60 billion aerospace giant Boeing has gotten item-level RFID to soar, with 2,000 high-memory passive tags in every plane of an upcoming line. Boeings item-level RFID efforts are intriguing because of their scope, but also because of the extreme […]