Matthew Hicks

The Mozilla Foundation on Monday is planning to bring its standalone Firefox browser one step closer to its full release. The open-source project is set to make available Firefox 0.9, the browsers last technology preview release focusing on new features. After its release, developers plan to fix bugs and make final tweaks in order to […]

America Online Inc. wants to make instant messaging a doorway into other communications services. The company on Thursday launched access to Web conferencing and audio conferencing for its AOL Instant Messenger service, joining a growing trend of merging conferencing services with instant-messaging clients. Calling the offering AIM Business Services, Dulles, Va.-based AOL is partnering with […]

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Finding the shortest distance between two points sounds easy enough, but computing that route takes too long and consumes too much computer memory. Researchers at Microsoft Corp. are tackling the problem so that, in the next few years, computers can map the fastest route as well as make fast adjustments for road work […]

Ask Jeeves Inc., a Web search company competing against Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc., continued it expansion with the acquisition on Wednesday of a desktop search company. Emeryville, Calif.-based Ask Jeeves announced that it has purchased the assets of Tukaroo Inc., a San Jose, Calif., startup that was developing software for searching the desktop and […]

The boom is back for Internet domain-name registration, but this time businesses and individuals are acting less like speculators and more like legitimate users with their Web addresses. New domain-name registrations reached their highest quarterly level during the first three months of this year, beating out a previous peak reached in the second quarter of […]

The cost of spam is escalating for enterprises as the amount of unsolicited e-mail being sent continues to reach new heights, two new reports revealed this week. The cost of spam has more than doubled for enterprises in the past 10 months, costing an average of $1,934 per employee a year based on lost productivity, […]

Hoping to expand videoconferencing to more individuals and smaller offices, Glowpoint on Monday introduced a new class of service for its IP-based video communications. The Hillside, N.J., service provider launched its Individual Video Access service, which provides a lower-bandwidth videoconferencing service for small businesses and offices. The new service is compatible with video endpoints from […]

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Fighting spam takes more than filtering, authenticating or passing new laws. It requires hitting spammers where it hurts—in their pocketbooks, panelists said during an e-mail conference here Thursday. Speaking at the INBOX event, executives from a range of anti-spam and messaging vendors delved into the economics of spam and how to create disincentives […]

Google Inc. has overhauled its enterprise search appliance by doubling its size and increasing its capacity and query performance. The Mountain View, Calif., search company on Wednesday released its first major update of the Google Search Appliance since launching it two years ago. The appliance is targeted to enterprises, universities and organizations wanting to use […]

When it comes to blocking intrusive Internet software, Yahoo Inc.s new Anti-Spy gives adware the benefit of the doubt. The beta version of the spyware-fighting toolbar add-on, which Yahoo released last week, doesnt default to detect adware—a category of software in which Yahoos paid search division has a financial stake. Instead, users who want to […]