Articles by John P. Mello Jr.

The Electronic Frontier (EFF) on Wednesday issued a report critical of the music industry's litigation campaign to reduce digital piracy "Today, downloading from P2P (peer-to-peer) networks is more popular than ever, despite the widespread public awareness of lawsuits," the report declared. "At the same time, the lawsuit campaign has enriched only ...

When ripping and playing digitized music was a novelty, media players basked in the hot software limelight. There were articles about the merits of one over another, about "wars" among vendors and lots of noise when a new version of a player arrived in the market Today, though, new releases of media players barely cause a ripple in the electronic e...

Would you like a portable power source that could run your laptop five times longer than your current batteries? How about 10 times longer? Those kinds of run times are being dangled by the fuel cell industry before a public parched for longer-lasting power for an ever-expanding assortment of small electronic devices....

Dubious pharmacies abound on the Internet, and they're posing a threat to both pharmaceutical companies and consumers That's the main finding in brand-protector MarkMonitor's summer edition of its Brandjacking Index, released this week....

Mind mapping software is hot From freeware like FreeMind to elaborate corporate planning tools like MindManager to Web 2.0 offerings like Bubbl.us, Mindomo, Kayuda and MindMeister, software developers are busily introducing new mind mapping variations or updating old ones....

A data theft revealed over the weekend of some 1.6 million records from Monster.com does not raise issues of identity theft, the employment Web site asserted "[T]here have been reports of this as an issue of 'identify theft,'" Monster Vice President of Compliance and Fraud Prevention Patrick W. Manzo said. "We are not aware of any cases of identity...

Fears that traffic demands on the Internet are outstripping the Net's capacity to handle them may be premature, though continuous Net growth will necessitate new networking techniques and technologies in the future Much of the fear that traffic would overwhelm capacity can be linked to growth figures in recent times....

Portable hard disk drives aren't the sexiest computer peripherals in the world. They're pretty much a small box with an LED or two on them Most disk makers have been content staying inside that box when they design their drives, but not SimpleTech....

If you're looking for a credit card and a pleasant experience on the Web, the place to go is Capital One -- at least, according to Web site evaluation firm Change Sciences Group That's because when it comes to credit card cyber-stops, the "What's in your wallet?" folks have created a site that's easier to use, more informative and more persuasive t...

"Due to exceptionally high volume, requests may be delayed up to 72 hours." That message may be mundane when posted at most Web sites, but when it's posted at an online bank, it's as dangerous as blood in shark-infested waters....

We live in an a golden age for portable gizmos Wherever we go we can take our computers, telephones, personal organizer, digital cameras, video camcorders and satellite radios with us....

The risk of getting into an auto accident while reading or writing text messages is 50 percent higher than talking on a phone while driving, according to new research A person talking on a cell phone when driving is four times more likely to get into an accident than someone driving without distraction from the phone; for someone "texting" when dri...

Using the latest advances in genetics, two biofuel companies have developed a way to turn plant matter into fuel that can meet the nation's energy needs In a process similar to brewing beer, the firms use genetically engineered microbes to turn a broth of plant material, water and sugar into a biofuel that can be used to run today's automobiles....

Online video watching is growing rapidly, and where the eyeballs go, you can expect advertisers to follow Sixty-five percent of U.S. broadband users watch video online at least occasionally -- a substantial increase over last year, when that number was 44 percent, according to a report released last Friday by JupiterResearch....

Cybercrime has become a threat to the nation's economic and security interests, according to a report released Monday by a Congressional research and investigation agency Cybercrime in its various forms -- computer crime, identity theft and phishing -- costs the U.S. economy some US$117.5 billion a year, reported the Government Accountability Offic...

Five million is a lot of anything That's why the folks at Boston-based software maker IObit caught my eye recently when they announced they had just cracked the cinco millones mark in downloads for their free Windows maintenance program Advanced WindowsCare Personal....

Revenues from advertising at sports sites on the Web will catapult in the next five years to more than US$1 billion, according to a report from a New York marketing research firm The report from eMarketer predicts sports sites will rake in $1.1 billion in ad revenues in 2011, up from $400 million in 2006....

A ruling by a federal court in a case involving an online roommate matching service will hamstring Web innovators, a civil liberties group argued this week in papers filed with the judicial panel In a "friend of the court" brief submitted Monday to the U.S. Court of Appeals in California, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argued that "the ru...

With the arrival of high-definition cameras, the push for video-to-go (V2G) and, of course, Windows Vista, makers of video editing software have been handed a ticket to introduce new versions of their products. Canadian application architect Corel has done just that with the new version of its VideoStudio VideoStudio, which entered the Corel corral...

Revenue from search-related advertising on mobile phones will crack the US$2 billion mark in 2011, according to a report released last week by a market and trend analysis firm Search-related advertising -- which has made outfits like Google revenue powerhouses -- will grow mightily worldwide during this decade, from $6.8 million in 2006 to $2.4 bil...