Articles by John P. Mello Jr.

Trading digital electronics for mechanical parts has given camera makers an opportunity to tinker with the design of their wares in inventive ways, none more so than Kodak The Rochester, N.Y.-based company that brought film photography to the masses -- by making cameras easy to use and film easy to load -- is continuing its friendly photography tra...

Global shipments of scanners that read wireless tags used to track products in business supply chains climbed 14 percent in this year's first quarter compared to the same period a year ago, according to figures released Wednesday by ABI Research, of Oyster Bay, N.Y The research firm also revealed that total scanner shipments in 2005 reached 35,000....

It's getting harder and harder to find a marketable dot-com domain name and that's starting to worry Web developers, according to Dotster The Vancouver, Wash.-based provider of domain name registration and hosting services contends that developers are concerned about running out of marketable dot-com names completely....

Consumer electronics manufacturers looking to expand their reach with their own brick-and-mortar outlets should weigh the risks of such moves carefully, warns a report released on Wednesday The report, "CE OEMs Launch Disruptive Retail Strategy: Their Own Storefronts," published by ABI Research, cites several temptations for electronics firms like ...

Allies have begun taking sides in a court case that has far-reaching implications for the Internet. At stake is a practice at the heart of the Net: linking information between Web sites The case pits search Goliath Google against adult entertainment publisher Perfect 10, and is currently before a federal appeals court in San Francisco where support...

E-mail marketers at Time saw a significant increase in the effectiveness of their campaigns when testing a delivery system that certifies the origin of electronic messages The system, Goodmail, is designed to create a trusted class of bulk e-mail that won't be hampered by spam filters imposed by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). For inclusion in t...

A friend of mine once told me he mourned the fading fortunes of point-and-shoot film cameras. It was a momentary lamentation induced by his wife's struggles with her new digital camera Film is simple, he reasoned. You shoot your pictures. You take your film to the drugstore. You get your prints....

While nearly 90 percent of computer users have software on their machines to protect them from malware like viruses, Trojans, worms and spyware, almost two-thirds of those users are reluctant to upgrade the software after it's installed That was the finding in a survey released Monday by security software maker ESET, of San Diego....

A revamping of security standards is being prepared by the major payment card issuers and is expected to be announced within the next 60 days "[MasterCard, along] with other payment brands including American Express, Discover, JCB and Visa, are currently considering potential recommended updates to the PCI Data Security Standard based on feedback p...

When it comes to software, there are two schools of thought about tackling a basket of tasks. You can try attacking each task separately with an individual application, or you can look for a Swiss Army knife software suite to mount a unified assault on them If the all-in-one approach appeals to you, then Nero has a dandy solution. It's the latest v...

Although comparison shopping motivates many a consumer to shop online, it's second fiddle for small businesses shopping on the Net, according to a study released by JupiterResearch last Friday The most significant factor governing purchases on the Web by small businesses is previous experience or familiarity with the seller, said Sonal Gandhi, the...

One in five Americans age 12 or older own a digital music player (DMP), according to a study released last week by a global market research firm The study, which is prepared quarterly by Ipsos Insight of New York City, noted that younger music listeners are driving growth in the DMP market, with some 54 percent of teens and 30 percent of 18 to 30 y...

A federal judge in Houston and the U.S. Attorney's office for that region are wrangling over just how much information the government can garner from a phone call without a warrant for a wiretap The case involves a request by U.S. Attorney Donald J. DeGabrielle Jr. for a pen register and a trap and trace device to "record or decode dialing, routing...

Remember the effort it took to put together a photo slideshow? First, you had to load slides into carousels "Now let me see, should the printing on the slide face me or face away from me? How did that slide get in there upside down?...

You can't get much lower on the tech chain than a trailer, right? It's not much more than a box on wheels. However, a growing interest by the transportation industry to bring the lowly trailer into the wired world is firing a hot market in tracking hardware and services According to a report released Wednesday by ABI Research in Oyster Bay, N.Y., i...

Reaching the Millennial Generation -- a label nailed to nine- to 28-year-olds, a group which, at some 79 million in the United States, is larger than the Baby Boomers -- poses some real challenges for marketers, especially marketers entrenched in their mass media ways "The key thing to recognize when marketing to this generation is that it has seen...

Sony built its reputation in the electronics field on the premium thesis. Sure, there may be lower priced competitors in the market, but they couldn't beat Sony for quality, design and sheer wow factor. Consumers recognized that, and they have been willing to pay a premium for it With Sony's new "W" line of Cybershot cameras, though, the company ha...

When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 it was thought the move would induce the nation to toe the line on the theft of intellectual property within its borders, but that hasn't been the case -- and it won't be until the Asian giant steps up its efforts at innovation, according to one IP attorney "Until China becomes more of a produc...

Everywhere you turn these days in the digital world you'll run into touts about sharing. Share files. Share photos. Share video That's fine, but someone forgot to tell the e-mail providers about this sharing craze. They're still putting limits on attachments to e-mail messages that put a grave crimp in any serious sharing to be done over the Net....

With floor space at large retailers at a premium these days, you'd think the allure of reducing all the aisles occupied by DVD movies to the footprint of a kiosk would be compelling, but that's not the case According to a studio executive who agreed to talk to the E-Commerce Times on terms of anonymity, there hasn't been any push on the movie indus...