Articles by John P. Mello Jr

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...

By creating a synergistic relationship between online music downloads and its iPod hardware, Apple Computer has made it very difficult for competitors to pry market share from the Cupertino, Calif.-based company. A growing shift in the music buying habits of consumers could give those coveting a bigger slice of Apple's pie a chance to outflank the king...

The announcement by Seiko Epson on Monday of a new electronic "paper" display with the highest resolution seen in the technology to date appears to be another sign that the newspaper of the future is close at hand The 7.1-inch prototype revealed by Epson and which incorporates technology developed by E Ink, of Cambridge, Mass., has a resolution of ...

While I must confess I've never been a fan of online backup solutions, there was something about Mozy that tempted me to use it Mozy is one of those new breed applications mushrooming under the umbrella Web 2.0, or the New Web....

While I must confess I've never been a fan of online backup solutions, there was something about Mozy that tempted me to use it Mozy is one of those new breed applications mushrooming under the umbrella Web 2.0, or the New Web....

Many commercial Web sites fail to pass even basic tests for usefulness and usability largely because their architects use faulty reasoning to justify defective decisions That's one of the conclusions in a report released by Forrester Research, of Cambridge, Mass....

An alarming failure rate for new products has corporations looking to consumers to drive innovation in their markets, according to report released by Forrester Research "In the consumer products industry, upwards of 85 percent of new products fail after a couple of years in the market," the report's chief author, analyst Christine Spivey Overby, to...

As Windows computers get long in the tooth, they require special attention to keep running at an optimal level. Hard disks and registries need to be cleaned and defragmented. Settings need to be tweaked All those things can be done manually, or individual programs can be obtained to make the tasks less of a chore, but there's something to be said f...

Microsoft is like the earth. When it moves, people notice Among the Redmond, Wash., softzilla's recent maneuvers are its purchase of Massive Inc., of New York City, and its imminent -- if The Wall Street Journal is to be believed -- acquisition of Third Screen Media, of Boston....