Articles by John P. Mello Jr

There aren't many tech outfits that can rival Apple Computer when it comes to industrial design, but in the keyboard department, there's one company that can give the Cupertino crew a run for their money What's most surprising about the company is that it's not really known for its hardware. Software is its main game....

As the potential of that indefinitely defined technology called Web 2.0 becomes more and more apparent, new applications seem to be appearing on an almost daily basis But for users forced to hop from site to site for their Web services, the new social Net can be a drag....

Their numbers may not jibe but two prominent research firms agree on one thing: the holidays will be merry for online retailers Forrester Research and JupiterResearch released their holiday sales projections for online retailers this week and both predicted double-digit increases for the period....

Microsoft's expected announcement today that it was broadening its presence in the on-demand software market isn't causing leading players in the arena to quake in their code "I truly don't think Microsoft has anything to sell in that space," maintained Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite in San Mateo, Calif....

Ease of use and design -- not features -- are critical components to consumers' satisfaction with their cell phones, according to a study released yesterday In fact, as handset makers continue to wedge more and more bells and whistles into their diminutive devices, those aspects of a mobile phone become even more important, according to the study b...

Yahoo continued to raise the ante for content portals on the Net with the launch yesterday of a new original multimedia series by the pasha of adventure travel Richard Bangs Bangs' initial package for the content aggregator chronicles a climb of the Eiger by John Harlin III whose father died scaling the mountain 40 years ago....

Pressure to make more consumer friendly a standard for the next generation of DVDs continued to mount yesterday Boston-based Forrester Research predicted a victory for that standard, Blu-ray, over its rival, HD-DVD, but only a Pyrrhic one if the tough digital rights management (DRM) scheme incorporated into the technology isn't relaxed....

Although Web logs, or blogs, have attracted a lot of ink and electrons, the keys totheir creation and upkeep remain a mystery to many Net surfers. That's not to say that there aren't minds at work in the electronic plasma ruminating on ways to encourage even the meekest Websters to try their hand at blogging For instance, the folks at Blogger.com, ...

Clandestine codes used to track the output of some color laser printers have been cracked by a research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) According to the organization, the codes are part of a deal cut by the U.S. Secret Service with some printer makers to help curb the counterfeiting of currency....

Clandestine codes used to track the output of some color laser printers have been cracked by a research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) According to the organization, the codes are part of a deal cut by the U.S. Secret Service with some printer makers to help curb the counterfeiting of currency....

Computer crimes targeted at businesses are at their lowest level ever, according to a leading expert in the field Computer crime, observed Robert Richardson, editorial director for the Computer Security Institute (CSI) in Philadelphia "is as low as it's ever been and has dropped off significantly from last year."

Rising gas prices may be withering consumer confidence these days, but online retailers see a silver lining in the disturbing trend "People are going to be less inclined to drive to shopping centers," Bernard Baumohl, executive director of the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton Junction, N.J. told the E-Commerce Times. "Instead, they're going to s...

Some 94 percent of consumers in a recent Harris Interactive survey believe the Internet poses a threat to children Among the biggest threats perceived by the respondents in the poll -- which was commissioned by San Francisco, California, network security firm Zone Labs, a Check Point company -- were predators in chat rooms (61 percent) and pornogra...

The battle over the mobile e-mail market will be heating up over the coming months, and it's a battle that BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) is destined to lose Although RIM's leadership position remains strong in the short-term, analysts say that, in the long run, it will be toppled by the Redmond, Wash. juggernaut Microsoft....

These days, a sure way to get attention to something is to associate it to Apple Computer's hot line of iPod digital music players -- even if that association is a dubious one. That seems to be the case with Pod Slurping A little over a year ago, Gartner Research in Stamford, Conn., cautioned corporate America about the threat that portable storage...

When Google recently released its re-vamped desktop search engine, a central element of the new offering was a sidebar. This clever device gives keyboard jocks quick access to a bundle of useful features. You can read e-mail as soon as it arrives without opening your e-mail program, for instance, or monitor news headlines without opening your browser...

Worldwide spending on research and development will reach US$1 trillion in 2006, according to a survey released yesterday by Battelle and "R&D" magazine The survey, which Battelle, of Columbus, Ohio, has been conducting annually for more than 40 years, showed that much of the growth in R&D is being fired by the Asian region....

Worldwide spending on research and development will reach US$1 trillion in 2006, according to a survey released yesterday by Battelle and "R&D" magazine The survey, which Battelle, of Columbus, Ohio, has been conducting annually for more than 40 years, showed that much of the growth in R&D is being fired by the Asian region....

Worldwide spending on research and development will reach US$1 trillion in 2006, according to a survey released yesterday by Battelle and "R&D" magazine The survey, which Battelle, of Columbus, Ohio, has been conducting annually for more than 40 years, showed that much of the growth in R&D is being fired by the Asian region....

Sales of desktop computers made by Hewlett-Packard have exhibited a recent year-over-year surge, according to a report released this week by ChangeWave Research, of Rockville, Md ChangeWave -- which conducts periodic surveys of an "alliance" of some 5,000 business. technology and medical professionals -- reported that 20 percent of the respondents ...