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Shoppers soon might see a lot more robots in Walmart stores -- but not toy robots or even human assistant gadgets that are available for purchase. Walmart's new robots will be taking over repeatable, predictable and manual tasks that up to now have been carried out by human employees. At Walmart sto...

Baltimore officials have admitted that the city government once again has been victimized by ransomware -- the second such attack that Baltimore has faced in just over a year. City computers reportedly were infected with the RobinHood ransomware virus. Hackers told city officials that they would unl...

Many consumers in recent years have opted to cut the cord -- that is, to ditch cable or satellite TV and instead rely on over-the-top streaming services for their viewing pleasure. Price has been one factor, but changing viewing habits has been another. As a reporter who regularly covers pay-TV ser...

Only a fraction of consumers are willing to pay $1,500 or more for a flagship Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy smartphone, suggests an informal ECT News Network survey conducted from April 15 to 22. Fewer than 2 percent of those who took part said they'd be willing to paying such a premium for a hands...

The Walt Disney Corporation officially announced Disney+, its direct-to-consumer streaming service, during its Investor Day webcast last week. The new over-the-top service will become available on Nov. 12 for a $6.99 month subscription. Disney+ will arrive with more than 25 new TV programs, as well ...

In a recent E-Commerce Times poll, only 4.32 percent of respondents said there was always enough information on the first page of search results to meet their needs. By comparison, 14.05 percent said they found the first-page search results were rigged and limited by algorithmic highlights. More tha...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called for greater government oversight and even regulation of the Internet in an op-ed piece published last weekend. Zuckerberg, who famously built the social network by playing by his own rules, said it was time for government and regulators around the world to step u...

Apple announced several new services earlier this week. Apple TV+, the star of the lineup, will launch this fall with some high-profile original content -- something that has become key to the success of any over-the-top streaming service. Apple also announced Apple TV Channels, an aggregation serv...

Cybersecurity experts at Microsoft's Windows Defender Security Intelligence Team this week reported their discovery of two new email-based phishing campaigns. One targets American Express users while the other targets Netflix customers. Both campaigns reportedly are very well-crafted, featuring legi...

Microsoft has been urging customers to upgrade from its Windows 7 operating system, while attempting to ease the transition with several options for extended support. It will stop providing routine fixes and security patches effective January 2020. Regular support for Windows Server 2008 also is sch...

Verizon has a new cloud-based gaming service that is in the alpha testing stage, based on recent reports. Verizon Gaming is being tested on Nvidia Shield set-top boxes. The Shield devices, which were unveiled in 2015, were updated two years ago when Nvidia rolled out its own streaming service. Veriz...

A new year means a fresh start, but it doesn't mean that old threats will go away. In fact, in the world of cybersecurity things could get far worse before they get better. Cybercrime continues to increase, as it allows nefarious actors to operate at a safe distance from victims -- and more importan...

Rumors circulated this week that Microsoft will be replacing the core technology in its Edge browser for Windows 10 with Chromium, the open source software from Google that is the core of the Chrome browser. Google's Blink will be basis of the new browser, reportedly codenamed "Anaheim." Microsoft E...

Amazon introduced AWS Outposts at its AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. The new system, which provides AWS-branded boxes for use in traditional data centers, will allow the company to make advances into the world of on-premises storage, taking on legacy hardware vendors including Cisco, Dell, a...

Leaders from Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic have issued a dire warning that nations around the world haven't been doing enough to ban the development of autonomous weapons -- so-called "killer robots." The groups issued a joint report that calls for a c...

After taking the popular Battlefield series to "the beginning" with the First World War-based Battlefield 1, developers have returned the action to its World War II roots with Battlefield V. Anyone who's not familiar with this first-person shooter need know only that the original game, introduced i...

HBO chief Richard Plepler has issued a response to Dish CEO Charlie Ergen's claim that the ongoing impasse between the companies was the result of a purely anticompetitive play on AT&T's part. It was Dish that dropped HBO and Cinemax signals at midnight on Oct. 31, blacking out programming for s...

User engagement with podcasts has been steadily increasing, and many listeners actually prefer longer-format content, based on results of Apple's Podcast Analytics. The service, which Apple launched late last year, gives podcasters a way to track performance metrics including number of listeners, t...

Netflix had a very good showing on Monday, winning 23 Emmy Awards and tying longtime Emmy-winning powerhouse HBO. Netflix, an over-the-top streaming service, claimed 112 nominations this year, four more than its premium pay-TV channel rival HBO, which had dominated the Emmys for nearly two decades. ...

Google took on French lawyers at the European Union Court of Justice this week, in an effort to fend off expansion of the EU's "right to be forgotten" judgment. The EU's attempts to broaden the scope of that judgment would be "completely unenvisagable," and it could result in impositions on the valu...