NEW YORK -- On a recent evening, a small group of tech entrepreneurs sat around a table in Manhattan's Flatiron District, swapping ideas on how to grow their startups.
Three men in their late 20s and early 30s announced they had signed up thousands of pastors...
(275) Comments | Posted November 30, 2012 | 8:24 AM
To those who follow the policy minutiae of the tech world, the government's investigation of Google's search and advertising business is an epic showdown that could dictate the future of Internet commerce.
But to everyday consumers who just want to find stuff online quickly, the case often elicits little...
(13) Comments | Posted November 28, 2012 | 7:15 PM
As the Federal Trade Commission nears a decision on whether to sue Google for antitrust violations, a new company practice has emerged as an example of the search giant's alleged abuse of its market share -- its decision to tilt some search results toward paid advertisers.
Under...
(173) Comments | Posted November 23, 2012 | 4:01 AM
A few months after the Sept. 11 attacks, when crippled phone networks thwarted communications across New York City, Congress called for the creation of what could be called the nerd reserves.
Lawmakers tasked the federal government with establishing a volunteer force of IT experts -- the tech equivalent of a...
(42) Comments | Posted November 20, 2012 | 6:08 PM
From his base in the Gaza Strip, Majed Abusalama has employed social media to ensure that the rest of the world gets a real-time picture of what is unfolding. He has tweeted incessantly, chronicling seemingly every bomb, every death, the sense of fear and outrage.
But with each passing...
(2260) Comments | Posted November 18, 2012 | 12:22 PM
HAZLEHURST, Miss. -- Cedric Wiggins thought high-speed Internet would have long since arrived in this corner of rural Mississippi.
He figured this based on promises AT&T made publicly to win regulatory approval for its 2006 purchase of his local telephone company, BellSouth.
The $86 billion deal created a telecommunications colossus...
(2203) Comments | Posted November 15, 2012 | 4:19 PM
As Israel and Hamas continued their deadly conflict in Gaza Thursday, the hacker group Anonymous rallied to the Palestinians' side, launching a digital attack against websites belonging to the Israeli government.
Beginning early Thursday morning, the hacker group announced a mission to crash and deface websites belonging to the Israeli...
(78) Comments | Posted November 14, 2012 | 6:20 PM
The digital demise of former CIA Director David Petraeus underscores a key warning for an age in which computer servers retain nearly every residue of human interaction: Law enforcement authorities can easily trace who sent an email, even if users attempt to shield their identities. In many cases they don't...
(93) Comments | Posted November 13, 2012 | 8:08 PM
Call it Wi-Fi from the sky.
As Hurricane Sandy battered the Northeast, power outages wreaked havoc on telecommunications networks, knocking out wireless service for thousands of cell phone users.
If a future hurricane triggers similar failures, regulators say they have a potential solution. It has the hallmarks of...
(7) Comments | Posted November 12, 2012 | 3:22 PM
Officials from 20 cities pitched proposals Monday at Bloomberg Ideas Camp, a two-day conference in New York City focused on finding innovative solutions to urban issues. The cities were chosen from more than 300 nationwide and are competing for $9 million in prizes -- $5 million to the...
(221) Comments | Posted November 9, 2012 | 3:06 PM
For several days after Hurricane Sandy, Donna Cardillo struggled to make contact with the outside world.
At her home in Wall Township, N.J., which was hit hard by the storm, wireless service failed, rendering her cellphone useless. She also lost power, causing her Internet-based landline to go dead.
But...
(298) Comments | Posted November 9, 2012 | 11:50 AM
(Photo by Cody Pickens)
Asaf Darash, an Israeli entrepreneur, was putting his 18-month-old son to bed when he received the news he had been dreading. He had applied to renew his temporary visa back in April. It was now the middle of September,...
(4) Comments | Posted November 7, 2012 | 4:27 PM
New York City officials and Airbnb said Wednesday they had struck a partnership to help connect victims of Hurricane Sandy with free short-term housing.
Airbnb, which launched four years ago as a way to aggregate short-term rental listings, makes money by taking a commission from rentals on its site. But...
(143) Comments | Posted November 7, 2012 | 12:42 PM
Seth Bannon offers various perks to attract software developers to work for his startup: unlimited beer, a fixed-gear bicycle or $2,000 cash. Yet Bannon, founder of the New York-based social fundraising platform Amicus, still can't get the talent he wants because the top developers are foreign-born and can't...
(829) Comments | Posted November 4, 2012 | 8:38 PM
One key factor helps explain why communities ravaged by Hurricane Sandy could not use cell phones to call for help and communicate with the outside world: mobile telephone companies have for years lobbied to kill rules that would have forced them to maintain backup power at their cell phone towers.
...(200) Comments | Posted November 3, 2012 | 5:32 PM
The water came rushing through the lobby, crashing against doors, shattering windows and scattering sandbags meant to stop it. Then, it cascaded down the stairs and flooded the underground cable vault, soaking tangled wires that deliver phone and Internet service to customers across the region.
“It was churning like...
(49) Comments | Posted November 2, 2012 | 8:35 PM
Verizon said Friday it could take up to two weeks to restore service to some customers after high winds, heavy flooding and power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy disrupted its network.
Some customers without service are expected to have it restored within a few days, but it may take...
(126) Comments | Posted November 1, 2012 | 8:45 PM
Communication networks across the Northeast were slowly recovering Thursday, but many New York and New Jersey residents were still unable to make cell phone calls as wireless providers scrambled to repair equipment damaged by Hurricane Sandy.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, officials from the Federal Communications Commission said they were...
(86) Comments | Posted October 31, 2012 | 9:03 PM
They call themselves “the bucket brigade.”
In a lower Manhattan building evacuated during Hurricane Sandy, more than a dozen people on Wednesday carried 5-gallon buckets filled with diesel fuel up 17 flights of stairs. Each of them carried two buckets -- one in each arm -- up two flights of...
(31) Comments | Posted October 30, 2012 | 8:45 PM
As Hurricane Sandy made landfall Monday, the freak storm flooded data centers in New York City, taking down several major websites and services -- including The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed and Gawker -- that depended on them to run their businesses.
Several websites stored their data at a lower Manhattan data...
Highlights is a new way to discover the most interesting text on Huffington Post!
(161) Comments | Posted December 4, 2012 | 7:30 AM