competition

There was a time when Amazon and Apple had a mutually beneficial relationship.

How times change. With a pending lawsuit between the two companies, and Amazon's latest venture, which lets users store and stream music, videos, and files through its cloud architecture, Amazon is further establishing itself as a major Apple competitor that can move faster than the company that brought the world iTunes.

Apple and Amazon have long been business partners, of course. Apple was the first company to license Amazon's patented 1-Click technology in 2000, which has since become a staple in iTunes and iPhoto. Amazon … Read more

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Fred Campbell's bio below.

Although it's running late, the Federal Communications Commission is on the brink of releasing its yearly report to Congress on the state of competition in the mobile wireless market. For nearly a decade, the FCC has found the wireless market in the United States to be effectively competitive.

Last year, however, the FCC shocked the industry by refusing to even make a finding regarding competition in the mobile wireless market. The FCC instead said that "because no single definition of effective competition" would be … Read more

Few things define the modern human being more immediately than their Facebook profile picture.

Does yours say you are cute but witty? Or gormless and insecure? Do you show your full, glorious body? Or do you merely show your eyes, nose, and cheek, taken from your favored left side? Or are you one of those who simply shows your overfed, crabby cat?

Your choices could be even more crucial if you happen to live in the UK and enter the country's best Facebook profile picture competition.

Oh, yes, there is one.

The commercial excuse appears to be that Blinkbox, … Read more

Google may be using its leading position in the search market to weaken the competition, according to the findings of a French regulator.

Asserting that Google holds a dominant position in search advertising, the French Competition Authority said yesterday that it has found certain possible conduct on the part of Google intended to "discourage, delay, or eliminate" competitors.

Among its findings, the French regulator, or the Autorite, cited exclusivity clauses, technical obstacles, and other methods that Google imposes on its partners or customers and said that the company treats them "in a discriminatory manner or refuses to … Read more

American wireless customers are paying less for cell phone service than they did a decade ago, but they have fewer choices of carriers, a report from the Government Accountability Office said Thursday.

The GAO is the audit arm of Congress, and in the report there was both good and bad news for consumers. The good news is that the average price for wireless services declined each year from 1999 to 2008, the GAO said, citing Consumer Price Index data. In fact, average prices in 2009 were half the prices in 1999, the report said.

"This illustrates that consumers are … Read more

Search engine optimization tools help Web site administrators attract visitors through a high ranking on major search engines like Google and Bing. Link-Assistant's SEO SpyGlass Enterprise is a powerful backlink checker that analyzes top-ranked sites to learn what makes them successful; in effect, the program legitimately "spies" on sites to copy their methods and uncover the high-quality links that drive keyword searches to their sites. The program uses that and other data to create a highly focused Web site optimization strategy in 30 minutes or less, claiming to save time over doing it all manually, step-by-step, as … Read more

It's hard enough building an electric car from the wheels up, carefully selecting lightweight materials and creating an efficient yet robust power train with commercial appeal. But it's arguably tougher to take a stock approximately 4,000-pound hybrid SUV, remove its internal bits, design and squeeze in alternate components not designed for automotive uses around an existing infrastructure, put everything back together, and hope it passes a 300-point safety check.

Now try tackling all this during finals.

As part of the GM's EcoCar Challenge, a program sponsored in conjunction with the Department of Energy and several automotive suppliers, 16 university teams of undergraduate and graduate students are competing in a three-year competition to plan, develop, and refine an alternative fuel SUV that meets commercial and consumer standards.

Competing for more than $100,000 in prizes each year, teams are required to replace the SUV's existing hybrid engine and transmission with an extended-range, plug-in electric, fuel-cell, or all-electric power train using their choice of B20, E85, or liquid hydrogen fuel. The vehicles are judged on fuel economy, well-to-wheel emissions reduction, performance, and towing, to name a few factors.

On May 20, I visited GM's Desert Proving grounds in Yuma, Arizona as the teams prepared to test their vehicles in the second stage of the competition. Seeing these modified SUVs in various stages of undress and watching students racing to troubleshoot and reassemble their vehicles like young Nascar pit teams, I quickly realized that my college experience was a waste of time. … Read more

The Federal Communications Commission warned Thursday in a new report that the wireless industry is becoming more concentrated.

In its annual report on competition, the FCC reversed years of findings that the market is competitive. The report didn't say that the market is not competitive, rather that it has become more concentrated over recent years.

Specifically, the FCC said since 2003, market concentration has increased 32 percent. The report indicates that 60 percent of the nation's subscribers and revenue come from the country's two largest wireless providers: AT&T and Verizon Wireless. The FCC noted that … Read more

Nanoengineered cement beat out a handful of other technologies in this year's MIT Entrepreneurship Competition, earning its creators a $100,000 prize.

C-Crete Technologies, which created a new type of cement that cuts down on carbon dioxide emissions and yet is stronger than any current cement, took home the top prize Wednesday night from the awards ceremony on MIT's campus in Cambridge, Mass. A panel of judges composed of fellow entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and industry executives chose C-Crete as the winner based on the execution of its business plan and presentation.

"For many years, the world has … Read more