Business Tech

A unit of Japanese electronics giant Panasonic is under investigation by U.S. authorities for allegedly paying overseas bribes to secure business contracts, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Panasonic Avionics, a subsidiary that makes in-flight entertainment and communications systems for airlines, has received a subpoena for communications between company executives, consultants, and others, according to company documents reviewed by the Journal. A January 20 notice instructed recipients to preserve documents "concerning any benefits or gifts provided, or the payment of anything of value, by Panasonic or PAC to any airline employee or government officials."

The company … Read more

It was assumed just a couple of months ago that Dell would go private with a $24.4 billion buyout under founder and CEO Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake.

But several wrenches have been thrown into that plan.

Dell confirmed earlier this week that it had two possibly "superior" buyout bids, one coming from activist investor Carl Icahn and the other from private equity firm Blackstone. This means that if one of these two other potential bidders gets the prize, there could be a monumental power shift in the company.

Michael Dell is allegedly now … Read more

Four years ago, Roadrunner was the world's fastest supercomputer. But it has lost a step on today's speed leaders and will be shut down today in preparation for dismantling.

Created in 2008 to monitor the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, the IBM supercomputer was the first system to break the petaflop barrier, hitting 1.026 petaflops shortly after its installation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. (1 petaflop is equal to a quadrillion, or one thousand trillion, calculations per second.) It would ultimately sit atop of the Top500 supercomputers list three times.

In its five years of operation, … Read more

Here's a disruptive technology trend: Google and Microsoft as makers of personal computers.

If I had tried to predict in 2010 that these two companies would make branded PCs -- using PC in the generic sense -- I can imagine the response.

"You're an idiot" (and the usual variations I get on that theme) come to mind. But more-thoughtful readers, I'm guessing, would have made the logical argument that Microsoft would piss off its partners and destroy its business model. And Google? Why in the world would Google make a laptop?

Well, it's 2013 … Read more

The nascent WebRTC standard for video communications on the Web has become a technology battleground pitting Google against Nokia.

The reason for a war not just of words but also of actions is a lowly technology called a codec, which compresses video for efficient networking and compact storage. Google wants the Net to embrace its royalty-free, open-source VP8 codec, but Nokia is trying to quash VP8 by refusing to license patents it says are required to use it.

Google, meanwhile, has come to the aid of Android phone maker HTC in a Nokia patent-infringement case that involves VP8.

Why the … Read more

A Chinese animation film studio has sued Apple for allegedly selling its movies in its iTunes store without permission.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, citing a report from the South China Morning Post, Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which is backed by the Chinese government, has sued Apple for more than $500,000. The company argues that Apple sold over 110 of its movies, including "Calabash Brothers" and "Black Cat Detective," in the iTunes store without permission.

Apple has faced its fair share of troubles in China. The company last year was forced to pay $60 million to settle a lawsuit with Proview … Read more

Microsoft's next version of Internet Explorer might just support WebGL, a standard for accelerated 3D graphics on the Web that the company previously has attacked as a security risk.

A leaked version of the next version of Windows, code-named Blue, came with a version of IE11, and developer's scrutiny of the browser shows evidence of WebGL.

"It seems like WebGL interfaces are defined but not functional at this time," said Web developer and author Francois Remy in a blog post this week. That means that the IE11 build has some infrastructure in place to support WebGL, … Read more

The 13.3-inch Retina MacBook Pro has plunged to $1,299 at one retailer, a whopping $400 off its original price.

The model debuted at $1,699 in October. But it didn't take long for Apple to cut the price to $1,499 in February after widespread discounting from retailers such as Best Buy, Fry's Electronics, and MacMall.

Today we have new low, courtesy of MacConnection: $1,299.

It's obvious now that the original pricing on the Retina MBP was a miscalculation by Apple. And the additional $200 discount at MacConnection may indicate that $1,499 may … Read more

At least some at Google want to embrace a Mozilla-backed project to speed up Web apps written with JavaScript -- even though it competes directly with Google's own Native Client and Dart programming technology.

Mozilla has been working for months on a technology called ASM.js, which it hopes will boost JavaScript performance, especially in combination with a related Mozilla-spawned technology called Emscripten. JavaScript powers Web apps such as Google Docs, and ASM.js is a special "extremely restricted" subset of the programming language that's designed to make it easier for developers to bring existing software … Read more