Linux News: Spotlight Features

DHS and the Digital Strip-Search Dilemma

Monday - June 30, 2008

IT consultant Amir Khan, a U.S. citizen, has been subjected to U.S. Customs questioning for a total of more than 20 hours after returning from a number of trips abroad. Customs officials have searched Khan's laptop computer, books, personal notebooks and cell phone. He has never received an explanation for why he has repeatedly been singled out. "People keep their lives on these devices," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The government should not be able to read this information." [More...]

Serious Fun and Games for Customer Service Training

Monday - June 30, 2008

You're the manager of a Hilton Garden Inn, and it's the height of family vacation season. The lobby is abuzz with kids toting skateboards and moms pushing strollers; your front desk agents are overloaded with check-ins. In the middle of all this, a harried business traveler calls to the front desk for extra towels. Quick, what do you do? [More...]

Packing It In: The Evolution of Online Video and Audio Tech, Part 2

Sunday - June 29, 2008

The choice of particular audio-video compression technology is of vital interest to commercial and not-for-profit organizations involved in producing and delivering digital multimedia products and services. New York-based Paltalk's choice is a case in point. "Our codec choice proved to be wise indeed," Paltalk founder and Chief Technical Officer Perry Scherer told LinuxInsider. [More...]

Packing It In: The Evolution of Online Video and Audio Tech, Part 1

Saturday - June 28, 2008

The explosion in Web-delivered music and video we're seeing today just wouldn't be possible without the use of sophisticated encoded compression algorithms, or codecs, and the file storage formats in which compressed audio, images and data are saved. As Internet bandwidth and broadband access has expanded, so has the transmission of much denser digital audio and video files. [More...]

The Customer Loyalty Jackpot

Thursday - June 26, 2008

Casinos have been on a roll when it comes to customer relationships. The house has learned it always wins when it places its bets on the fact that humans are creatures of habit. Unlike other industries, however, the gambling lot does not leave the odds to a stack of faceless data mirroring only transactional data. [More...]

The Spread of Telepresence Tech, Part 2: Ramping Up

Tuesday - June 24, 2008

Business travel is a major expense, ranking third on corporate budgets behind personnel and IT. The World Travel & Tourism Council estimates U.S. business travel spending at $179 billion, followed by second-ranked Japan at $64 billion. Besides the increasing financial expense of air travel and its human wear-and-tear, businesses' concerns about its environmental costs are also driving wider adoption of videoconferencing. [More...]

What Should Apple Tackle Next?

Tuesday - June 24, 2008

First Apple built personal computers, then portable media players, and now the company is manufacturing cell phones. Apple also has its own branded set-top box -- Apple TV -- and its iTunes store is one of the biggest e-commerce marketplaces for music and videos in the world. What's next for Apple? What product categories might the company in Cupertino leap into? [More...]

Creative Collaboration: The Open Source Filmmaking Experiment

Tuesday - June 24, 2008

Once an expensive, difficult and inaccessible profession to break into, filmmaking has now opened up to the masses. With the digital revolution, anyone with a digital video camera and access to basic editing software can make a film. Along with this accessibility has come a new wave of collaborative, open source filmmaking, where writers, videographers, musicians and producers share their work on a film project. [More...]

US Law Aims to Catch Up With Tech - and Misses

Monday - June 23, 2008

The infamous Internet bully implicated in the suicide of a 13-year-old girl may get some comeuppance in a California courtroom, but it will probably not be enough to quell the fury of her many detractors. Although facing four charges, it is unlikely that she will serve any jail time. Indeed, there's a fair chance the charges will be dismissed. [More...]

Humanizing the Online Customer Experience

Monday - June 23, 2008

The Internet has seen massive adoption. Online retailing has continued to dramatically build its customer base and more and more companies are sending their offline customers to the Internet for service and support. To service both these old and new customers, the Internet has already had an abundant history of "self-service" tools that have each seen their boom and bust cycle. [More...]

Personalization: Telling E-Tail Customers What They Really Want

Friday - June 20, 2008

E-tailers are taking a new look at personalization these days as they hunt for more ways to cross-sell, upsell and encourage repeat business. E-commerce solutions providers and research firms are advocating the integration of personalization into online strategies as one way companies can optimize cross-channel marketing and keep pace with the industry's changing dynamics. [More...]

See More Articles in Spotlight Features Section >>

Shortcuts