Just five years ago, mobile e-commerce was a minor part of the e-commerce landscape. Today, most online searches are carried out from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, and 40 percent of all e-commerce is carried out from smartphones. This has forever changed the e-commerce industry. The smartphone is the most important lead channel. Smartphones are an extended part of our brains and social life. We check our phones approximately 80 times a day. They have become an integrated part of both our online and offline shopping experience. [More...]

For much of this year, technology companies have been showcased in a very poor light. Several firms have been moving aggressively to buck this trend, however. HP's latest effort, in conjunction with the Clooney Foundation for Justice, is a case in point: an impressive initiative to supply and fund schools in places like war-torn Syria. HP also has provided substantial support to the Girl Rising movement. One of its focuses is to share stories about people who use technology to make the world a better place for girls and women. [More...]

Manjaro Linux offers the best of two worlds. It puts a user-friendly face on an Arch-based distro, and it gives you a choice of sensible and productive desktop interfaces. The Manjaro Linux team released its latest updates running the KDE, Xfce and GNOME desktops, Manjaro Linux 18.0 Beta 7, late last month. All three are solid performers and seem to be ready for final release. A key benefit of Manjaro Linux is the rolling release method to push new versions to users without the full reinstallation required with most other Linux distributions. [More...]

As markets mature, they trend toward oligopoly or even outright monopoly. There isn't much difference, because an oligopoly has several members instead of just one. Examples include electric power generation, an oligopoly made up of vertically integrated monopolies in most areas, and the airline industry -- an oligopoly made up of many airlines that may have monopolies in regional hubs. As monopolies and oligopolies gain strength, it becomes increasingly difficult for newcomers to enter a market. [More...]