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It's easy to accumulate too much stuff. Sometimes it's because you receive a lot of random gifts or couldn't resist a sale item; other times, it's because you want to make room for new stuff. But now you're trying to sell your rarely used items or collections and you have no idea what to ask for them.

Why spend time scouring the Internet looking for what everyone else thinks an item is worth? Wouldn't it be easier to just see how much people are paying for similar items right now? Luckily, eBay … Read more

InSpeak - The Voice Chat Communicator is the freeware version of inSpeak's premium chat app. It's got a lot going for it, including good audio quality for voice communications, decent security, and an emphasis on customer support, even for free members. The freeware also offers other features from the paid nickname version, though with some limitations. For example, you can view up to six Webcams, use handwriting in messages, add up to 1,000 contacts, display a colorful icon, customize your space, create rooms, and more. It helps to have someone to chat with, though, and inSpeak has … Read more

People in the U.S. have an insatiable appetite for watching online videos.

According to new numbers released by market research firm ComScore, 85.5 percent of people in the U.S. with Internet access watched online videos in July -- that's 184 million people who watched a total of 36.9 billion online content videos in only one month. For comparison, that is equal to every single person on Earth watching at least five videos each.

And U.S. viewers' venue of choice is Google, which is not really surprising given the growth and popularity of YouTube. However, … Read more

Zappos, LinkedIn, eHarmony, Yahoo, LastFm, the Environmental Protection Agency, Stanford, and Columbia University -- all suffered online data breaches recently, says the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

In fact, this year alone, there have been 276 data breaches, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. Statistics indicate that private sector businesses and the health-care industry were most vulnerable, falling victim to, respectively, 37 percent and 34 percent of the breaches. Educational institutions and the government/military sector had breach rates of 14 percent and 11 percent, respectively. The rate for financial companies came in at just more than 3 percent, according to … Read more

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is looking for a chief operating officer who will free her up to handle product decisions, a new report claims.

Yahoo has enlisted the help of executive recruiter Spencer Stuart to find it a COO, All Things Digital's Kara Swisher reported yesterday, citing sources. The search firm is looking for someone who has strong business knowledge and can handle a restructuring, the report claims.

Just a month ago, Yahoo had a COO: Ross Levinsohn. However, Levinsohn left after he was stepped over for the CEO post. It's believed that Levinsohn is on the lookout … Read more

Remembering a clunky password could become a thing of the past, according to researchers at Iowa State University.

Morris Chang, an associate professor of engineering, and his team are working on keystroke authentication -- a way of identifying you by the way you type and how long you pause between keystrokes. Ultimately, such a technique could block unauthorized users based on their typing patterns from gaining access to an account.

Using biometrics to identify and authenticate users isn't new -- think fingerprint recognition or iris scans. But those are one-time verifications. What makes keystroke authentication more secure is the … Read more

Social media's traffic contribution to online shopping sites increased 77 percent in one year, but few users actually buy anything, according to a new report published today by marketing firm Monetate.

The firm's study shows that search engine and e-mail referrals are more than holding their own against social media sites when it comes to generating sales in the second quarter of 2012.

Social media sites only contributed to 2.85 percent of online shopping traffic in the second quarter, but the figure did grow a substantial 77 percent from the beginning of 2011 to the beginning of … Read more

The partnership between PayPal and Chinese e-commerce company DHGate has officially ended this week.

On August 6, DHGate stopped accepting payments completed through PayPal. "After a thorough annual business review by PayPal, both companies have mutually agreed to part ways due to different approaches to achieve their respective business goals and standards," the company said on its Web site.

DHGate is one of the biggest e-commerce platforms of its kind in the region, and still accepts other payment methods including Visa, Mastercard, bank transfer and Western Union.

Despite the end of the partnership, PayPal is keen to emphasize … Read more

As I watch the Olympics, I imagine myself in the competition. I'm swimming for a medal, rocketing through the 100-meter dash, and rowing my heart out.

There are some problems with my flights of fancy. I don't have a swimmer's build, a runner's height, or a rower's stamina. To find my best Olympic sport match, I have to turn to the BBC's Olympic athlete body matcher.

Enter your height and weight and it will show you where you are on a plot of Olympic athletes and which Olympian you are closest to in size. The athletes range from a tiny gymnast to a hulking shot putter.… Read more