Stories by Robert L. Mitchell

Ad blockers can make websites cleaner and faster for users, but they can also take a nasty bite out of advertising revenue. How popular are they, and what can site publishers do about them?

Nearly 80 years after it began collecting fingerprints on index cards as a way to identify criminals, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is moving to a new system that improves the accuracy and performance of its existing setup while adding more biometrics.

Cloud licensing's become so complex that it's easy to pay too much or get burned later on. Here are some tips to make sure you're getting your money's worth.

Dropping prices, fast processing speeds and more user-friendly designs have given a boost to this highly accurate biometric technology.

In 2008 the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services division (CJIS) embarked on an ambitious effort to enable information sharing among every federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement agency in the United States. It launched the National Data Exchange (N-DEx), an $85 million data warehouse project, and waited for the data to roll in. Kevin Reid, the program manager at that time, expected the majority of agencies to be voluntarily participating by 2009 -- two years ahead of plan.

Some localities are shying away from predicting who will commit a crime, even though the technology exists, in favor of when and where.

IT is uniquely positioned to drive green IT projects by identifying opportunities for operational efficiency -- and helping to build the business case.

At the entrance to The Vault, the most secure room within the most protected building operated by security services provider, Symantec, an iris recognition system stands guard as the last line of defense.

David Steinour is at his wit's end with enterprise software cost increases. In each of the past three years, the CIO at George Washington University (GWU) watched his annual maintenance and support costs for Oracle Financials and related enterprise software jump by at least 10%.

Data mining experts share stories of failure from the trenches and lessons learned.

What recruiters know about you is about to get a whole lot deeper than what you put on your resume. An emerging class of search engines is taking a big data approach to recruiting by crawling the Web for every bit of data about you, assembling it into a master profile, rating your knowledge, skill levels and interests, and serving it up to recruiters who can filter it by location, skill, the school you attended and a range of other criteria.

Cloud-based security cameras can keep watch on your home when you're not around. We tested 5 of these systems and report on our findings.

The No. 8-ranked company on our 2013 Best Places to Work in IT list also isn't shy about recognizing standout employees.

IT staffers set their own hours and work with bleeding-edge tech at the No. 75-ranked company on our 2013 Best Places to Work in IT list.

Raytheon CIO Rebecca Rhoads was tapped earlier this year to lead the defense contractor's newly formed Global Business Services unit, whose goal is to improve operations and services by optimizing resources.