Tech News

PC World - If you're one of the folks (or as others have said, idiots) who have already decided to hand over a few Benjamins for an iPad pre-order, chances are you haven't given much thought to what happens if your battery goes bad. Rest assured that Apple is one step ahead of you.

PC World - Apparently we aren't the only species to prefer the crisp, smooth picture of an HDTV compared to that from one of those old CRT sets of yesteryear.

PC World - The Apple iPad has been available for pre-order for more than 24 hours now. Initial demand seems promising, although not everyone has embraced the concept of dedicating $500 or more to be an early adopter of a device that nobody really has all the details on just yet.

Macworld.com - On Wednesday at the GDC, LucasArts unveiled its plans for The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. The game will be distributed for the Mac by Aspyr, and sold through the GameAgent online store for $10.

Macworld.com - Steve Jobs is accustomed to bringing the house down—unveiling remarkable devices like the iPad, the iPhone, and the original iPod make that a pretty common occurrence. Now, though, after an extended battle, the Apple CEO can finally bring down the other house he’s been trying to raze for so long. Maybe.

AP - Factory worker Chen Qinghai frowned as he looked at a tall bulletin board full of help-wanted notices from companies making everything from photocopiers and DVD drives to mobile phones and car parts.

Macworld.com - Online technology journalism. Can’t live with it and you can’t shoot it in the back of the head and dump it in the creek off the old interstate bypass where all the serial killers dump bodies. Wait, can we? Because this week brought out the seamy underbelly of people who inexplicably get paid to pontificate about Apple and if there’s a way—any way—to make it all stop, the horny one is all ears and antlers.

PC Magazine - On the opening night of SXSW Interactive, HDNet founder Mark Cuban and Boxee founder Avner Ronan traded verbal barbs and a few well-reasoned arguments trying to answer the simple question: will Internet TV take over?

Reuters - Talks with China over censorship have reached an apparent impasse and Google, the world's largest search engine, is now 99.9 percent certain to shut its Chinese search engine, the Financial Times said on Saturday.

AP - Motion controls and social gaming were the hot topics at this week's Game Developers Conference, the annual convention of game designers, programmers and executives.

Reuters - The Federal Communications Commission will submit a 10-year plan to Congress on Tuesday that would establish high-speed Internet as the country's dominant means of communication, The New York Times reported in Saturday editions.

Macworld.com - Toon Boom Animate 2 announced

PC World - Microsoft's Xbox 360 outsold Nintendo's Wii in February to claim the top spot in the U.S. monthly sales ranking for the first time in more than two years, analyst group NPD said Thursday. Overall the industry had a poor month with total sales down 15 percent from February last year.

AFP - The adult entertainment industry is going to have to wait a while longer to see whether it gets its .XXX domain name.

AP - DVD-by-mail service Netflix Inc. has canceled a sequel to a $1 million movie-recommendation contest, avoiding a potential courtroom drama over the privacy rights of its subscribers.

Macworld.com - Typically, players in a game battle for fantastical lands, important landmarks, or some other pre-determined acre of game territory. But what if the land you played for wasn’t a mere kingdom or country, but the entire Internet?

PC World - Apple began accepting pre-orders this morning for the much-anticipated iPad. While the iPad is designed primarily as an entertainment and media platform for consumers, there are also some valid business uses for the slick tablet.

Reuters - Apple Inc has awarded its chief operating officer a bonus valued at $22 million for leading the company while Chief Executive Steve Jobs was on 6-months' medical leave last year.

Macworld.com - Apple may have revealed additional details about the iPad on Friday, but perhaps a more interesting revelation came in the form of regulatory filing regarding Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.

AP - Apple Inc. is giving its chief operating officer a $5 million bonus for outstanding performance running the company while CEO Steve Jobs was on medical leave.