Tech News

Reuters - IBM has started a two-year research program that aims to make cellphones easier to use for groups including the elderly and the illiterate.

AFP - A US woman operating online under the name JihadJane recruited jihadist fighters in the United States, Europe and Asia in a bid to carry out terror plots or die trying, prosecutors said.

Reuters - More than 100 Chinese consumers have filed an official complaint against Hewlett-Packard Co over faulty laptop computers, leaving the door open for a lawsuit against the U.S. technology company, a lawyer for the group said on Wednesday.

AFP - Google opened an online shop for business software hosted as services in the Internet cloud.

Macworld.com - Students of the hadouken have a new venue to test their fighting mettle: Street Fighter IV launched Wednesday for the iPhone and iPod touch. This seminal arcade fighter brings high-end graphics, complex combos, and a memorable cast of characters to the mobile platform.

PC World - The launch of Apple's iPad will pave the way for a slew of rival products this year, an Arm executive said Wednesday, predicting over 50 tablet PC devices will be launched globally.

Reuters - The directors behind the Oscar-winning animated short Logorama, are moving into the live-action world -- but they aren't going Hollywood just yet.

AP - Google Inc. is adding a bike lane with its latest online mapping option.

AP - NEW APPS STORE: Google is selling the online services of other business software makers.

AP - Google Inc. will sell the online services of other business software makers in an effort to fill its own product gaps and persuade more companies to rely on applications piped over the Internet.

AP - Long-ago lapped by Facebook in popularity and with fast-growing Twitter on its tail, social networking site MySpace is planning a series of updates over the next months that will link its users' posts to those sites more easily and carve out its niche as an entertainment hub more clearly.

Reuters - With shrinking audiences, deep layoffs and two management shake-ups, MySpace, the one-time leader in Internet social networking, has had a rocky year.

AP - Authorities say a man was stabbed in the neck with a meat thermometer after asking a woman to silence her cell phone during a screening of the film Shutter Island at a Southern California movie theater.

Reuters - LG Electronics Inc, the world's No. 3 mobile phone maker, on Wednesday launched a smartphone based on Google's Android operating system in South Korea, as it seeks to boost its relatively weak smartphone line-ups.

Reuters - Cisco Systems Inc introduced its first major new routers in six years and said they can be configured to handle Internet traffic up to 12 times faster than rival products.

AP - A chip for Spot? In a country where guns are tightly controlled and even carrying a kitchen knife can bring prison time, some thugs use dogs to menace their victims. Now the British government is proposing that dog owners be forced to get microchips and take out insurance for their pets.

NewsFactor - Facebook may join other Internet companies in offering location-based services. The social-networking site plans to let its users to share their location and see the locations of friends, according to published reports.

Reuters - Fearing an apparent assault by Amazon.com on Canadian culture, the Canadian Booksellers Association is urging the federal government to block the U.S. Internet retailer from establishing a physical presence north of the border.

NewsFactor - With the stakes high in Microsoft's bid to add its search engine to the iPhone, a few words of praise by the software giant's CEO have drawn a considerable amount of attention.

PC World - Sentilla has released an update to its data-center energy management tool, which lets IT and facilities staff track the energy usage of servers and other equipment. The latest version is a software-only product that adds a chargeback capability, allowing companies to bill individual business units for the energy they use.