Internet

The world's largest social network -- stuffed to the brim with 250 million members -- is checking itself out in the mirror, wondering how it would look in a slimmed-down version. However, it may also be putting on some weight by adding a feature that's popular with a certain much-hyped short messagi...

It has become a morbid habit for me every Sept. 11 since the attacks: I soak up all the media I can about that day in New York City. I put on DVDs, seek out TV shows on the History Channel, scour the Web for any new videos. My real focus in on the broadcast coverage of that day, watching anchors and...

Yes, there's a slump in the real estate market. Tell that to the players who tried to log on Wednesday to a new online version of the classic Monopoly game that substitutes Google Maps for the board; gamers can "buy" real streets in cities around the world and build skyscrapers a la Donald Trump. Th...

OPINION

Is the Internet Killing Critical Thinking?

Like Alice's Restaurant in the Arlo Guthrie song, the Internet lets you get anything you want -- from views on politics or science and technology or religion to recipes and gossip. Oh, and of course, news. However, few people do more than skim the surface -- and as they do with newspapers, most peop...

THIS WEEK IN TECH

Sprint Gives Android a Hero's Welcome

Android is finally getting a little more wardrobe variety. It's also moving out into new U.S. carriers. Sprint is the latest wireless company to jump in with the Android crowd; it'll start selling the HTC Hero this October. The Hero looks to be a pretty capable handset. It's loaded with Google apps,...

The last time I saw Rebecca Aguilar in person, it was early October of 2007. We were both at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists' Noche de Triunfos awards banquet in Washington, D.C. I was presenting an award and she was receiving one -- NAHJ Broadcast Journalist of the Year for her wor...

Nokia on Wednesday unveiled three new smartphones at Nokia World 2009 in Stuttgart, Germany. It also announced a partnership with Facebook through its Lifecasting With Ovi application. One smartphone, the N97 mini, is targeted at women, IDC analyst Ramon T. Llamas told TechNewsWorld. The other two, ...

PRODUCT REVIEW

PlayOn for Wii: Sometimes a Great Application

When they were designing the latest generation of video game consoles -- the generation we're currently right in the middle of -- two of the three major players envisioned their systems as hubs not just for games but for all sorts of digital entertainment. Downloaded movies, songs stored on a PC, hi...

EXPERT ADVICE

The Promise and the Peril of Web 2.0

Web 2.0 enables companies to build dynamic networking communities and foster ad hoc collaboration. This can be great for businesses, as they can gain insights and feedback in hours instead of weeks or months. However, the trusting, collaborative and open nature of the Web 2.0 environment is precisel...

You can look at it as the beginnings of real interactive television -- or simply one big episode of the cult comedy TV series "Mystery Science Theater 3000" brought to life. In any event, thanks to forthcoming plans from IBM and Fox, viewers will soon be able to talk back to their flat-screen televi...

OPINION

The Hacker Journalists

The audience at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle was full of geeks, and its members would probably have been proud to identify themselves as such. After all, it was the ninth Gnomedex conference, the annual gathering of tech bloggers, business types, private tech enthusiasts -- anybody a...

Facebook will be overhauling its privacy policy following an investigation by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, which concluded that the social networking site's policies posed significant risks. The changes will affect Facebook's entire global user base. The investigation was orig...

Google has pushed an update to its Maps application adding traffic data on surface streets. The data will be drawn from GPS-enabled cellphones that are actively running the mobile version of Google's map app, the company said in a blog posting Tuesday. Although all users of Google's mobile maps serv...

Without a doubt, the growth of social networking has exploded in recent years and has added value to the Internet by providing yet another exciting way for citizens all over the world to connect and interact. In fact, social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and many smaller sites h...

Microsoft on Tuesday announced OneApp, a software application for feature phones. Feature phones, which are essentially low-end mobile phones without any smartphone features, are widely used in both established and emerging markets. OneApp will give users access to mobile applications most often fou...

Technewsworld Channels