Latest Technology News

This week, Yahoo Japan announced it reached a deal with competitor Google to utilize its search engine technology and advertising and distribution platform while retaining its current appearance. Despite protests from Microsoft, Japanese fair trade organizations today said the deal does not appear to create monopolistic conditions.

Historically, Yahoo and Google have dominated the Japanese search market, and Tuesday, Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner said the deal would create a search monopoly for Google.

Today, Panasonic announced its first consumer camcorder capable of capturing both 2D HD and 3D video, the $1,399 SDT750.

Panasonic was one of the most vocal early supporters of 1080p 3D. The Japanese consumer electronics company threw its weight behind James Cameron's Avatar, and commenced work on its 3D Blu-ray authoring center at Panasonic Hollywood Labs in 2008.

Online retail giant Amazon on Tuesday launched a beta of new functionality intended to use data from Facebook to make recommendations. Once connected, the retailer would comb through the data in both your own profile and that of your friends.

Amazon said it would share no personal data with Facebook. The social networking site would be sending data over to Amazon, however: this would include the user's likes and favorites on Facebook as well as his or her friends, and their birthdays. In addition, Amazon would make it easier for a user to find a friend's wish list once the services are connected, but this would be a guess based on given information.

On Tuesday, Apple launched its second multi-touch peripheral, the Magic Trackpad, which elicited an immediate reaction from tech spectators. TechCrunch's MG Siegler declared it to be the harbinger of the end of the mouse era, and 90% of the more than 700 readers who answered Macworld's informal poll "would you buy this input device?" said they would.

A spark in multi-touch trackpad interest could prove to be a great boon for Wacom, the company synonymous with pen and touch tablet interfaces. For nearly a year, Wacom has had its own multi-touch trackpad called Bamboo Touch on the market, which is $20 cheaper than Apple's Magic Trackpad, offers similar functionality, and does not require two AA batteries (because it runs on a powered USB connection instead.)

Most Internet veterans would associate the Ask brand with the familiar face of Jeeves, who you could ask a question and usually get the answer that you'd be looking for. However, as the Internet became more sophisticated, that method of search became dated.

The change in our search habits forced Jeeves into retirement in February 2006, and the company moved to a standard based-query system. But it now appears as if question-based queries -- maybe not Jeeves himself though -- may be about to make a comeback.

Bangalore, India-based software startup Hidden Reflex has launched the beta of a new Web browser for Windows called Epic. The new browser is heavily focused on three areas: In-browser user multitasking, customization through plug-ins, and mashing up mobile Web content with full Web content.

Epic has a relatively predictable design across the top, with tabbed browsing, a standard address bar and neighboring search bar; but the real difference with Epic is the long list of standard tools shown as icons in a sidebar on the left hand side of the browser window. Here, some truly unique features have been incorporated as gadgets that give the distinct feeling of a browser-based OS.

Last Week, the future of Qualcomm's FLO TV mobile TV business came into question after CEO Paul Jacobs said the chipmaker was "engaged in discussions with a number of partners," about what to do with the asset-rich service. The company recently gave Betanews some further information on what to expect from MediaFLO and FLO TV moving forward.

In talking with GigaOM, Jacobs said "We want to see FLO continue so it's not like we'd want to sell the spectrum, but there are certainly people who would buy it for the spectrum. The spectrum is extremely valuable. So what that means is there's a high bar. The business that's generated through that spectrum, by the broadcast system needs to be valuable too…whether it's an operator, a content player, a web company -there's a wide range of companies that could make use of [MediaFLO] and deal with the business model where they are trying to get a lot of content down to a lot of people and they can't really afford to do it on the cellular network."

Brick and Mortar retailers haven't quite figured out the perfect way to utilize location-based "check in" services like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Latitude, but mobile rewards app CardStar today presented a new option for retailers.

Retailers like Starbucks, Domino's Pizza, Chili's, Ann Taylor, and Sephora have all tried promotions where the people who check in most at their stores (the "mayors") get special coupons or prizes.

Aiming to bring its multi-touch technology to its desktop systems, Apple on Tuesday introduced the "Magic Trackpad," a navigation device that looks much like the trackpads on its current MacBook Pro line of laptops.

The device, which retails for $69, would allow the user to employ the same gestures available to those using its laptops. The device would run on two AA batteries and connect wirelessly to the computer via Bluetooth.

After Apple temporarily closed down its Web-based store on Tuesday, the company announced its annual desktop product line refresh, which included new Mac Pro, iMac, and Cinema Display products.

Apple's new iMacs are equipped with Intel Core i3, i5, or i7 processors offering speeds between 2.93 GHz and 3.6 GHz, have up to 16GB of faster 1333 MHz memory, discrete ATI Radeon HD craphics cards, (including the HD 5750 with 1GB GDDR5 on the top end,) and configure-to-order storage solutions with up to 2TB hard drives or 256GB solid state drives.

I spent Thursday through Sunday (July 22-25) covering one of the best geek events anywhere -- best because the appeal is so broad. At Comic-Con, everyone is a geek, or someone else if they cosplay (costume play). The event has changed as big Hollywood media exercises greater influence. Comic-Con is no longer just about comics, anime or manga. Last year, for example, director James Cameron debuted a long segment from the then upcoming movie "Avatar."

Like previous years, I focused my reporting not on the star-studded panels but the attendees and exhibitors. From my viewpoint, the real stars aren't the Hollywood actors, directors or producers but the artists and attendees, many of whom dress up as someone else. For one day, or as many as four, they assume other personas or revel in the roles their favorite heroes play.

Citigroup customers using its iPhone app for mobile banking are being urged to apply an update after the company found a security flaw. The program was storing personal data in a file that could have potentially opened the user up to identity theft.

The issue was discovered during a routine security check of the company's products. Citi Mobile was released in March and was updated on July 19 to fix the issue. Customers were notified by mail beginning the following day. The update will erase this file from the phone as well as the computer when applied and synced with iTunes.

Following news over the weekend that it had missed the deadline to provide the city government of Los Angeles with its own email and collaboration infrastructure, Google today announced "Google Apps for Government".

Google Apps for Government provides more secure versions of the popular consumer-facing Web services that Google offers, such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Sites, and even YouTube. All of the apps are compliant with the 2002 Federeal Information Security Management Act (FIMSA, PDF here,) and operate at the "moderate" level. FIMSA was laid down by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to ensure federal agencies and their contractors were using secure and reliable software and systems.

Internet leak clearinghouse Wikileaks made the news over the weekend, being the source of the release of 92,000 secret government documents detailing US activity in Afghanistan from January 2004 to December 2009. The full suite of documents was provided to three news organizations about two weeks ago.

The New York Times, Britain's The Guardian, and Germany's Der Spiegel were given access provided they didn't report on the contents until Sunday. Indeed, it paints a not-too-forgiving picture of a US armed force that was fighting an increasingly organized Taliban on strained resources.

Methods for bypassing DVD encryption, unlocking mobile phone carrier locks, and other content protection could be argued as fair use under a revision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced today.

Every three years, the Library of Congress must determine if there are any types of works that can be exempt from Section 1201 of copyright law, also known as "Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems."