Hi-Tech News

The federal government has put Google, Microsoft, Apple and other technology companies on notice: Give consumers a way prevent advertisers from tracking their movements across the Web — or face regulation.

Yet for all its innovative know-how and entrepreneurial spirit, the technology industry has yet to agree on a simple, meaningful solution to protect consumer privacy on the Internet.

So privacy watchdogs and lawmakers are stepping up the pressure, calling for laws that would require companies to stop the digital surveillance of consumers who don’t want to be tracked. T

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Tags: Tech, Tech Industry

Scotland Yard says it has arrested a key member of LulzSec named Topiary, but new reports suggest that the hacker group tricked authorities into arresting an innocent man According to this theory, Topiary assumed the guys online identity a while back in a bid to throw off police, reports BGR The site picks up on a report in Daily Tech that purports to have chat logs from the real Topiary explaining the ruse

Another site, LulzSec Exposed, agrees “We believe MET Police got the wrong guy and it happens because of lot of disinformation floating on the web,” says a post “LulzSec and Anonymous members are Master trolls and they are good at this” The site says the real Topiary is a 23-year-old Swede named Daniel Sandberg, not the 19-year-old under arrest in London Confused?

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Tags: Scotland Yard, Tricked

When I reviewed Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars for the iPad last fall, I summed up as follows:

To repeat what I did with the iPhone version, I will once again rank the four versions of GTA: Chinatown Wars, I would do it as follows:
– The DS version has the most balanced overall experience … but worst graphics
– The PSP version has the best movement controls.
– The iPhone version is the worst version but still a solid value
– The iPad version is the best value, has best graphics, solid controls and is my overall favorite
Once again, let me reiterate that I think all four versions of the game are excellent, and think that you should get the game for whatever platform you are using the most. T

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Tags: Auto Chinatown, Auto Chinatown Wars, Chinatown Wars, Wars

NEW YORK (Trefis) — Microsoft(MSFT) just announced its fourth-quarter and full year earnings for fiscal year 2011. By all measures, it had a very good year.

It reported revenues of nearly $70 billion for the year with net income of $23 billion. Its most valuable businesses: Microsoft Business, Windows and the Server and Tools division all grew reasonably well despite strong competition from the likes of Apple(AAPL), Oracle(ORCL), Salesforce(CRM) and SAP(SAP). The Entertainment and Devices business also exceeded expectations with revenue growth of over 45% year over year, thanks to the excellent sales of the Xbox 360 console and Kinect add-on. Read more…

Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Roll

A US International Trade Commission judge has ruled that two patents held by S3 are being infringed by some of Apple’s Mac computers, but invalidated two other patents and stated that Apple’s iOS devices are not infringing any of the S3 patents.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the S3 patents, held by the Fremont, California image compression technology firm, have been acquired by Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC for $300 million in an effort to defend that company’s Android-based smartphones from iPhone patents leveraged by Apple.

ITC judge James Gildea’s ruling reduced the scope of the two S3 patents found to be valid and infringed upon by Mac OS X, and further noted that Macs using Nvidia graphics chips have an implied license to use the patents, limiting Apple’s potential liability. Read more…

Tags: Patents, X Violates