Personal Technology News

NEW YORK--Using a laptop, cell phone headset, building access badge, credit cards, or even a passport can make you a walking target for data thieves and other criminals, a security expert warned at the Last HOPE hacker conference here late Friday.

InformationWeek - We uploaded digital files and had photos printed by Kodak Gallery, RitzPix, Shutterfly, and Wal-Mart.com. It wasn't always pretty, but one online vendor clearly earned our top marks.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ed McMahon, the long-time sidekick to U.S. talk show host Johnny Carson, sued a Los Angeles hospital on Friday, claiming its doctors failed to diagnose his broken neck after a fall and discharged him without taking an X-ray.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Motorola Inc has sued a former executive for allegedly violating a non-compete agreement and threatening to reveal its trade secrets by taking a job with Apple Inc's iPhone division, the cell phone maker said in a lawsuit.

Motorola is suing a former executive now employed by Apple's iPhone sales division, charging him with the theft of trade secrets.

InformationWeek - The flaw could let malicious PDFs cause problems with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

InformationWeek - The computer maker has launched two notebooks and a desktop with Hardy Heron, the version of Ubuntu Linux that was released in April.

Oops, again. AT&T once more announced free hotspot access for iPhone owners early Friday on its Web site, but then quickly removed the posting. The exclusive carrier for Apple's iPhone made a similar blunder in May.

InformationWeek - Some O2 customers' private photos taken with their mobile phones are publicly accessible online.

InformationWeek - Internet real estate sites show that the building that houses Psystar is on the market for $4.6 million.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa's largest mobile phone network operator said Friday it was unable to agree on a deal in talks with an Indian telecom company.

InformationWeek - Saying Apple wasn't prepared for the demand, a Piper Jaffray analyst predicts iPhone 3G shortages for two to four weeks.

InformationWeek - Google executives reportedly said the company was making its own branded mobile phone to compete with Apple's iPhone.

In the wake of the big E3 trade show in Los Angeles, sales reports show the Nintendo Wii is the leading video-game console in the U.S. this year.

MOSCOW - In the Soviet days, Russians asked their American friends to bring blue jeans, rock records and other Western goods into the country. Today Russians can buy almost anything they want here — but they are still begging for one item: Apple Inc.'s slick iPhone.

After previous misfires, we probably should have just assumed that this morning's promise of free Wi-Fi for iPhone users was just too good to be true. It was.

Wii MotionPlus -- the Wii Remote attachment revealed earlier this week that adds extra precision to motion controls -- poses an interesting conundrum for Nintendo: How can it make games supporting it without running the risk of fracturing its market?

Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton says the company has considered putting a hard drive in the PlayStation Portable.

With another 666,700 Wiis sold last month, Nintendo has taken the U.S. console lead from Microsoft, with the Xbox 360 selling less than a third of the amount of Wiis in June.

Samson Technologies has introduced the StudioDock 3i, a set of studio monitor speakers with a dock connector and USB interface. The StudioDock 3i costs $149 per pair.

Some are useful. Many frivolous. A bunch will waste your time. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Bottom line: The App Store turns the iPhone into an important new computing platform.

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia (NOK1V.HE) has reached high volumes in single-chip mobile phone sales, the company's head was quoted in a newspaper as saying on Friday.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Nintendo said Thursday that its globally popular Wii has become the top-selling video game console in the United States, a crown coveted by rivals Microsoft and Sony.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. sales of video game hardware and software rose 53 percent in June from a year ago, with Konami Corp's "Metal Gear Solid 4" helping to fuel a dramatic increase in the number of Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 units sold, market researcher NPD reported on Thursday.

Smartphones like the iPhone are the next major computing platform. But who will standardize the market?

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd (7974.OS) sold 666,000 units of its Wii video game console in the United States in June, becoming the country's best-selling video game console, the company said on Thursday, citing figures from market research firm NPD.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Enthusiastic new iPhone owners are starting to sound like the cast of long-running stage musical: "I Love you, You're Perfect, Now Change."

TiVo says it has completed the technology to make YouTube videos available on TV sets connected to its digital video recorder (DVR) boxes. As part of an agreement with YouTube announced in March, TiVo expects to roll out a software upgrade over the next few weeks.

Sony cut the price of its 60GB PS3 console in advance of this week's E3 Business and Media Summit, which finished Thursday in Los Angeles. The company also announced a new 80GB system for $499, then announced that the price would be cut $100 by fall. While news reports have emphasized the price drop, Sony tried to highlight other aspects of the PS3 experience, including the ability of PlayStation Home subscribers to download movies and inhabit virtual online communities.