Technology news

There are few better illustrations of the staggering advance of digital technology than the new WikiReader. It's the size of a thick table coaster, and contains nearly the entire text of the English-language Wikipedia.

Verizon revealed details Wednesday after intensely advertising the device in recent weeks. Verizon has been pointing out the features Apple's phone lacks, such as a physical keyboard and the ability to run several applications at once.

City Council members tentatively approved a multimillion-dollar proposal Tuesday to tap Google Inc. for government e-mail and other Internet services, a boon for the Web giant as it seeks to wrest market share for office software from rival Microsoft Corp.

The app allows users to buy the right to stream songs forever for just 10 cents each.

Death doesn't erase the online footprints that people leave in life and Facebook won't either, though it will make some changes.

In its latest bid to become a bigger player in telecommunications, Internet search leader Google is giving people a chance to send calls to their cell phones into a free voice mail service unveiled earlier this year. The new choice is being introduced Tuesday.

Headbangers will have a reason to steady their gaze a bit starting Tuesday, when rock band Metallica makes its way onto iPhones with a finger-tapping music app called "Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica."

Sandia National Laboratories scientist Jerry Simmons envisions a future of brighter, more efficient lights, with people even being able to tune the color of light in a room to suit a mood or the time of day.

PlayStation 3 owners will soon be able to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix to their TVs using the gaming console, just as Xbox 360 owners have been able to do for a year.

Fans scrambled to see 3-D movies such as "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" in theaters this year and new 3-D televisions could soon have home viewers feeling as if they're surrounded by a spaghetti hurricane on their couches.

Facebook is tweaking its home page yet again in hopes of making it easier to find information. Among the latest changes is a list of items you might have missed during those rare moments spent away from the online hangout.

The White House says it has overhauled the technical aspects of the site and now there is computer code written in public view, available for public use and able for the public to edit.

U.S. District Court Judge John Grady said not all postings on the Craigslist "Adult Services" section advertised prostitution and that other services could legitimately appear there.