Personal Technology

On Tuesday, Apple released a minor update to its iPhoto ’09 () digital photography software. The iPhoto 8.1.1. update deals with face-recognition performance and accuracy (to fix a problem introduced with the 8.1 update), book ordering, and iPod touch support.

On the heels of Google's Teracent acquisition, TiVo has announced a deal of its own with the search giant. TiVo has entered into an audience-research agreement with Google to empower the Google TV Ads platform.

BRUSSELS - European Union antitrust regulators on Tuesday dropped a monopoly abuse probe into wireless chip maker Qualcomm Inc. after mobile phone companies withdrew complaints about high royalty fees.

HELSINKI - Nokia Corp. said Tuesday it is axing 220 jobs at research and development units in Japan as the world's largest mobile phone maker continues to cut costs.

STRASBOURG (AFP) - The European parliament approved Tuesday a major overhaul of EU telecoms law aimed at boosting the rights of European mobile phone and Internet users and protection against access restrictions.

Apple's jumping into the battle that sees Verizon Wireless and AT&T flaming each other in advertisements, but unlike AT&T's recent effort to defend itself, Apple's new pair of iPhone ads are actually good.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - In its bid to make TV advertising more accountable -- and to sell more of it through its online auction service -- Google has teamed up with TiVo, the companies are set to announce Tuesday.

On the heels of a judge's decision to allow Verizon to continue running commercials that attack AT&T's 3G network, Apple has a new an iPhone ad campaign that defends AT&T's capabilities.

In spite of rumors that the first USB 3.0 products wouldn't surface until the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Buffalo Technology has beaten all comers to the punch by announcing today it was shipping its new DriveStation HD-HXU3 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 drive.

OfficeMax has the HP Pavilion dm3 laptop for $525 with free shipping, which is $125 off the retail price for this configuration and $50 lower than what competing vendors charge. This ultraportable laptop has a 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo X2 dual-core processor, an ATI Radeon HD 3200 discrete graphics card, a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, 4GB of memory, a 320GB hard drive, a 6-cell battery, and Windows 7 preinstalled.

Amazon has the Samsung PD-P3600 Blu-ray player, which sells for $219 with free shipping; that's $80 off the retail price and about $20 lower than competing retailers' prices. This Blu-ray player made waves earlier in the year for its slick design, 1GB of internal flash memory for BD-Live content, and support for Netflix and Pandora streaming over Wi-Fi.

Amazon.com offers the Casio Exilim EX-S5 digital camera for $105 with free shipping, which is $25 under the retail price. The Exilim EX-S5 has a 3X optical-zoom lens, face-detection features, a 2.7-inch LCD display, and an SD/MMC card slot for storing photos and movies.

In a battle between AT&T and Verizon Wireless that never seems to end, AT&T's partner Apple now appears to be getting into the mix with two retaliatory iPhone TV ad that air Monday night. The ads comes hot on the heels of AT&T's TV ad campaign that aimed to "set the record straight" around Verizon's "there's a map for that" campaign.

Have a laptop or netbook and want to get more out of it? You're not alone. We've experienced the frustration of trying to keep data or bookmarks on a portable synchronized with those of a desktop PC or other laptops. We've struggled with diminishing battery life. We've needed assistance getting connected at hotspots or staying safe once online. And we've wondered how to take full advantage of USB flash drives.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Hackers have built a virus that attacks Apple Inc's iPhone by secretly taking control of the devices via their Internet connections, security experts said.

Is an iPhone an acceptable device for business users? Verizon Wireless and AT&T have been involved in a public multimillion-dollar spat over the question with dueling television advertising campaigns -- and a lawsuit to boot. Now Apple is stepping into the fray with its own ads.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT&T Inc unveiled on Monday an offering that lets customers using its network for Web-surfing on laptop computers or netbooks avoid the obligation to sign a two-year contract with the operator.

Twelve South on Monday announced the BassJump, a portable, USB-powered "subwoofer" designed to enhance your MacBook's audio output by adding midrange and bass frequencies that the MacBook's built-in speakers can't adequately produce.

A report from AdMob has people claiming there is now proof that iPhone users now account for more than half of mobile data traffic. For months now many have suspected the iPhone -- with its data-hungry applications -- is a network bandwidth hog. But a closer look at the AdMob report reveals iPhone users probably aren't as hoggish as some in the blogosphere are claiming.

Thursday is Thanksgiving in the U.S, so in this week's super-sized edition of iPhone hints we give thanks for the few, the proud, the useful—the iPhone’s physical controls.

NEW YORK - Patent holding company Klausner Technologies Inc. on Monday said it's suing Motorola Inc. and the maker of BlackBerry smartphones for allegedly violating its patent for visual voicemail.

San Francisco - InfoWorld released today the fifth entry in its "Deep Dive" series of special PDF reports, covering the now-crucial area of server virtualization. InfoWorld, a Web-based publication devoted to emerging technology and hands-on business tech expertise, had previously released "Deep Dive" reports on cloud computing, Windows 7, enterprise iPhone, and next-gen mobile devices, as well as a quick-start guide to Windows 7.

About 10 percent of software applications turned down by Apple's App Store are "inappropriate," either because they will steal personal data, are meant to help users break the law, or contain "inappropriate content," an Apple senior executive reportedly said.

Just two weeks after Apple iPhone users in Australia reported jailbroken iPhones came under siege by attackers, a new version of the iPhone worm is posing a threat. Symantec reports the new worm targets jailbroken iPhones running SSH that are still using the default password. The worm can reportedly steal data stored on the iPhone as well as connect back to the attacker, giving them control of the phone.

Of all the Mario Kart games, the best was probably the first, and now you can see why for 800 Wii Points, or about eight US dollars. We're talking the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) original here, born 17 years ago in 1992. It supported 1 to 2 players, packed eight playable Mario-verse characters, and offered three championship cups divvied into three distinct 'kart' classes.

Another week, another worm hitting jailbroken iPhones. As with the previous exploits, which Rickrolled your phone’s wallpaper and stole your data, this nasty piece of work burrows its way into your jailbroken device if you haven’t changed the password for the iPhone’s root account—you have changed your root password, right? Right?

The Apple App Store has been the subject of debate. Developers complain about the hoops they have to jump through to get through the approval process, while Apple defends the process and claims there is nothing wrong with the App Store. As with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Swedish streaming software Spotify announced on Monday the launch of a music application for the Symbian platform, used by the world's biggest mobile phone maker Nokia and other smartphones.

Mobile phone apps able to work on all OSs instead of just one, the potential for Android to become a major OS and the promotion of ways to save energy were all major areas of focus at the Mobile Asia Congress organized by the GSM Association (GSMA) last week in Hong Kong.