Technology

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted the company PowerPhone Inc. a patent called “Integrated Call Handler and E-Mail Systems and Methods” that allows users to send SMS text messages to 911. The company will use this patent to allow users to send text and video messages to 911 if in need of help.

Can malware kill? A computer virus may have contributed to the Spanair plane crash which killed 154 people. A worm has infected life support machines. Can a trojan or malware be a murder weapon?

Another knock for Yahoo...

China Unicom will officially launch the iPhone 4 on September 16th, a local source claims. While the carrier is generally believed to have set plans in motion, it has yet to formally announce details. The Chinese model is also expected to suffer from the same reception problems as other versions, but Unicom will allegedly be offering cases for free

Books offer graphic designers, illustrators and typographers a great way to expand their portfolios. There are endless possibilities that can be explored when designing for book covers, and often are explored, as can be seen in this post.

Facebook for iPhone has a new version out – 3.2.2 – and it fixes login issues for owners of jailbroken iPhones.

Dennis Crowley, the co-founder of Foursquare, a location-based social network, has called Places, Facebook's new check-in tool, 'boring' and 'unexciting'.

WikiLeaks founder and editor Julian Assange said Swedish authorities reached "the height of irresponsibility"; by issuing an arrest warrant alleging rape against him, then revoking it less than a day later.

Whether you're just starting out or are hitting the midway point in your IT career, the fast-changing nature of the profession means only the agile will thrive. Here are some ideas to help you set your career on the right path for the next 10 years.

An Apple patent filing details technology to identify unauthorized iPhone users or illegitimate uses - like jailbreaking - and shut down the device.

An Indian computer scientist was arrested this weekend when he refused to disclose an anonymous source who provided an electronic voting machine to a team of security researchers.

Reports are appearing this morning about a major security hole in iTunes accounts linked to PayPal. Scammers may have found a way to charge thousands of dollars to iTunes accounts through PayPal.

Political spying is nearly as bad now as it was during the Cold War. The ACLU reports that Americans are harassed and under surveillance for exercising their First Amendment rights.

HOW TO: Undo “Send” in Gmail

Unless you've been running your business out of a cave in the Himalayas, you know that software has undergone some major changes over the past few years. Budget-minded small businesses are taking the online application leap. Google Apps is the pack leader when it comes to Internet office suites.

Almost five years ago, Google launched Google Maps for mobile to help you get where you needed to go from your phone instead of a paper map. Today, more than 100 million people a month are now using Google Maps for mobile to get from point A to point B, find nearby places, and more.

Tanstaafl is a term popularized by sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein. It stands for "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Yet overclocking is like free lunch for computer enthusiasts. By cranking up the speeds on your computer's CPU, memory, and video card, your free lunch not only includes a sandwich, but Kool-Aid and pudding as well!

The rumor: Apple will be releasing a revamped/renamed version of their 'Apple TV' set-top box, called 'iTV'. The box will run the Apple iOS (same as the iPhone/iPad), and be priced around $99. Why will this change everything?

On a desktop computer, StumbleUpon makes sense. You’re on the prowl for cool stuff, click a button and find it. But there is a ton of competition these days among services that let you do this — and increasingly people are relying on Twitter and Facebook for this. But mobile is a different beast.

"Have you seen HDMI cables online or in stores labeled '120 Hz,' '240Hz' and '480 Hz'? It's easy enough to slap such labels on HDMI cables but it's a sham. HDMI cables can no more be manufactured for specific refresh-rate HDTVs than a garden hose can be manufactured specifically to water seeded lawns and sod lawns. The same water flows through..."