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by Andy Marken, Contributing Editor Don’t Tell Me Who You Are, I’ll Just Check Your Online Data “Between the mind that plans and the hands that build there must be a Mediator and this must be the heart.” – Metropolis, 1927 - Universum Governments around the globe are working hard to develop guidelines and laws that will ensure the protection of your data, your information and you. That has to make you feel about as safe as someone coming to your door and saying, “I’m from the tax service and here to help ... read more

ATF says no law enforcement agency could unlock a defendant's iPhone, but Apple can "bypass the security software" if it chooses. Apple has created a police waiting list because of high demand. Apple receives so many police demands to decrypt seized iPhones that it has created a "waiting list" to handle the deluge of requests, CNET has learned. Court documents show that federal agents were so stymied by the encrypted iPhone 4S of a Kentucky man accused of distributing crack cocaine that ... read more

A number of media sites over the past day or so have compared Microsoft's failure to wow the market with its Windows 8 operating system as analogous to New Coke, the ill-fated attempt in 1985 to change the flavor of the century-old popular soft drink. The change was so widely rejected that three months later Coca Cola Corp. reversed course and brought back the original Coke. First it branded the revived version as Classic Coke while keeping New Coke on the shelves as Coke II, which was ultimately phased... read more

Software giant is ready to fire up the Windows Blue disclosure machine. Here's what to expect and when, according to company officials. Up until now, Microsoft's official pronouncements about Windows Blue have been few and far between. But the informational floodgates are going to open in the next couple of weeks or so, said Tami Reller, chief financial officer of the Windows client division at Microsoft. During my interview with her at the Microsoft New York City headquarters on Monday, Reller outlined... read more

Samsung's latest flagship, the Galaxy S 4, comes in two distinct flavors -- and they're both good. One uses the much-hyped Exynos Octa-core chip, while its identical twin takes advantage of the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600. In either case, the availability depends on where you live: the Exynos-powered I9500 is difficult to find in North America (at least for now), but our friends at Negri Electronics, an online retailer currently stocking the Octa-core device, gave us the opportunity to play with a... read more

On the heels of today's Creative Cloud software announcement, Adobe pulled the wraps off a new peripheral initiative for creating on a slate. First, Project Mighty is a cloud-connected stylus experiment that pulls tools from Creative Cloud setups and offers pressure sensitivity, a rechargeable battery, Bluetooth connectivity and built-in memory. This device is part of a new undertaking for Adobe that will seek to bridge the gap between software and hardware. In addition to Mighty, there's Project... read more

The White House West Wing, as ever, is very busy. It's nearly time for White House Press Secretary Jay Carney's daily press briefing, which today (April 22nd) will reveal that the Boston bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, won't be tried as an "enemy combatant." Just upstairs, the atmosphere is thankfully less intense. In the East Room and surrounding chambers, over 100 students -- STEM-based competition winners from 40 different states -- are making their best efforts to remain chipper while... read more

ARM's long been the dominant form of silicon in mobile devices, but Intel aims to change that with its next-generation Atom chip design codenamed Silvermont. According to Intel, the new architecture will enable CPUs that operate at up to three times the speed of existing models, while (in some cases) also offering chips that sip just one-fifth the amount of electricity to get computational jobs done. The keys to those improvements are Intel's 22nm process and Tri-Gate transistorstuned for SoCs. While... read more

New legislation introduced to Congress on Monday aims to change the patent review process to curb the influx of new patent-related lawsuits. Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, presented a new bill that amends 2011's America Invents Act by making permanent a temporary revision that allows the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to review a patent after it has been granted. The new legislation, called the Patent Quality Improvement Act, would also change language for what types of businesses are... read more

Adobe's new creative software requires a subscription, YouTube may soon launch premium channels, and the new Fitbit Flex is the best health-tracking device you can buy.

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