bridget carey

Monday's top tech headlines feature a new challenger to the LTE battle:

Microsoft is releasing a new flavor of Office to go along with the new look of Windows 8. This new Office is all about making your documents available wherever you are, on any device. The design is also streamlined. Since you might be using it on a touch-screen, Microsoft simplified some options. You can see highlights of the features in our review of the new Office suite.

Sprint's already been selling devices that use 4G LTE, but today customers can finally tap into that faster network. … Read more

Friday's top tech stories teach us that Web giants may die, but ice cream is forever:

What's left of the social news aggregator Digg has been purchased by Betaworks, a company that runs Bit.ly and several other Web businesses. Digg will be folded into News.me, a daily news app and e-mail digest. Digg has been struggling and was slowly disassembled. A subsidiary of Washington Post bought some of the Digg talent, LinkedIn grabbed some patents, and on Thursday, Betaworks acquired what was left. The Wall Street Journal has sources saying Betaworks acquired Digg for around $500,… Read more

This Thursday, it's time to train your brain to win the gold in multitasking:

Seems to be the season for security breaches. This time, it deals with a subsection of Yahoo, called Yahoo Voices. Hackers posted more than 450,000 login names and passwords of Voices users, and it was said to be done as a wake-up call to Yahoo and others to step up security. The Voices section of Yahoo was slacking in security and did not hash passwords or require complicated strings.

CNET's Declan McCullagh wrote a program to comb through the most frequently used passwords … Read more

The world is out for your wallet, but we'll never raise our prices. That's a Wednesday Update promise!

It's been a year since Netflix got itself in a mess with a bungled price-hike announcement, followed by the Qwikster embarrassment. I sat down with colleague Greg Sandoval to discuss his report on what went wrong at the once-beloved tech company. You can read his story and catch our full interview here: The inside story of Netflix's price-hike train wreck.

Games on Amazon's Kindle Fire will be adding achievements, leaderboards and the ability to save game progress … Read more

Google, Canadians and Nic Cage. Tuesday's top tech stories are nuthin' but trouble.

Google may pay a record $22.5 million to the Federal Trade Commission to settle a charge over a privacy violation made public six months ago. Google is accused of exploiting a loophole around user privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser. And the Wall Street Journal says this would be the largest penalty a single company has been asked to pay to the FTC. The Journal first brought the issue to light and exposed how Google used a code to get around privacy controls. Ad … Read more

Monday's top stories are about Windows, Twitter, iPhones, and flying pigs. You know, the usual tech talk:

Monday was said to be an "Internet Doomsday." Anyone infected with DNSChanger malware would lose access to the Internet. But turns out, it wasn't all that dramatic. Internet service providers like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are stepping in and helping anyone still bit by the server-enslaving bug. If you have a friend that needs a fix, here's how to administer the cure.

Microsoft announced that Windows 8 will be available at the end of October. If … Read more

Friday's news roundup will have you eyeing Google's competition:

We've sung this tune before: Amazon is tinkering with creating its own smartphone. A recent Bloomberg report has the media buzzing again about the possibility, but we first heard this last year from an analyst. If true, would Amazon knock Windows from the No. 3 spot? I think we're just hungry for more choice.

Google wasn't the first company to tinker with a computerized headset for augmented-reality vision. With all the buzz on Google Glass, Olympus felt confident about sharing news on its Glass-like prototype. And … Read more

On this Thursday, take a whiff and smell those fresh Apple rumors:

New details on a smaller iPad are pouring in. The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg have sources saying Apple is gearing up to produce an iPad Mini that would arrive sometime this year. We've also heard the same earlier this week from an analyst at NPD DisplaySearch. This would compete with other 7-inch tablets, like the Amazon Kindle Fire (which will likely have a new model out this summer) and the Google Nexus 7 tablet.

But that's not the only hot Apple news today. Just check … Read more

The world is annoyed with Facebook, but I'm stressed out over zombies:

Last week, Facebook automaticly changed the email address displayed in profiles to be the Facebook email that no one uses. Well the drama doesn't end there. Some smartphones that sync contacts with Facebook have auto-updated address book info with Facebook emails. Do yourself (and your friends) a favor and make sure the right email is listed in your profile. If you think you're missing emails because of this change-up, click on Messages in the left-hand column, then click on Other. That's where Facebook hides … Read more