electronic

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has launched a new membership category to try and bring more startups into the consumer electronics fold.

The CEA -- which represents thousands of consumer electronics firms -- has created the new $95 membership category as a means of "fostering innovation" in a stagnant economy.

Regular membership fees begin at $850 per year and can go as high as $40,000, depending on a company's annual revenues. Membership includes free registration for the Consumer Electronics Show.

The trade association says it can better serve both "new and established" companies with … Read more

An avid player of Electronic Arts' "The Simpsons: Tapped Out" mobile game, David Lamb was disheartened when he logged into his account in October and found that all of the data from his game was gone.

The iOS game, which is essentially "Farmville" with Springfield buildings and Simpsons characters, rewards players who spend huge amounts of time completing tasks and collecting money in an effort to re-create their favorite animated city. Lamb, a 45-year-old video editor from La Canada, Calif., had accumulated $80,000 in game cash and 70 donuts (the game's premium currency) after … Read more

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill wants you to be able to tweet a photo of St. Louis' famous Gateway Arch while you're soaring above it in your commercial airliner of choice.

At least that might be one option open to you if a letter she sent to the Federal Aviation Administration yesterday has the desired effect.

The Democratic senator said in her letter that she was "prepared to pursue legislative solutions" if the FAA takes too long to loosen its restrictions on the use of portable electronic devices during flights.

"We live in an increasingly connected world, … Read more

Stanza is a reader for books, available in apps for most devices. We downloaded Stanza from iTunes, and it installed quickly. The app is free.

Stanza lets you read books on your iDevice using a simple, elegant interface. Notably, compared with other reader apps, Stanza supports a wide range of file formats from PDF to EPUB, including those with DRM and without. In fact, we tested Stanza with almost a hundred different books over the space of a couple of months of commuting, and it opened every file we threw at it from different sources. When launched, Stanza shows a … Read more

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and other wireless providers would be required to record and store information about Americans' private text messages for at least two years, according to a proposal that police have submitted to the U.S. Congress.

CNET has learned a constellation of law enforcement groups has asked the U.S. Senate to require that wireless companies retain that information, warning that the lack of a current federal requirement "can hinder law enforcement investigations."

They want an SMS retention requirement to be "considered" during congressional discussions over updating a 1986 privacy law … Read more

A U.S. Senate panel this morning approved a landmark privacy bill that would curb law enforcement's warrantless access to the contents of e-mail, private Facebook posts, and other data that Americans store in the cloud.

The voice vote was a victory for a coalition of technology firms including Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter, which had urged Congress to update a 1986 law to reflect changes in technology -- and preserve the same privacy rights that Americans enjoy if their files are printed out and stored in a cabinet at home.

"We have to update our digital privacy … Read more

Stripped of its controversial provision for warrantless e-mail acccess, Sen. Patrick Leahy's bill to rewrite electronic privacy and surveillance law will head for a vote on Thursday.

The Vermont Democrat said in a press release yesterday that his latest amendments to the bill will be privacy-protective. They no longer include language that would have allowed more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' private e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant.

A CNET article last week disclosed the existence … Read more

Facebook has incurred the wrath of privacy groups because of proposed policy changes it announced last week.

The executive directors of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy penned a letter (pdf) to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging him to withdraw changes that they say would impact the privacy of the social network's 1 billion users and break its previous settlement agreement with the Federal Trade Commission.

The battle began when Facebook announced a proposal to overhaul its system last week, saying that it had outgrown its old model. The two groups say there are … Read more