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Billionaire high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has announced plans to build a test track, most likely in Texas, for his envisioned Hyperloop high-speed transportation system. The goal is to allow company representatives, students and others to test out Hyperloop pods, the equivalent of train carriages....

Xiaomi on Wednesday announced two new flagship smartphones in Beijing, the Mi Note and the Mi Note Pro The Mi Note has a metal frame and is protected on the front and back with 3D curved Gorilla Glass 3, which apparently makes it highly resistant to scratches and shattering....

Verizon advertising partner Turn is using the carrier's Unique Identifier Header, or UIDH, to maintain tracking cookies on smartphones even after privacy-minded users have deleted them, Jonathan Mayer, a computer scientist and lawyer at Stanford University, reported this week Turn shares the cookies with dozens of major websites and advertising net...

Despite having the most popular camera on the planet in the form of the iPhone, the odds of Apple pulling the rug out from under GoPro by building its own action sports camera system -- even with using its forthcoming Apple Watch as a controller -- are so low they stand in stark contrast to the hysterical selloff of GoPro stock this week What happe...

Etsy is working on an initial public offering that could debut this quarter, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with its plans The e-commerce dealer in handmade crafts, vintage items and other unique offerings hopes to raise US$300 million. ...

The average American worker spends almost half an hour commuting each day, but virtual traffic lights could cut that almost in half If traditional traffic lights were replaced with virtual ones, the results could include not only a reduction of up to 40 percent in urban workers' commute times, but also lower carbon emissions, less congestion and fe...

UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who is standing for re-election, has vowed to ban personal encrypted communications apps such as Snapchat and WhatsApp if he is voted in He also will allow UK government security agencies to monitor communications, with warrants signed by the Home Secretary....

Security questions recently have been raised about Docker, a promising technology for running applications in the cloud. Docker is an open source initiative that allows applications to be run in containers for flexibility and mobility only dreamt of in the past "Since the 70s, programmers have been talking about reusable code and the ability to mig...

The continuing rollout of platform technology is bringing many applications together to support better, and in many cases new, business processes. Not long ago, it was nearly impossible for back-office people to know about what the front office was doing. In fact, it was hard for marketing and sales to know how they were affecting each other. With...

Rumors about Microsoft's new browser, code-named "Spartan," have been heating up: It will be an app; no, it will not. It will replace Internet Explorer -- no, it will not It will use Microsoft's Trident rendering engine and the Chakra JavaScript engine developed for IE 9. Probably....

Great news: Rollover is back and can save you money. Just in case you haven't heard about it, three wireless carriers have kicked off this new competitive battle with rolling data plans. The good news is rollover data works and saves customers money. During the last month or so, three wireless carriers have introduced programs in this space: AT&T ...

Samsung on Wednesday released the first Tizen-powered smartphone for India, the Samsung Z1 The Tizen phone offers localized entertainment apps and a simpler user interface than Android, the company said....

Facebook on Tuesday announced that it has begun a new effort to help find missing children by incorporating Amber Alerts into the news feeds of its 185 million U.S. users. Through the effort, which is part of a partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the alerts are sent only to users in targeted search areas. They'...

Google on Wednesday released a new version of its Translate app for Android and iOS The app now lets users instantly translate text in foreign languages using their smartphone cameras....

Google has shed fresh light on Project Ara, its modular Android smartphone initiative, including plans to pilot the project in Puerto Rico through food truck-style stores Project Ara will offer a smartphone endoskeleton; users will be able to add the functionality they want piece by piece, rather than being confined by the hardware configurations d...

The explosion in the use of mobile devices in the United States is posing a major challenge for the federal government to provide public access to agencies via wireless channels. In an effort to keep pace with technology, the U.S. government launched the Digital Government Strategy in May 2012 with the goal of providing citizen access to federal services and information anywhere, anytime, on any device.

Recent research from security firm Cloudmark has raised doubt about the purported connection between North Korea and last November's intrusion on Sony Pictures Entertainment's computer networks The FBI last week continued to press its case that North Korea was behind the cyberattack, which flooded the Net with intellectual property, confidential co...

Grocery delivery startup Instacart on Tuesday announced it has raised US$220 million, following a $44 million investment round in June of last year The company uses a fleet of personal shoppers, who are independent contractors, to purchase and deliver items to customers....

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday introduced Owning a Home, a set of online tools designed to make it easier for consumers to comparison shop for the best deal in mortgage financing With one tool, users can plug in a credit score and ZIP code to get a sense of the current interest rates being offered in a particular area....

FBI Director James Comey has "very high confidence" that North Korea was behind last November's cyberattack on Sony, he said at a cybersecurity forum held last week at Fordham University. The attack resulted in large amounts of intellectual property, confidential communications and employee data being posted on the Internet for public view New evid...