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TECH TREK

European Lawmakers Push for Universal Chargers

Members of the European Parliament's internal market and consumer protection committee voted unanimously Thursday in favor of a new law mandating universal chargers for mobile devices. In addition to convenience -- German parliamentarian Barbara Weiler called the current situation "cable chaos" -- ...

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UK Parliament Blasts Google Over Piracy

Departing from the normal routine of chiding Google over taxes, British parliament is trying its hand at chiding Google over piracy. A select committee accused Google of apathetically failing to curb piracy. The chairman of the committee, John Whittingdale, said that MPs were "unimpressed by Google...

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Brazilian Prez Rebukes US Over NSA

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff gave a speech in which she -- well, maybe it's best to just let her say it. "What we have before us, Mr. President, is a serious case of violation of human rights and civil liberties," Rousseff said, addressing the UN General Assembly mere moments before President...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has unveiled a plan to identify existing Park-n-Ride facilities, rest stops and parking areas on the state's highways as "Texting Zones." There's nothing now -- other than impatience -- preventing drivers from pulling off the road into those areas to read and send text mes...

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China Un-Bans Facebook, Twitter in Shanghai

China is lifting its ban on a handful of heretofore banned websites within the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. Included among those now considered acceptable are Facebook and Twitter. The Shanghai Free Trade Zone, announced in July, has more free market-friendly policies than China at large. To that end, ...

Tencent Holdings' WeChat mobile messaging service, which is akin to WhatsApp, stands to gain more users as China makes it more and more risky to vent opinions online. Long a hotbed for censorship, China has been turning up the heat even further on netizens believed to be spreading "rumors." China's ...

TECH TREK

Iran Briefly Loses Grip on Social Media

Facebook and Twitter were widely available to Iranian netizens on Monday. Come Tuesday, however, things were back to normal: The sites were blocked. Faulty Internet filters reportedly caused the sites to become available -- not some newfound progressive streak in Tehran. Western-born social media si...

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Huawei Blasts US for Illegal NSA Spying

Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei is taking a PR victory lap following reports suggesting that the National Security Agency spied on the company. Earlier this week, Brazilian TV network Globo revealed a raft of documents that purportedly came from Edward Snowden. The files implicate the NSA, al...

The National Security Agency's efforts to include "backdoors" in U.S. companies' security products, networks and devices -- thereby making it easier for the NSA to snoop around -- could hurt business abroad. Specifically, foreign countries could come to view U.S. firms' relationship with Washington ...

Smugglers who have long taken advantage of delays in Apple product releases in China will have a harder go of it when the company launches its newest iPhone models. The devices, the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, will be launched almost simultaneously in the U.S. and China. This will complicate the practi...

An underground system of online chat rooms exists for people to get rid of kids they have adopted, investigative reporters have found. On average, a child was advertised for what's euphemistically being called "re-homing" once a week on one Internet message board watched over a five-year period. Mos...

China's Supreme Court announced new guidelines for Internet use, including years-long jail stints for people who author "online rumors" that are viewed more than 5,000 times or reposted 500 times. Such a post would qualify as defamation, which in China carries a max sentence of three years in jail.

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China Frees Journalist Who Was Outed by Yahoo

Shi Tao, a Chinese reporter who was incarcerated in 2005 after Yahoo divulged his email details, has been released from prison. Shi was first arrested in 2004 and charged with disclosing state secrets, namely emailing details of a government memo about keeping a lid on news coverage of the anniversa...

Sonny Dickson, a teenager in Australia, leaked photos on his website purportedly showing an Apple fingerprint scanner. The photos were published less than one week before huge Apple events in California and China. Dickson, whose roommates are Mom and Dad, has long leaked Apple product info on his we...

The FTC on Wednesday announced a settlement with Trendnet over its lax security practices. The action stemmed from privacy invasions that occurred in January 2012, when hackers posted live feeds to the Web from nearly 700 cameras made by the company. "Right now, we're doing enforcement, as you can s...

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