Police can use Facebook and Twitter to track criminals

LONDON, UK: Detectives will be taught how to track down killers and other criminals on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

Sweeping changes have been made to train thousands of student investigators to bring their work into the 21st century.

Asus introduces its capacitive touch-sensitive mouse for modern users, the circular WX-DL

The Asus WX-DL looks like the Taiwanese company’s answer to the Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse and the Apple Magic Mouse, incorporating touch sensitive control surfaces and a rather radical design.

NASA: Space shuttle Discovery to take off Wednesday

             -- NASA officials said Saturday they are confident that space shuttle Discovery's Wednesday launch will go as scheduled, sending a crew of six astronauts to the International Space Station on an 11-day mission.

NASA Test Director Jeff Spaulding said mechanical repairs on the shuttle's system used to pressurize Discovery's right hand Orbital Maneuvering System Pod have been successful.

"Right now we're in a good path to get there," Spaulding said.

The shuttle is scheduled to launch Wednesday. The targeted launch time is 3:52 p.m. ET, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the shuttle's launch and landing site.

Initially, a mechanical problem had forced NASA to delay the final launch of the Discovery, the space agency said Friday.

Will Nintendo 3DS social features work in America?

  

     Nintendo's 3DS wowed audiences at its unveiling this summer.

But without an always-on internet connection, the hand-held gaming device -- which displays 3-D images without the help of glasses -- could be at a disadvantage in the face of smartphones equipped for gaming.

An important social feature of the 3DS, called SpotPass, lets players battle each other over the internet, comparing high scores and making the games more interactive. The problem? Players will need to be in the range of a Wi-Fi network. Otherwise, they only can use SpotPass with friends who are close by.

This may not sit well with U.S. consumers who are used to being able to play games with friends across town or on the other side of the world. Wi-Fi connections are not as common here as 3G networks, which many phones use to connect to the mobile Web.

Nintendo has traditionally been slow to adopt online gaming. In that area, its GameCube system lagged competitors at the time. But web features play a major role in how Wii owners use the system, and it has sold more units than any home console of the current generation.

Future of Windows Azure -- platform is the service

(Ars Technica) -- At PDC this week, Microsoft unveiled its roadmap for the Windows Azure cloud computing platform.

Moving beyond mere Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), the company is positioning Windows Azure as a Platform-as-a-Service offering: a comprehensive set of development tools, services, and management systems to allow developers to concentrate on creating available, scalable applications.

YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley steps down as CEO

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Chad Hurley is relinquishing his post as CEO of YouTube, the company he co-founded five years ago that revolutionized video on the Internet.

Hurley said he'll remain an adviser and that Salar Kamangar, vice president of product management, will become CEO.

Google had spent $1.6B on 40 companies in 9 months

Google's 2010 acquisition-spending spree has so far involved 40 companies and a total of $1.6 billion, the company revealed today.

It's been a busy year for the men and women of Google's mergers-and-acquisitions team, closing an average of 4.4 deals a month, according to Google's quarterly report filed with the U.s. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The top three deals involved AdMob, at a final price of $681 million, Slide, at a final price of $179 million, and On2 Technologies, at a final price of $123 million.
But Google also completed 37 other deals by the end of September, spending a total of $626 million on those smaller deals. Google CEO Eric Schmidt wasn't kidding when he said Google was planning to open its checkbook in 2010.
This haul doesn't even include the travel software company ITA, which Google proposed acquiring for $700 million in July. That deal is expected to face a great deal of antitrust scrutiny from the U.S. government, and Google said in its filing that it doesn't expect the transaction to close until the first half of 2011.
With $33 billion in cash to close the third quarter, it's not like Google sweated the payments on any of these deals. And given the resurgence of the online-advertising market that fuels Google's profits, don't expect Google to take its foot off the gas anytime soon.