Top technology news headlines

• 

  Behind the U.S. push
  to open government

  q&a Deputy CTO Beth Noveck says online tech is helping the Obama administration affect a "sea change" in making federal agencies open and accountable.
  • White House unveils open government directive

  Read full story
• 

  Visa, AmEx tangled
  in Web scam probe

  Senate commerce committee wants the big credit card companies to explain how a Web marketing scam involving top retailers went on under their noses for years.
  • Scam probe casts harsh light on Web retail

  Read full story

• Offline Gmail access now a full-fledged feature

  A key part of Google's promise for the Gmail Web application--the ability to read and compose messages while offline--becomes a standard feature.

  (Posted in Deep Tech by Stephen Shankland)

• Hubble peers deeper than ever into the universe

  NASA announces that Hubble Space Telescope has gone where no other camera has gone before: 600 million years after the Big Bang.

  (Posted in The Digital Home by Don Reisinger)

• Mozilla lets Thunderbird 3 fly

  Mozilla Messaging pushes the stable release of Thunderbird 3 out of the nest, and there's far more to like than dislike in the latest iteration of this Outlook alternative.

  (Posted in The Download Blog by Seth Rosenblatt)

• MIT floats ideas in DARPA balloon challenge

  q&a Head of the team that conquered the geolocation contest reveals the winning techniques and tells how the Internet can be harnessed to tackle real-world problems.

  (Posted in Digital Media by Lance Whitney)

• Microsoft plugs zero-day IE hole

  Cumulative Internet Explorer bulletin affects current Windows versions, including Windows 7.

  (Posted in InSecurity Complex by Elinor Mills)

• Dell earns $6.5 million, thanks to Twitter

  Microblog might be a place to talk about the simple things in life, but it can also be an effective tool for promoting products. DellOutlet has almost 1.5 million followers.

  (Posted in Webware by Don Reisinger)

• Google brings Chrome beta to Mac, Linux

  Search giant issues the first beta versions of its browser for Mac OS X and Linux. Maturity could spread adoption, and the stable version is due in a month.

  (Posted in Deep Tech by Stephen Shankland)

• Patent Office puts green tech on fast track

  The U.S. agency will accelerate review of green technology patent requests in an effort to perk up economic development in the nascent industry.
  • EU moves closer to patent unification

  (Posted in Green Tech by Martin LaMonica)

• Hands-on with the JooJoo

  Formerly known as the CrunchPad, this Web slate is a really cool device that everyone will want, though it's far too expensive.
  • CrunchPad reborn as JooJoo
  • Video: JooJoo Web slate

  (Posted in Rafe's Radar by Rafe Needleman)

• How to fit a pharmacist in your pocket

  Evincii releases a new app that walks consumers through symptoms, allergies, and side effects to help choose the best medicine on the shelves of participating pharmacies.

  (Posted in Health Tech by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore)

• Seagate enters solid-state drive market

  The storage giant is joining the likes of Intel and Micron Technology in the lucrative market for solid-state drives for servers.

  (Posted in Nanotech - The Circuits Blog by Brooke Crothers)

• Google sues over alleged work-at-home scams

  Civil suit alleges that Pacific WebWorks and others are ripping people off with fake work-at-home ads using Google's name and unauthorized credit card charges.

  (Posted in InSecurity Complex by Elinor Mills)

• Global warming isn't slowing, report says

  The first decade of this century is very likely the warmest one in modern record, a global meteorological agency says.
  (From The New York Times)

• All CNET News headlines

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