Internet & Media

Updated 3:50 p.m. PT to reflect Barnes & Noble updating its Nook iOS apps.

Apple has finally brought the hammer down on e-reader apps, enforcing its new in-app subscription rules that require app developers to strip out any links to external mechanisms for purchasing digital books or subscriptions.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Canada-based Kobo have all updated their iOS e-reader apps, with Barnes & Noble temporarily removing its Nook for iPad app from the App Store and sending out a press release late in the afternoon saying it would soon update the app to offer the "… Read more

Facebook's long-awaited iPad app might actually be hidden in the company's latest iPhone app update, TechCrunch is reporting.

According to the blog, Facebook's latest update to its iPhone app, version 3.4.4, includes executable code that allows users with jailbroken iPads to access and use the social network's full, native tablet application.

A Facebook iPad app has topped the wish lists of the social network's users for quite some time. The company currently offers full-featured smartphone applications across several different operating systems, including iOS and Android, but iPad owners need to access Facebook via … Read more

A Google VP has apparently weighed in on the controversy over why Google+, still in its infancy following its arrival in late June, requires members to use their real names on the social network.

In a reported conversation Sunday night with tech blogger Robert Scoble, Google's senior vice president of social, Vic Gundotra, acknowledged that Google has made mistakes in its first pass with Google+. But he explained that the requirement to use real names is an attempt to set a positive tone, "like when a restaurant doesn't allow people who aren't wearing shirts to enter.&… Read more

Netflix is close to reaching an agreement to license content from DreamWorks Animation and a deal could get done as soon as this week, according to a published report.

The news comes with Netflix due to report earnings after the close of trading today and with scores of Netflix customers deciding whether the company's streaming library is worth an upcoming fee increase.

Bloomberg is reporting that Netflix and DreamWorks Animation, the maker of such films as "Shrek," "Madagascar," and "Kung Fu Panda" are still in talks but that it appears Netflix will take … Read more

For those Netflix customers who may be thinking about dumping their subscription in September when the company plans to raise rates as much as 60 percent, here's one more thing to consider: to determine where the company is headed, it might help to look at its past.

CEO Reed Hastings has a long, if imperfect, record of serving customers, which no one else renting movies online can match. For a decade, Netflix has created technologies and features that have continuously provided customers with more and more savings and convenience when it comes to renting movies. How can we forget … Read more

Just as our friends at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are reporting about a start-up that rats you out to potential employers based on your drunken or otherwise ill-advised social-media posts, our pals at TechCrunch have gotten a tip about another Facebook privacy burp.

And if you're prone to posting nekkid Jedi videos of yourself (we know you Comic-Con types), it could be a bit embarrassing.

True, the glitch wouldn't likely have affected your job prospects, unless you'd friended your maybe-new boss, but it could have scandalized grandma or junior.

As TechCrunch's … Read more

SAN DIEGO--By the second day of Comic-Con, it's not surprising to be a bit tired from the full-on convention experience. Ads are everywhere and seem to outnumber even convention-goers, but there's more to the con than just swag.

In the first of two special videos from the San Diego Comic-Con, CNET TV's Brian Tong talks one-on-one with the living embodiment of the convention, director Joss Whedon. They discuss the Avengers movie, the new direction for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and how music can help you find a happy place.

Adam West takes the stage in the second video, talking scratchy tights, yummy taffy, and the thrills of Comic-Con.

There is an afterlife--for electronics, anyway. Ever wonder what it's like? Researchers at MIT tracked used computers to find out. The project gives you a glimpse of where cast-off laptops and smartphones end up.

Rather than simply providing statistics about the global flows of secondhand electronics and e-waste, the MIT Senseable City Lab researchers produced a series of images of the gadgets' new owners and their surroundings. The images hail from Indonesia, South Asia, and Africa.

For the project, dubbed Backtalk, researchers sent refurbished Netbooks to developing countries via nonprofit organizations. They set up the computers to record location and pictures, and send the data home to MIT--with their new owners' consent. The Netbooks carried stickers explaining the project in the local language.

The researchers captured the data using the open-source antitheft software Prey, which records a computer's GPS coordinates and takes a picture with the computer's camera every 20 minutes.… Read more