Internet & Media

No doubt, Google executives will spend plenty of time at the annual Google I/O conference that begins Wednesday in San Francisco talking about Google Glass, and all the opportunities for developers to create programs for the geeky eyewear.

But outside the conference hall, a Google partner plans to unveil a pair of sunglasses that comes with its own heads-up display. Even though Google invited the company, Recon Instruments, to demonstrate the glasses at its premier developer event of the year, the specs have nothing to do with Google Glass.

Instead, Recon is launching Jet, heads-up display glasses using its … Read more

Google's stock price has been on a steady climb over the past month. For the first time, it cracked $900, up about 2.5 percent in early trading Wednesday. The breakthrough comes on the day Google will reveal its future products at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco.

Live Blog: Tune in to Google's I/O keynote on May 15 starting at 9 AM PT

Read: Full coverage of Google I/O

Investors may be inspired by what Google is expected to roll out at the event. The lineup includes updates to its Android, Chrome, … Read more

David Wells, speaking at the J.P. Morgan tech conference, said Netflix expected the process to regain customers' trust would take about three years, and that's likely still the case. The company in 2011 angered users and lost nearly a million subscribers in four months after hiking prices and taking steps to separate Netflix's DVD operations from its streaming video business.

Wells noted at the tech conference, which offered a live feed of the conversation, that Netflix continues … Read more

Editors' note: This story was originally published on August 20, 2012. It has been updated several times since then to include additional programs and other details, most recently with Start Menu Reviver on May 15, 2013.

Still miss the classic Start menu in Windows 8? Never fear, alternatives are here.

Microsoft lopped off the Start menu in Windows 8 to force people to use the Start screen. And I'll admit it, the Start screen does offers several benefits.

Live Tiles can clue you in to the latest e-mails, appointments, news, and other information. You can easily search for any … Read more

Through the peculiar dynamics of Web standard politics and the open-source programming cooperation, Microsoft is helping Google with support for a feature to let browsers flexibly handle input from touch screens, mice, and pens.

Monday, the Redmond-based company announced on the Blink mailing list that it's planning to write a version of its Pointer Events technology for Blink, the open-source browser engine project at the heart of Google's Chrome browser. The move came on the eve of Google I/O, the developer show where Chrome and Chrome OS share the developer spotlight with Android, Google+, Glass, and other … Read more

Ticketfly, a ticketing and marketing service, has launched an initiative aimed at giving venues and event promoters the ability to direct targeted rewards at their most loyal customers.

The impetus behind the Fanbase initiative, announced Wednesday, is that while 7 percent of ticket buyers generate 30 percent of the revenue brought in at the gate of events utilizing Ticketfly tickets, there has previously been no way to adequately identify, reward, and motivate those people.

While other ticketing and marketing services have rolled out other loyalty programs, San Francisco-based Ticketfly said its new program is the industry's most sophisticated effort … Read more

Google is giving Maps a major overhaul, promising a "tailored map for every search," according to a sign-up page that inadvertently went live ahead of its official launch at Google's developer conference, I/O.

Spotted by Droid Life, the pages give a taste of the new features the Big G is adding to its cartographic service. "The new Google Maps draws you a tailored map for every search and click you make," the page promises. "So whatever you're trying to find or wherever you're trying to go, you'll always have a … Read more

Those of you who failed to score a ticket for Microsoft's Build conference the first time will now get another chance.

A limited number of additional tickets to Build will go on sale starting Wednesday, May 15, at 9 a.m. PT. Scheduled to take place from June 26 to 28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the conference costs $2,095 for a full-price ticket. "Academic" tickets, which are still available in short supply, go for $995 a piece.

Tickets for the popular event initially went on sale on April 2 and apparently sold out … Read more

Update: Syrian Internet access has been restored as of about 8:30 a.m. PT. Full story here.

Syria has again been cut off from the rest of the online world.

Internet access for the battle-torn country has been down since Wednesday, 7:01 UTC (12:01 a.m. PDT), according to an update from Internet monitoring firm Renesys. A tweet from Renesys says that BGP (border gateway patrol) is down, inbound traceroutes are failing, and DNS severs and government Web sites are down.

A tweet from the state-run Syrian news agency says that workers are trying to fix the problem … Read more