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The new look of Microsoft Office

Monday's top tech headlines feature a new challenger to the LTE battle:

Microsoft is releasing a new flavor of Office to go along with the new look of Windows 8. This new Office is all about making your documents available wherever you are, on any device. The design is also streamlined. Since you might be using it on a touch-screen, Microsoft simplified some options. You can see highlights of the features in our review of the new Office suite.

Sprint's already been selling devices that use 4G LTE, but today customers can finally tap into that faster network. … Read more

LinkedIn continues news page revamp

As a part of its ongoing redesign, LinkedIn rolled out its more features on its LinkedIn Today tab today, in hopes that it will provide an even more tailored news experience for its users.

The changes include the ability to directly comment and like the articles in your network within the tab, which was designed to display news articles that are relevant to you and your network.

"These two new features, together with the existing customizable news feed, allow members to not only narrow down the most timely and relevant information needed when needed, but to also gather valuable … Read more

Prizefight: Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speaker vs. Jawbone Big Jambox

It's a Prizefight Punchout! Bose has always had a solid reputation but do they have what it takes to take down the upstart Jawbone and their Big Jambox?

These wireless speakers each cost $300 so let's find out who packs the biggest punch in Design, Sound Quality, Features and Value.

Who do YOU think deserves to be the Prizefight champion? Is it the Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speaker or the Jawbone Big Jambox?

Cast your vote!

Trouble with Google, RIM and Nic Cage

Google, Canadians and Nic Cage. Tuesday's top tech stories are nuthin' but trouble.

Google may pay a record $22.5 million to the Federal Trade Commission to settle a charge over a privacy violation made public six months ago. Google is accused of exploiting a loophole around user privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser. And the Wall Street Journal says this would be the largest penalty a single company has been asked to pay to the FTC. The Journal first brought the issue to light and exposed how Google used a code to get around privacy controls. Ad … Read more

Heads up, LinkedIn users: 93% of recruiters are looking at you

LinkedIn users hunting for a job may want to spruce up their profiles.

A recent survey from Jobvite found that 93 percent of job recruiters tap into LinkedIn to find qualified candidates, up from 87 percent last year and 78 percent in 2010. But the other popular social networks are growing in influence as well.

In second place, Facebook is used by 66 percent of the recruiters polled, up from 55 percent last year. And Twitter is on the watch list among 54 percent of those surveyed, up from 47 percent last year.

Overall, 92 percent of employers and recruiters … Read more

Cloze gives relationship scores to everyone you know

Has it come to this? Do we need corporate CRM tools to manage our individual relationships?

The startup Cloze has launched a utility that scores every relationship you have with your e-mail contacts, based on when and how you communicate with people. The scores look like Klout numbers, but they're personal to you. Cloze uses those scores to rank your people, flagging the top-scorers for followup when you don't respond to their messages. Creepy? Maybe. But fairly handy.

Cloze was designed as a work tool. Founders Dan Foody and Alex Cote said they wanted to create … Read more

Cloud games mean sweet streams for Sony

Don't care how, just watch Monday's Update now:

The future PlayStation experience could involve streaming your video games. Sony is buying the cloud-based game provider Gaikai for $380 million in shares. Gaikai lets you stream games like Mass Effect 3 with just an Internet connection. No downloading. No discs. Gaikai began working with Samsung and LG to bring video games to Smart TVs. This acquistion could cause a few ripple effects in the gaming industry, not to mention we could be seeing streaming as an option for a future Playstation device. It could even expand the Playstation footprint … Read more

Startup courts Millennials with social, crowdsourced news site

A startup with seed money from the likes of Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Lady Gaga manager Troy Carter, and Oprah Winfrey hopes to create a successful mashup of a professional and crowdsourced news network, a social-media site like Twitter, and a video hub like YouTube.

"There are practical solutions to [create] more jobs, lower crime, [provide] better education," #waywire co-founder and Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker told TechCrunch. "If more people could find their voice and be part of the national dialogue, we could solve these problems."

#waywire, which plans … Read more

LinkedIn bows to Twitter over tweet traffic direction

LinkedIn users will no longer be able to publish tweets to their profiles on the service.

LinkedIn said that the change follows a decision by Twitter to get stricter about APIs, effectively ending a practice that had existed the last two-and-a-half years. You'll still be able to broadcast LinkedIn updates to Twitter. Just not the other way around. Sweet -- if you're Twitter, that is.

Writing about the new policy, Twitter's Michael Sippey said this was part of a larger effort to ensure that "the core Twitter consumption experience" includes "a consistent set of … Read more