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Loud screams of excitement have been heard ever since the revelation that two Japanese researchers had developed a gun that could stop people talking. Without killing them.

I wrote about this fascinating firearm only the other day.

Now the Japanese researchers who developed it are so excited by the excitement that they have released a YouTube video of the device.

And what a frisky little Colt .45 silencer it is.

Wired reports that the two creators, Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, are bemused at the … Read more

It's official, Google's new unified privacy policy is now in place, allowing all of your data to be shared across the various Google services. This is definitely going to make some users uneasy. If you're one of those users, and have been thinking about ditching Google, you will want to make sure you back up your data first, then delete your account. Here's how to carry out both of these tasks.

To begin, you will need to visit Google.com/settings.

You will want to back up your account data before you delete the account. To … Read more

The revolution will not be televised. It will be streamed to your laptop by pirates from the outer space known as Silicon Valley.

Those nice but alien boys and (a few) girls in sweatshirts are changing everything from the way you consume to the way you think. If you still feel the need to think.

The old corporate ways are, to them, prehistoric, predatory, and preternaturally authoritarian. Around here, we skateboard. Bet they never did that at IBM.

And yet there I was at the lovely Miner Family Winery in Napa last Sunday, just needing a few tastes of their … Read more

More rumblings about Google's Heads-Up Display Glasses materializing sometime in the near future were heard today. According to The New York Times, the public will be able to buy these high-tech glasses by the end of the year and they will cost somewhere between $250 and $600.

Rumors that the HUD Google Glasses were in the works have been brewing for the past couple of months. After accounts that Google was finishing up the prototype in December, tech news site 9to5Google reported that a tipster actually saw the glasses.

The prototype apparently resembles Oakley's Thump glasses but functions … Read more

CNET TV reviewer Ty Pendlebury joins in on a fun rundown to start the week. We'll chat about a proposed bill that would require marketers to put a disclaimer on doctored advertisements, self-destructing e-mails, a Sony heads-up "VR" display, and something called "nomophobia." Yeah, you probably suffer from it already.… Read more

Nothing says "I love you" like free software.

In honor of Valentine's Day, IObit is offering Advanced SystemCare 5 Pro (Win) free of charge. It normally sells for $19.95.

Update: IObit is currently returning a "server overloaded" message when you enter your e-mail address. Hopefully they'll work out the kinks and deliver the promised license to everyone who requests it.

Take note, however: this offer is good today and today only. After the clock strikes midnight, you'll either have to pony up $20 or settle for Advanced SystemCare 5 Free (which is … Read more

What the hell is an ultrabook?

That's an excellent question that's been raised by CNET editor Scott Stein, among others, and one Intel is trying to answer, in part, by going out and performing some flash mob-style theatrics.

The Pop-up Theater is an Intel ad campaign where a team of 60 individuals descend upon various spots around Los Angeles to wow passersby and unassuming individuals with messages splayed across a digital wall of ultrabooks.

Such stunts include standing in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. to spell out "I heart Ultrabooks." In another example, the team brings a virtual crowd to a game of 3-on-3 basketball by displaying shots of cheering fans whenever someone scores. … Read more

The prototype for Google's HUD glasses has been seen, according to tech news site 9to5Google. And, supposedly they resemble Oakley's Thump glasses, which makes them look a lot like something the Terminator might wear.

But, it's not just how Google's glasses look, their function also mirrors something out of the Terminator trilogy.

In December, rumors spread that Google was finishing up a prototype on high-tech glasses known as wearable head-up displays (HUD) that could tap into Google's cloud-based location services and detail users' surroundings. The information would then appear as an augmented reality computer display. … Read more

Aunt Jill Schlesinger, editor-at-large for CBS MoneyWatch.com, is back on the show to tell us everything we should know but are too lazy to read about the impending Facebook IPO.

She'll break down the process of how a startup progresses from the idea stage to capital investment to public offering, and we'll speculate on how the filing will affect the site in terms of advertising, content, and sharing.… Read more