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A new bill backed by movie studios and other large copyright holders takes a novel approach to curbing access to piratical Web sites: an Internet death penalty.

That's a good way to describe the approach adopted by the legislation introduced today, which specifies a step-by-step method for making Web sites suspected of infringing copyrights or trademarks vanish from the Internet. It's called the Protect IP Act.

The U.S. Department of Justice would receive the power to seek a court order against an allegedly infringing Web site, and then serve that order on search engines, certain Domain Name … Read more

Google keeps the news ball rolling, dropping two new Chromebook laptops and an enterprise-ready Chromebox. Plus, of course, they make Chrome OS official. Oh, and how could we bury the lead? Angry Birds is now available in the Chrome App Store! For free! Plus, it turns out 100,000 Facebook apps were accidentally leaking your data, Apple and Google hit the privacy hot sheet, and a dude jumps out of a helicopter with a rocket pack strapped to his back. We won't spoil the ending for you. --Molly

A security researcher said today that he found a serious hole in the Mac version of Skype that could be used by an attacker to remotely take control of someone else's computer.

In response, Skype says it released a "hotfix"--a quick fix to hold users over until a full update is ready--for the issue in a minor update released in mid-April, but did not prompt users to update their software because there were no reports that the hole was being exploited in the wild and it was planning on issuing another update early next week.

Gordon … Read more

An app that offers a range of features including low-cost SMS and international calls, phone callback, voice mail with transcription, and conversation-recording features sounds a bit like a magic bullet for many of the ailments that plague smartphone users. A new iOS app released today by Southern California-based VoxOx includes those features and others, and it's offering them for free in a partial port of its desktop software called VoxOx Call (iTunes Store link).

Following the desktop program revamp that the parent company Telcentris Inc., released at CES 2011, VoxOx Call offers a stunning range of free features. Users … Read more

T-Mobile has temporarily shut down its newly introduced voice-chatting service for Facebook users.

The company launched the new VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) chat service, which it calls Bobsled, less than a week ago. The service is embedded into Facebook and allows Facebook friends to call each other through the Facebook Chat window.

T-Mobile is suspending the service because the company believes that in Facebook's current design it's not clear that the service is from T-Mobile.

"We are voluntarily and temporarily suspending the Bobsled service as we work with our partners at Facebook to address their design … Read more

T-Mobile USA wants to offer more than cell phone service. The company is getting into the voice over IP market with a new application that will allow people to make voice calls from Facebook.

T-Mobile USA today announced the Bobsled by T-Mobile service, which will offer voice calls via Facebook. This new application will provide Facebook's more than 500 million users worldwide with free, one-touch calling to their Facebook friends from a personal computer and through the social platform's chat window.It's available now for download here.

T-Mobile's move to expand its service offering is yet … Read more

RIM is reportedly considering whether to put an offer on the wireless-patent portfolio of bankrupt Nortel Networks.

According to a Bloomberg report today, RIM is considering putting its own bid on the 6,000 wireless patents belonging to fellow Canadian company Nortel. RIM may also join a larger group planning to make a bid. This group is a collection of handset makers and other tech companies, according to Bloomberg's unnamed sources.

The patent portfolio up for grabs is broad, relating to wireless, 4G, data networking, optical, voice, Internet, service providers, and semiconductors. Two weeks ago, Google bid $900 million in cash … Read more

One common issue that has affected OS X systems is when network interfaces are issued a self-assigned IP address, even though the system is connected to a network with a properly configured DHCP server. When this happens, other systems on the same network (often including similarly configured Macs) will be working just fine, indicating the problem lies with the Mac's configuration and is not a compatibility issue with the networking hardware.

Often when I encounter this issue, I find that people have recently made a relatively major configuration change to their systems, either by updating their OS version, performing … Read more

If you want to know what's going on at night in your house, "Paranormal Activity"-style, now there's a affordable solution.

D-Link today introduced its Mydlink-enabled Wireless-N Day/Night Network Camera (model DCS-932L). According to the company, with a built-in CPU and Web server the DCS-932L offers a complete monitoring system for homes and small offices, at resolutions of up to 640x480 pixels.

D-Link says that the new camera is simple to install and has an intuitive Web-based interface. Consumers can integrate it into an existing network and view the streaming video from a PC, … Read more