investigation

Although the FBI reports that vehicle thefts are down, you are still unlikely to recover your stolen car if you don't have some sort of electronic recovery system.

According to the 2009 Crime Statistics report, out of the 794,616 vehicles stolen that year, only 343,274 vehicles (43.2 percent) were recovered. This is the lowest recovery rates have been reported in 25 years.

Stolen vehicles are notoriously used by thieves to commit other crimes, or taken to chop shops and stripped for parts. A number of vehicles each year are shipped out illegally overseas.

In a news … Read more

Regulators from the European Union are getting involved in the Federal Trade Commission investigation of Apple's business strategies that was opened up in June, according to a New York Post report on Tuesday.

The inclusion of the EU regulators means the investigation could now stretch "another four to six months" before the FTC reaches any official conclusions, according to the Post's sources.

The focus of the probe, which remains unconfirmed by the FTC, centers on Apple's App Store developer agreement. In early April, Apple adjusted its wording in a way that outright barred developers from using third-party development tools … Read more

South Korean police raided Google's offices Tuesday to see whether the company broke local laws by collecting user data in kicking off its Street View service in the country.

The Korean National Police Agency confirmed the probe of the search giant in a statement sent to Reuters and other news sources.

"[The police] have been investigating Google Korea LLC on suspicion of unauthorized collection and storage of data on unspecified Internet users from Wi-Fi networks," the agency said in the statement. "We began the probe after having confirmed that the company seized and kept open data … Read more

MarketWatch has posted a short news item about how Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is investigating whether "e-book deals between Amazon.com and Apple and major book publishers may be anticompetitive."

"These agreements among publishers, Amazon, and Apple appear to have already resulted in uniform prices for many of the most popular e-books--potentially depriving consumers of competitive prices," Blumenthal said in statement.

Ironically, of course, Amazon did not want to enter into the current agreements but was forced to after four out of the five major publishers signed on with Apple and moved to an &… Read more

Marvel Illusions specializes in software optimized for paranormal investigations. Their ParaTracker Ultimate is a modular package designed to give field investigators a comprehensive yet easy-to-use tool for recording, compiling, and analyzing paranormal investigations. It has searchable Documents and Research Notes databases for collecting data entered on a variety of preconfigured forms. It also packs an image, video, and sound recorder; witness statement module; and reporting and printing options, including PDF and Excel.

We've tested some unusual software, but a ghost-hunting utility sets a new standard. Or maybe "ghostbusting," since ParaTracker's job is to collect and manage … Read more

Google collected passwords and e-mail when the company intercepted and stored data detected on open Wi-Fi hot spots in France, according to the French National Commission on Computing and Liberty.

The commission launched an investigation in early June after Google admitted that it had stored fragments of personal information from open Wi-Fi hot spots as its fleet of vehicles drove around neighborhoods around the world collecting data for its Street View mapping service. Google collected data in 30 countries. Some countries asked the company to delete the data. Other countries, namely France, Spain, Germany, and Italy, requested that the data be kept … Read more

The Federal Trade Commission will open an investigation into whether Apple is illegally using its position in the mobile software market to harm competitors, according to several published reports.

On Friday afternoon, both Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal reported that the FTC had opened a formal probe.

At issue is Apple's recent tweaking of its App Store rules. In May, Apple made changes that prohibit certain developer tools from being used to create applications for the iPhone and iPad, and on Monday effectively blocked Google's AdMob and other non-independent mobile ad networks from accessing applications on … Read more

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has launched its own inquiry into whether Hewlett-Packard paid bribes to win a computer contract with a unit of the Russian government, according to a report on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.

The move by regulators here follows reports on Wednesday that Russian investigators, acting at the request of German officials, raided HP's Russian offices. According to The Wall Street Journal, German prosecutors are investigating whether HP paid $10.9 million in an attempt to sell a sophisticated computer system to the Russian prosecutor general's office.

"HP has been … Read more

Hewlett-Packard is being scrutinized by authorities in Germany and Russia for paying bribes to win a contract to sell computers to the Russian government, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal cites "people familiar with the matter" in reporting that German prosecutors are investigating whether HP paid $10.9 million for the chance to sell a sophisticated computer system providing secured communications to the Russian prosecutor general's office through a German subsidiary company.

HP's offices in Moscow were reportedly raided Wednesday by Russian investigators looking into the matter on behalf of the German prosecutors. Specifically, … Read more