AFP - Google has invited US motorists to share their progress -- or lack thereof -- with other drivers through the Internet giant's online mapping service linked to smart phones.

PC World - Salesforce.com on Wednesday announced a VAR (value added reseller) program for its Force.com development platform, in a bid to spur wider adoption of the on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) vendor's homegrown technology.

Reuters - Nokia Oyj will try again to tackle Apple Inc's iPhone in the top-end of the handset market with a bet on Linux software, several industry sources told Reuters.

InfoWorld - Before the meteoric rise of Facebook and Twitter, many organizations were far along building online communities.

PC World - Gartner raised its revenue forecast for the global chip industry on Wednesday, saying stronger than expected demand for PCs, LCD TVs, mobile phones and other devices in the second quarter boosted demand for chips.

AP - The video-game industry has defeated more superheroes than Lex Luthor could ever dream of. Superman, Aquaman, Iron Man, X-Men: All rendered lifeless by forces more focused on making a buck than on delivering thrills.

AP - Movie studio Paramount Pictures is following the lead of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Sony Corp. by agreeing to supply films to $1-per-night DVD rental kiosk company Redbox.

Reuters - 'Snakes on a cane.' Sound familiar? Perhaps, during commercial breaks on Fox, you've seen the flashes of a caduceus that uses a cane instead of a staff. You might have seen the symbol drawn with chalk on New York streets. Or even clicked through to the phrase's cryptic Web site.

PC World - The number of cellular subscriptions in North Korea more than doubled in the second quarter of this year although average revenue per user (ARPU) fell, Orascom Telecom said.

AP - A civil court on Wednesday ordered Dutch Web site Mininova to remove within three months all files on its servers that point to copyrighted works or face a fine of up to euro5 million ($7.16 million).

Macworld.com - Adobe Photoshop product manager (and frequent blogger) John Nack recently updated his blog with details on compatibility issues between Adobe’s Creative Suite 4 package and Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard,” which ships Friday.

Reuters - The world's top mobile phone maker Nokia said on Wednesday it would launch a mobile financial service next year targeting consumers, mainly in emerging markets, with a phone but no banking account.

PC World - Motorola has developed a new technology to turn mobile phones into payment devices and plans to make Taiwan a testing ground for the technology before moving on to China.

AFP - Videos of homeless people being beaten or forced into humiliating acts are increasingly popular online, leading some US lawmakers to seek harsher penalties for hate crimes against the poor.

NewsFactor - YouTube launched a partnership program in 2007 to help some members make money from popular videos they upload on the site. Now the video site is broadening its scope in an effort to spread the wealth -- and generate some of its own.

AP - A Raymond James analyst on Wednesday downgraded shares of hospital software company MedAssets Inc. but boosted the company's price target citing stock valuation.

AP - Matt Korba and his pals are busy turning his interactive media thesis project from a rudimentary silent film-themed video-game prototype into a fleshed-out puzzler featuring over 80 levels that will be available for download on Xbox Live early next year.

AFP - Nokia, the world's leading mobile phone maker, will launch a service enabling people to make financial transactions with their cell phones, the Finnish telecoms giant said Wednesday.

PC World - Adding anti-malware to Snow Leopard is a Catch-22 for Apple: In solving a problem, Apple must first admit a problem actually exists. Which is hard when one of your major selling points is that you're secure and your major competitor--Microsoft Windows--is not.

PC Magazine - Analyst firm iSuppli has adopted a pessimistic view toward Blu-ray adoption inside PCs, arguing that OEMs will pass over BD drives because of cost, and that the format is struggling in home video.

NewsFactor - There's a new bridge to Amazon's clouds. Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced Wednesday the availability of its virtual private cloud (VPC), which it said provides 'a secure and seamless bridge between a company's existing IT infrastructure and the AWS cloud.'

PC World - BP has awarded contracts in the area of application development and maintenance to IBM, Accenture, and three top Indian outsourcers.

AFP - Worldwide semiconductor revenue is expected to decline 17.1 percent this year compared with last year, market research firm Gartner said Wednesday.

AP - While Microsoft Corp. prepares to release the next incarnation of Windows on Oct. 22, Apple Inc. is cutting ahead, launching a new version of its operating system for Mac computers on Friday.

Reuters - Sirius XM Radio unveiled a dock on Wednesday that lets iPhone users listen to premium satellite radio programing, including shock jock Howard Stern, a feature missing from previous iPhone software.

AP - Verizon Wireless is looking into ways to prevent subscribers without data plans from accidentally starting up the Web browser on their phones and racking up $1.99 in fees each time.

PC Magazine - The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday sued the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to uncover documents related to laptop searches at the border.

AFP - A freshly released book 'Twitter Wit' is a hit at the hip micro-blogging service, which so loved the compendium of clever tweets that it bought copies for everyone in its San Francisco headquarters.

AP - Nokia Corp. on Wednesday announced a mobile financial service that the handset maker said will let users send money to others by typing in that person's cell phone number.

Reuters - Venezuelan lawmakers are moving to outlaw the sale of violent videogames and toys in an attempt to fight rampant crime in the country.

NewsFactor - A Microsoft blunder has resulted in the software giant apologizing to the public. The head of a black man in a Microsoft advertisement was replaced with that of a Caucasian man.

Reuters - Robert McCann, former head of Merrill Lynch's wealth management unit, is in talks to settle a suit he filed August 24 against Bank of America Corp seeking to lift a noncompete clause, allowing him to join a chief rival, a source with direct knowledge of the situation said.

NewsFactor - Web insecurity. That's the two-word summary of IBM's X-Force 2009 Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report. Big Blue released its latest survey Wednesday with some troubling news: Web client, server and content threats are converging to create an untenable risk landscape.

AP - While Microsoft Corp. prepares to release the next incarnation of Windows on Oct. 22, Apple Inc. is cutting ahead, launching a new version of its operating system for Mac computers on Friday.

NewsFactor - Mac OS X 10.6, known as Snow Leopard, is picking up buzz as Friday's release date nears. An upgrade to the OS was the top seller on Amazon this week as pre-orders remained strong.

Reuters - Billionaire Carlos Slim and technology supplier Qualcomm Inc are teaming up with the launch in Mexico of a low-cost video game console designed for consumers in developing countries.

AP - Pretty much any cell phone you'd buy today comes with a digital camera, but only a few are good enough to take the place of even a cheap point-and-shoot.

PC World - If your hotel is an antiquated, out-of-service ocean liner that's crossed the Atlantic 1,001 times, it's nice to know that the place has steel walls as much as 3 inches thick. On the other hand, if you get there and want to fire up your Wi-Fi-equipped laptop to shop for Titanic memorabilia on eBay, those walls had better not get between you and the nearest access point.

PC World - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit demanding that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) release details of its policy that allows the agency to search travelers' laptops at U.S. borders without suspicion of wrongdoing.

AFP - Wikipedia is testing plans to thwart pranksters and vandals by stalling edits to English articles about living people until the online encyclopedia verifies new information.

PC World - An analyst just speculated it'll be this week, and now biz site MCV is claiming Microsoft's Xbox 360 will announce new SKUs and reduced prices tomorrow.

AP - LendingTree, which allows prospective borrowers to get quick offers from multiple lenders, claims Google is about to get into the same business.

AP - TiVo Inc. on Wednesday sued AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. for patent infringement, including one covering the ability to pause and rewind live TV.

Reuters - Apple Inc is getting closer to clearing the hurdles to start selling iPhones in China, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Macworld.com - Snow Leopard features several new under-the-hood technologies that, at first glance, might seem to be of interest only to Mac software developers. But those technologies will in fact benefit regular Mac users—if not right now, then in the not-too-distant future. Here’s a look at how three of these additions to Snow Leopard—64-bit computing, Grand Central Dispatch, and OpenCL—work and how they could improve your Mac experience sometime soon.

Macworld.com - Snow Leopard may be a “minor” update to Mac OS X, with a $29 upgrade price and a focus on improved speed and reliability, but it’s still bursting at the seams with tweaks, changes, and improvements—as well as a few modifications that might well be quite controversial. Here’s a look at some of the biggest changes due to arrive with Snow Leopard on Friday, August 28.

Macworld.com - While malicious software has long been a near-daily annoyance for Windows PCs, Mac users have become accustomed to not worrying about malware. Threats arise from time to time—in January of this year, for example, a Trojan horse made the rounds in pirated copies of Apple’s iWork software—but most Mac users these days are probably running computers without antivirus software.

InfoWorld - There's no doubt that Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, is a worthwhile upgrade -- a no-brainer for people with Intel Macs. I've pointed out the 7 best features in Snow Leopard, and my three-part series of slideshows details the many enhancements in Snow Leopard for all users, for office users, and for power users.

Macworld.com - As hard as it is for those of us in the northern hemisphere, Friday, August 28, 2009 is a Snow Day. It’s the day that Mac OS X 10.6—Snow Leopard—arrives in stores. But here at Macworld, we’ve been using it for weeks, and in some cases, for months.

Reuters - Analysts who were hoping to spend a sunny day on the Google Inc campus sprinkling questions about the monetization of new ad formats over an organic gourmet salad will have to settle for a series of webcasts.

Macworld.com - Apple describes Snow Leopard as a top-to-bottom refinement of existing features. One major goal of those refinements: Improved performance.