Reuters - News Corp will charge readers for online versions of its UK Times and Sunday Times newspapers from June, becoming the first media firm to test consumers' appetite to pay for mass-market news online.

AFP - The Times of London and its sister paper The Sunday Times will charge readers to access the titles online from June, Rupert Murdoch's News International announced on Friday.

BusinessWeek - Just how much should you trust the cloud? It's a question you'll need to ask yourself as software and data slip the confines of your hard drive and take up residence on remote servers thousands of miles away.

NewsFactor - Many years after the Y2K scare that left the world wondering if the Internet would crash as we entered the 21st century, two of the web's most popular sites have gone off-line this week alone. YouTube and Wikipedia both went dark on Thursday. Twitter went down last week.

Reuters - Top mobile phone maker Nokia has agreed to buy privately-held U.S. mobile browser firm Novarra to improve Web surfing on a wide range of its low-end and mid-range phones.

PC World - iPhone hacker George Hotz claims he has developed a new untethered software jailbreak method for the iPhone and iPod Touch that may also work on the iPad. Hotz, also known online as Geohot, says in a recent blog post that his new unnamed jailbreak method is as simple to use as his previous iPhone software jailbreak, blackra1n. The new software will purportedly work on all currently jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch models.

AP - If Verizon Communications Inc. hasn't already started wiring your city or town with its FiOS fiber-optic TV and broadband service, chances are you won't get it.

NewsFactor - When Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired, first penned an article in 2004 called The Long Tail, he was thinking about e-commerce. The article -- and later a book by the same name -- showed that web-based sellers like Amazon and Netflix had much larger sales potential than mass-market vendors like Barnes & Noble and Blockbuster.

AP - Nokia Corp., the world's largest cell phone maker, said Friday that it agreed to buy privately held mobile browser company Novarra Inc.

NewsFactor - Netflix on Thursday announced yet another partnership with the video-game industry as it began shipping out streaming discs for the Nintendo Wii to some of its members. The Netflix-Wii tie-up means Netflix customers who subscribe to the unlimited $8.99 a month plan and who own a Wii can watch movies through the device at no additional cost. Netflix is looking for feedback from its initial customers before rolling out the service more broadly to its subscriber base.

AP - Computer-security researchers say new 'smart' meters that are designed to help deliver electricity more efficiently also have flaws that could let hackers tamper with the power grid in previously impossible ways.

AFP - A city in Kansas renamed itself 'Google.' A Florida mayor hopped into a tank full of sharks to impress the Internet titan. Baltimore named a 'Google Czar' and scores of towns held 'Google Days.'

Macworld.com - As developers are revving up for the iPad’s release, I-Play and Tequila Mobile hope to make a splash with their own launch announcement. On Thursday, I-Play announced that Warships: Sea on Fire will be sailing the expansive screens of the iPad when the device launches next week.

AP - Business software maker Tibco Software Inc. said late Thursday that it agreed to buy privately held business data matching software company Netrics for an undisclosed sum.

PC World - Over 30,000 classic book titles will be available for free in Apple's iBookstore when the iPad arrives on April 3, according to a report from AppAdvice. The e-books will come from Project Gutenberg's free digital library, alongside paid titles from most major publishers.

PC World - Apple reportedly let slip a preview of some iPad games that will be available in the iTunes App Store once the iPad ships to customers in early April. All of the purported iPad titles featured the terms 'HD' or 'XL' in their names, presumably meaning these apps were meant for a device larger than the 3.5-inch screen found on the iPhone or iPad Touch. The games were spotted by the blog PadGadget on Apple.com's iTunes Preview, a Website-based catalog of iTunes store content.

PC World - When mobile users surf the Web they also may be inadvertently disclosing their phone numbers, a security researcher said Thursday.

PC Magazine - Netflix has started to ship the discs required to stream over the Wii to some of its customers, the company announced Thursday.

AP - More than 600 communities have approached Google Inc. in hopes of landing one of the ultra-fast broadband networks that the company plans to build in a handful of spots around the country.

AP - U.S. trade representative Ron Kirk said Friday that he is reluctant to wade into long-running trade disputes with China as the United States tries to double its exports to emerging markets over the next five years.

AP - WHAT'S HAPPENING: Verizon has stopped extending the reach of its fiber-optic TV and Internet service, FiOS.

NewsFactor - What will the e-book market look like after Apple's iPad goes on sale April 3? New reports are beginning to paint a picture of at least what pricing might look like.

AP - Plato Learning Inc. will be acquired by a private equity firm for about $141 million, the education-software maker said Friday.

InfoWorld - Is your CTO one of the best? If so, nominate him or her for the 2010 CTO 25 Awards presented by InfoWorld.com, the Web site focused on modernizing IT through effective use of business technlogy. Nominees may have the CTO title or an equivalent title such as IT director, VP of technology, or -- if there is not also a CTO-equivalent position in the organization -- CIO.

Macworld.com - As April 3 draws ever closer—iPad zero-hour, just in case you aren’t counting down the days—a growing number of developers are taking the wraps off plans for making software that runs on Apple’s new tablet. Two of the more interesting announcements as of late have come out of Australia, where developers Bitolithic and Synocode are giving users the scoop on what the iPad means for their respective apps.

AP - A federal judge in Boston has sentenced a computer hacker to 20 years in prison in the last of three cases that prosecutors say involved one of the largest thefts of credit and debit card numbers in U.S. history.

AFP - One of the most prolific computer hackers in US history was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison for credit card theft.

AP - For the second time in as many days, a computer hacker accused of one of the largest-ever thefts of credit and debit card numbers stood before a federal judge and apologized for his actions.

AP - The former chief executive of networking gear maker Brocade Communications Inc. was convicted Friday of felony charges connected to backdating stock options.

PC World - Mega electronics retailer Best Buy is preparing its employees for the April 3 iPad launch, according to reports. Two MacBooks and an iMac will be removed from the 673 U.S. Best Buy stores that have Apple sections in order to make room for four iPad demo units. But what's most intriguing is that, according to leaked Best Buy planograms, the four units each have four separate SKUs, meaning the WiFi + 3G model could make an appearance.

AFP - Japan's Fujitsu has ceded rights to the 'iPad' name to Apple, just in time for the tablet computer from the California company to hit US stores next month.

AP - A Salt Lake City jury has started deliberations in a case pitting two software companies that each claim ownership of the Unix computer operating systems used by large corporations.

PC World - Hackers have hit on a new way to break into computers: by attacking the firmware used in networking cards.

Macworld.com - With money in short supply these days, everyone wants to find a way to trim costs. One expense that could be on the chopping block—and one that Macworld readers repeatedly gripe about—is ink prices.

PC World - Research In Motion has purchased Viigo, a developer of software that delivers syndicated content to mobile phones, according to a brief note on Viigo's Web site.

PC World - Nokia--the world's leading manufacturer of mobile phones--announced that it is acquiring Novarra--a privately-held Chicago-based mobile Web browser developer. The purchase moves Nokia into the increasingly contentious mobile browser battle.

PC World - This week on the podcast, Ginny Mies and Mark Sullivan are fresh out of Las Vegas and ready to talk about all of the brand-new cell phones and wireless technologies they saw at CTIA 2010.

AP - More than 1,100 communities have approached Google Inc. in hopes of landing one of the ultra-fast broadband networks that the company plans to build in a handful of spots around the country.

PC World - A China-based root DNS server associated with networking problems in Chile and the U.S. has been disconnected from the Internet.

PC World - Just in time for the long-awaited iPad to go on sale, Apple has acquired the trademark on its name.