Psy's 'Gangnam Style' sequel, 'Gentleman,' hits YouTube

The sequel to the most popular YouTube video ever has arrived, and there's not a horse in sight.

Watch it here http://www.youtube.com/embed/ASO_zypdnsQ

Psy's sequel vid to the hyper-uber-gigantic "Gangnam Style" landed on YouTube today, and as of this writing it's garnered only a paltry 7 million viewings or so, with about 350,000 thumbs up and 38,000 thumbs down.

It's tough being an international sensation.

Of course, it's impossible to know if "Gentleman M/V" will top its predecessor's more than 1.5 billion views -- the most ever on YouTube -- but something tells us the preadolescent crowd will find one or two things to love here (things we're too polite to mention in mixed company), and that the pubescent male contingent will probably approve as well.

And, hey, perhaps even those who remember MC Hammer and the days before YouTube will be won over by Psy's continuing zany elasticity.

Besides, whose curiosity won't cause him or her to watch at least the first few seconds? Here's your chance. See if you make it all the way through.

Samsung Galaxy S4 VS HTC One

If you're in the market for a new smartphone this year, chances are good you're seriously considering two highly anticipated handsets: the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One. Both offer tempting helpings of powerful components, advanced features, and cutting-edge software.

So which device should you go with? It's a tough choice. But fear not: CNET's here to help. Sit back as we stack up all the abilities these excellent phones have in common and the key differences that separate the two.

Screen:

Samsung Galaxy S4
Perhaps the most striking thing about the GS4 is its massive 5-inch HD Super AMOLED display. It also features a sharp 1920x1080 resolution and a pixel density of 441ppi (pixels per inch).

Sprint's HTC One is stunning, fast, and feature packed.

HTC One
HTC gave the One a 4.7-inch LCD screen that's slightly smaller than the Galaxy S4's but boasts the same 1920x1080 resolution. As a result, the HTC One's display has a higher pixel density of 468 ppi.

Assessment
We're looking forward to an in-depth, side-by-side examination of the screens once we get both phones together in the CNET Labs. In the meantime, both phones have advantages on the specs fight: the Galaxy S4 is a tad larger (if that's your thing), while the One's slightly smaller 1080p screen offers greater pixel density. Typically, OLED screens offer more vibrant colors, deeper black levels, and wider viewing angles versus LCD screens, and Samsung is on the forefront of OLED research. Our guess is that the GS4 has the edge here when it comes to pleasing colors, especially if you're able to dampen its screen's color saturation in the settings for better accuracy, like you can do withSamsung's Galaxy Note 2.

Storage:

Samsung Galaxy S4
The GS4 comes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB configurations, though not for every market in which it'll be sold. Expect U.S. carriers to sell it in the smaller capacities, starting at $199 for the 16GB version and $249 for double the storage.

Unlike HTC, Samsung isn't a fan of sealing up devices; as a result, the Galaxy S4 comes with a microSD card slot that can handle up to 64GB of additional memory goodness for storing photos, videos, games, and apps.

HTC One
One consequence of the HTC One's beautiful , aluminum unibody design is that its chassis is sealed. Add in the phone's thin design, and you've got no room for a micro SD Card slot to add extra storage. HTC does its best to alleviate the situation by eschewing a 16GB model and packing the handset with either a sizeable 32GB, or a whopping 64GB of internal memory. Significantly, the on-contract price of the 32GB One starts at the same $199 price of a 16GB S4.

Battery

Samsung Galaxy S4
Samsung equips the Galaxy S4 with a 2,600mAh battery that's user removable. It pops out when you remove the back cover, which makes swapping it out for a fresh one a simple maneuver. Samsung will also offer batteries that are compatible with wireless chargers.

HTC One
By contrast, the HTC One features a slightly lower capacity 2,300mAh battery which is embedded. That means you can't remove it on the fly for a fully-charged battery pack. Also, if the HTC One's battery fails, you'll need to send the device in for repair, or replace the phone for a fresh handset.

Operating system:

Samsung Galaxy S4
Right out of the box, the Galaxy S4 will run Google's latest version of Android Jelly Bean, Android 4.2.2. That's great news for Android fans who can enjoy the all important bragging rights that come with owning a cutting-edge smartphone. However, Samsung does use its own user interface, formerly known as TouchWiz, so you're not getting a pure Android Jelly Bean experience.

HTC One
The HTC One uses the slightly older iteration of Jelly Bean, Android version 4.1.2. Nethertheless, the HTC One does support the enhanced Google Now search function which can also be used as a dedicated widget on the phone's home screen. Of course, HTC layers its latest Sense user interface over Android, which many have blamed for holding up Android updates in earlier HTC smartphones.

Read more: http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-57579429-85/samsung-galaxy-s4-vs-htc-one-a-clash-of-two-android-titans/#ixzz2QYyRCbG6

Apple's Hazy, Big-Screen iPhone Ambitions

Apple's Phil Schiller says the challenge is not to make bigger products but to make better, smaller ones. Still, is Apple ready to create a bigger and better iPhone?

The suspense is building. After Samsung and HTC upped the game with their recent Android phones, the Galaxy S4 and the One respectively, the focus is shifting to what comes next from Apple.

Various analysts who track Apple and mine information from its supply chain are predicting an early summer debut for a new flagship iPhone. Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets is expecting more. He is predicting that Apple will offer the new iPhone in at least two and possibly three screen sizes.

His call is underpinned by the growing demand for larger displays, and the belief that Apple may be falling behind as competitors consistently come out with new products featuring big, gorgeous displays. The Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One are the latest marquee products to boast super-sized screens, and they won't be the last. Sure, the next iPhone will come with the usual upgrades -- faster processor, improved camera, a new version of iOS -- but that may no longer be enough.

Apple, of course, is silent. The company has no incentive to give people reasons not to purchase an iPhone 5 today or to spoil a big reveal. While iPhone sales reportedly have slowed, the iPhone 5, which launched seven months ago, helped Apple sell 47.8 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of 2012 and garner 39 percent of the U.S. smartphone market in February.

Apple, however, can't ignore the trend. AlreadyAndroid phones command more than half of the U.S. market share. Outside the United States, they have more traction than Apple's iOS. Whether Apple likes it or not, the big screen is a factor. Its move to a 4-inch display with the iPhone 5 last year -- the first time it changed its display size -- was a step in the right direction. But it may need to get more radical if its to keep pace with the ever-increasing screen sizes churned out by the likes of Samsung and HTC.

Whatever the actual specs and whenever Apple decides to debut a new phone, it will most likely be hailed as the "most beautiful product we have every made, bar none." That's what Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said when the iPhone 5 was introduced on September 12. Or, it will be the "most amazing iPhone ever," as Apple CEO Tim Cook called the iPhone 4S at its October 4, 2011, debut.

In the post-Steve Jobs era, Apple continues its discipline of developing products imbued with what design chief Jony Ive calls an "extraordinary level of fit and finish," with Apple's engineers obsessively focused on reducing cost of materials and the iPhone's size and weight.

"What makes iPhone so unique is how it feels in your hand," Ive said in a video describing the virtues of the iPhone 5.

Schiller praised the iPhone 5 as the world's thinnest and lightest smartphone, which was "designed and built to an exacting level of standard, unlike anything or anyone in our industry has made before."

At the iPhone 5 debut, he talked about Apple's design aesthetic: "This is the monumental challenge the team had: Can you make a phone that has everything the iPhone 4S has -- before even talking about new features -- in a design that is thinner, lighter, and smaller than the previous product?" he said. "It is really easy to make a new product that's bigger. Everyone does that. That's not the challenge. The challenge is to make it better and smaller."

The iPhone 5 managed to pack more into a smaller body. Compared to its predecessor, the iPhone 5 was 18 percent thinner, 20 percent lighter, up to twice as fast, and slightly longer to accommodate the half-inch-larger screen.

We get it. Apple is not just going to slap a larger screen on an iPhone body. It has to be better than what came before, smaller (at least in thickness), and lighter. At this juncture, how much thinner, smaller, and lighter can Apple's engineers go on the iPhone? How much longer can Apple wait to give users the option of an even larger screen?

The Samsung Galaxy S4, with a 5-inch screen, is 5.38 x 2.75 x 0.31 inches. The iPhone 5, with a 4-inch screen, is 4.9 x 2.3 x 0.3 inches and weighs 4.59 ounces. Does the next iPhone have to be 0.28 inches thick and 3.8 ounces to claim victory over Samsung and HTC? Without a bigger screen and better battery life, will people even care that it's smaller?

If White's prediction is correct, Apple finally will match its competitors with an iPhone sporting a sharp, 5-inch, 1080p high-definition screen. Call it the 5X, 5S+ or iPhone 6. Whatever the name, Tim Cook and his lieutenants at the launch event surely will talk about how they are introducing the thinnest, lightest, and most beautiful and amazing phone. And even though it has a larger screen and dimensions than its antecedent iPhones, they undoubtedly will boast that it feels great in your hands.

Perhaps, bigger can be better.

YouTube Hits The Magic Billion Mark

YouTube has announced that one billion people are now regular users of the Google-owned, video-sharing website.

YouTube said that the number of monthly unique users had passed one billion in a post on its official blog.

“If YouTube were a country, we’d be the third largest in the world after China and India,” the triumphant post said.

The announcement comes six months after Facebook reached a billion users.

YouTube launched in February 2005, a year after Facebook, and in its early years was run from a small office above a fast-food restaurant in California.

By 2006, YouTube and its 67 staff had already attracted an audience estimated at 50 million worldwide users a month.

That is when Google bought the site for $1.65bn, an amount widely thought at the time to be overvaluing a website that was struggling to make money.

In 2012 it is estimated that YouTube generated $1.3bn in video advertising. Many hundreds of millions more are thought to be generated from search and banner advertising on the site, according to theFinancial Times.

YouTube claims that one in every two internet users is a regular visitor to the site.

At the end of last year it celebrated the world’s first billion-view video with Psy’s Gangnam Style. The South Korean singer’s dance craze video is now well on the way to 1.5bn views.

YouTube now gets more search queries than any other website apart from Google’s own search engine.

YouTube is also looking to capitalise on the emerging market of straight-to-web subscription television being pioneered by companies such asNetflix and Amazon.

Google Accused of Anti-Competitive Android Rules

Google's Android smartphone and tablet software is a “Trojan horse” designed to seize control of the mobile internet market, an international coalition of technology firms has claimed to EU competition watchdogs.

The group of 17 calls itself FairSearch and is led by Microsoft. It is already awaiting the outcome of a long-running European Commission investigation of Google’s dominance of the general web search market.

On Tuesday it said Google was using Android to “deceive” smartphone and tablet manufacturers into cementing its hold on the burgeoning mobile internet. FairSearch made a formal complaint to Joaquín Almunia, the competition commissioner, calling on him to investigate Android.

The software was installed on almost 500 million handsets shipped last year, or around 69 per cent of the total, according to industry analysts IDC. Its manufacturing partners include Samsung, HTC and Sony.

The new FairSearch complaint argues that by giving Android away on the condition that manufacturers also install Google services such as Maps, YouTube or Google Play, its app and content store, rivals are unfairly disadvantaged.

"We are asking the Commission to move quickly and decisively to protect competition and innovation in this critical market," said Thomas Vinje, a European competition law specialist at Clifford Chance, acting for FairSearch.

"Failure to act will only embolden Google to repeat its desktop abuses of dominance as consumers increasingly turn to a mobile platform dominated by Google’s Android operating system.”

“Google’s predatory distribution of Android at below-cost makes it difficult for other providers of operating systems to recoup investments in competing with Google’s dominant mobile platform,” the group added.

Microsoft is attempting to make inroads into the smartphone market with Windows Phone 8 software after falling behind Apple and Google. The complaint is also backed by Nokia, its main manufacturing partner. Windows Phone accounted for only 2.5 per cent of smartphone shipments last year, according to IDC.

The corporate software giant Oracle, which last year lost a high-profile, multibillion-dollar court battle with Google over alleged patent infringement in Android, is also involved, along with the travel websites Expedia and Tripadvisor.

“European consumers deserve a rigorous investigation of Google’s mobile practices, and real protections against further abuses by Google,” said Mr Vinje.

The terms and conditions of Android do not mean manufacturers are forced to install Google services, but those that do not are denied access to Google Play and its array of downloadable apps. Amazon, for instance, uses a version of Android on its Kindle Fire tablets but has the resources to run its own app store so does not install Google Maps, for instance.

Mr Almunia has been in negotiations with Google over potential remedies to its alleged abuse of its more than 90 per cent share of the general web search market in Europe for a year. Investigators found the firm favours its own ancillary services over rivals’.

In an interview on Monday Mr Almunia said Google will need to offer consumers more choice in the services it presents in search results. He did not comment on the new complaint relating to Android.

A Google spokesman said the firm continued to work cooperatively with regulators.

Revealed, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's 'First' Social Website

A website which is thought to have been created by Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, when he was just 15 years old has been discovered on the internet.

It contains various programs and applets allegedly created by the teenager, one of which, "The Web", appears to be an early model of a social networking site.

Zuckerberg is said to have created the site in 1999, while he was still in high school.

Evidence of his youth may lie in the "About Me" section, where he first acknowledges one of his heroes, rapper Eminem, by claiming "my name is...Slim Shady. No, really, my name is Slim Shady", before conceding "Just kidding, my name is Mark".

He goes on to explain that the site is a way to promote his new AOL program, "The Vader Fader".

Although social networking may not have been the primary aim of the website, Zuckerberg seems to have recognised its potential even from this early stage. He says "As of now, the web is pretty small. Hopefully, it will grow into a larger web."

The early network has just a few dozen members, compared with over a billion who reportedly use Facebook today.

"The Web" required people to email Zuckerberg himself to be linked to someone already on the network, where they could then be connected to two more people.

Other applets on the site include games, a program for calculating your Grade Point Average, and a molecule viewer, which Zuckerberg explained he wants to improve when he has learnt the molecules' true shapes "next year in chemistry".

The site was discovered by a user of social news website Hacker News.

Claims that it was created by a young Zuckerberg seem to be genuine, as it lists Mark Zuckerberg as its creator, as well as including an email account belonging to Mark's father, Dr Edward Zuckerberg.

EA The Worst Company In America? Again?

Electronic Arts COO attempts to express understanding of why his company is again in the Final Four of the Consumerist's Worst Company awards. Is the company really so bad?

It's that time of the year again.

The one where companies vie to be worse than Comcast.

That used to be the plot, at least, to the point at which Comcast tried to get its own staff to help prevent it winning the Consumerist's Worst Company in America award.

Last year, though, Electronic Arts walked off with the prize, and this year things aren't looking too good.

It's already in the Final Four, where it must face the might of Ticketmaster. So EA's COO, Peter Moore, thought it best not to attempt ballot stuffing.

Instead, he took to his company's blog in order both to preempt a repeat victory and perhaps to encourage voters to have mercy.

In a post titled "We Can Do Better," Moore offered that this poll might not be the most objective assessment of worstness.

He wrote: "This is the same poll that last year judged us as worse than companies responsible for the biggest oil spill in history, the mortgage crisis, and bank bailouts that cost millions of taxpayer dollars."

His point is one of the more undeniable that any COO could offer, save for the fact that BP wasn't even involved in this competition last year.

Still, he added: "The complaints against us last year were our support of SOPA (not true), and that they didn't like the ending to Mass Effect 3."

Actually, that one's a little awkward too, as the Consumerist itself pointed out that its analysisdidn't suggest Mass Effect 3 or SOPA had anything to do with it:

Instead, it looks at EA's history of buying up smaller, successful developers with the intention of milking -- and arguably ruining -- the intellectual properties that made these acquired companies so attractive. It also discusses EA's exclusivity deals on popular sports games, that some say effectively sets the bar for retail prices for the rest of the gaming industry.

Moore began to reach for arguments that seemed slight -- for example citing e-mails that people were being encouraged to vote for EA because of the the specific players featured on the cover of Madden.

He also suggested that the inclusion of LGBT characters in games was hurting the company's cause.

I have a feeling that a rather pronounced enthusiasm for nickel-and-diming might have caused a slightly more elevated level of dissatisfaction with customers. As might the little mess that accompanied the launch of Sim City.

Still, Moore counters reasonably: "Every day, millions of people across globe play and love our games -- literally, hundreds of millions more than will vote in this contest."

Being voted "Worst Company in America" is really closer to being voted "The Company That People Who Are Online A Lot Hate Most," which isn't quite the same thing.

It's just not nice when people say it about you. And it is, as the Consumerist points out, one way at least some of your customers express their frustrations. (Senior management just fires people.)

As well as EA and Ticketmaster, Bank of America and -- gosh -- Comcast are in the Final Four.

But perhaps none of these managed to compare themselves, as did Moore in his post, with the New York Yankees, L.A. Lakers, and Manchester United.

Surely he realizes that when these teams have an off year -- the Yankees and Lakers are managing that quite gracefully so far -- their fans aren't exactly silent.

The Worst Company in America voting is a little bit of a game. It's odd that the COO of a gaming company is unable to see it as that.

Anonymous Targets Israel In Another CyberAttack

The hacktivist collective claims to have caused more than $3 billion in damage in protest against treatment of Palestinians, but officials say the attack has caused minimal disruption.

Anonymous claims that a cyberattack launched against Israeli government Web sites this weekend has caused billions of dollars of damage, although Israeli officials say there have been no major disruptions.

The group claimed it hacked more than a dozen official Israeli Web sites, including those for the Israel Police, the Prime Minister's Office, the Israel Securities Authority, the Immigrant Absorption Ministry, and the Central Bureau of Statistics. The country's page for the Ministry of Defense was offline today as well, which Anonymous took credit for hacking in a tweet:

Anonymous @YourAnonNews

Anonymous Operation Israel | Target: DOWN |

The group estimates that #OpIsrael has caused more than $3 billion in damage, hacking more than 100,000 Web sites, 40,000 Facebook accounts, and 30,000 bank accounts belonging to Israelis.

#OpIsrael @Op_Israel

#Anonymous partial damage report, 100k+ websites, 40k Facebook pages, 5k twitter & 30k Israeli bank acc got hacked ~ $3-plus billion damage

However, Yitzhak Ben Yisrael, of the government's National Cyber Bureau, said the campaign has caused minimal disruption to key government Web sites.

"So far it is as was expected, there is hardly any real damage," Ben Yisrael told the media. "Anonymous doesn't have the skills to damage the country's vital infrastructure. And if that was its intention, then it wouldn't have announced the attack ahead of time. It wants to create noise in the media about issues that are close to its heart."

This is the second time in recent months that Israel has been targeted by the hacktivist collective, which is protesting Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. A similar attack last November spawned millions of hack attempts, but the government said at the time that the disruption was minimal.

Members of the group warned last week that they would "disrupt and erase Israel from cyberspace" on April 7, saying the government had "crossed a line in the sand" when it threatened to sever all Internet and other telecommunications in and outside of Gaza. The attack coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day, which began at sunset on Sunday and commemorates the 6 million Jewish victims of Nazi genocide during World War II.

Google in talks to acquire WhatsApp for nearly $1 billion

Google is in talks to acquire cross-platform messaging application WhatsApp, a new report claims.

Google and WhatsApp have been talking for "four or five weeks," according to Digital Trends, citing a person who claims to have knowledge of the negotiations. So far, WhatsApp has been able to push the acquisition price to nearly $1 billion by "playing hardball," Digital Trends' source says.

WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging applications available to mobile users. The app allows users on just about any mobile platform, including Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone, to instant-message with each other, as well as send images, audio, and video messages. The messaging app essentially allows for cross-platform texting without having to pay for SMS.

In January, WhatsApp announced that it had set a personal record on New Year's Eve, with 7 billion inbound messages sent that day. Another 11 billion outbound messages were sent. WhatsApp's previous one-day record stood at 10 billion total messages.

Whether WhatsApp is actually worth $1 billion, though, is up for debate. That's the price that Facebook paid for Instagram last year, and some believed the deal didn't land in the social network's favor. WhatsApp, while popular, doesn't have the kind of cache that Instagram did at the time of that acquisition, making such a valuation seem high. And since the Digital Trends story comes from only one source, it's important to take it with a grain of salt at this time.

Microsoft May Announce Next Xbox On May 21

Microsoft will spill the beans on its next-generation Xbox at an event on May 21, according to at least two sources.

Originally scheduled for April, the event was pushed back to May, sources have told the Verge.

That echoes similar information from Supersite for Windows writer Paul Thurrott. In an interview with video blog "What the Tech" on Friday, Thurrott said that Microsoft was initially going to announce the new console on April 24 but rescheduled the event for May 21. In the video clip of the show, Thurrott's comments about the next Xbox start at the 54:44 mark.

The Verge's sources claim the event will be a small one offering the first details on the nextXbox, codenamed Durango. Microsoft will reportedly unveil the console at the E3 event in June and release it to consumers later in the year.

Thurrott added even more to mull over. "Durango" is likely to be expensive, he said -- $500 for the console itself and $300 for the annual Xbox Live subscription.

Thurrott also chimed in on the controversy over rumors that the next Xbox would require an always-on Internet connection. A creative director with Microsoft Studio got himself into hot water last week when he told people upset over such a requirement to just "deal with it."

If the requirement is true, what does an "always-on" connection mean? Even Thurrott isn't sure. But he did say that his previous notes on the device specifically state: "Must be Internet connected to use." He didn't reveal where he got this tidbit, but Thurrott has a good track record for uncovering accurate information about Microsoft's plans.

Microsoft could even have more than one console up its sleeves.

Thurrott had previously said that Microsoft will update the Xbox 360 and sell it for just $99. Such a development may suggest that the new-generation Xbox won't be able to play 360 games, but that's speculation on Thurrott's part. A $99 Xbox 360 could also be positioned as a cheaper entertainment console to compete with Roku and similar devices.

Finally, Thurrott is eyeing an early November release for the next Xbox, just in time to lure in holiday shoppers.

Don't Cry For Zuckerberg's $1B Tax Bill---Facebook Deducted It

Much of the kerfuffle over how much tax Mark Zuckerberg is paying seems a little silly. See Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg faces $1 billion tax bill. Do you feel sorry for him? Not likely. Is he a patriot for writing a big check to the IRS? Not really. Besides, much was done via withholding.

It was all part of his Facebook pay, after all. And Facebook gets a tax deduction for every dollar. Facebook’s IPO left Mr. Zuckerberg with a paper fortune of about $13 billion and a 2012 tax bill of about $1.1 billion.

But it wasn’t the IPO that triggered the tax. It was Mr. Zuckerberg himself. On the day of Facebook’s IPO, he exercised options and purchased 60 million Facebook shares at 6 cents each. Anyone with a calculator would have done the same. Wouldn’t you pay 6 cents for a $38 share?

Facebook Home and the next stage of iPhone vs. Android

Facebook Home signals a new era in the war between Android and iPhone, and right now Google has the advantage.

The home computing revolution of the 1980s and '90s was defined by a battle between two titans: Apple and Microsoft. After its IPO and the introduction of the Macintosh, Apple was riding high.

The company started losing the PC market in the '90s, though. Microsoft released Windows 3.0 as a cheaper alternative to the Macintosh in 1990, but it was the release of Windows 95, which brought a comparable GUI (graphical user interface) to PCs, that really hurt Apple. And Apple also suffered from a lack of vision, owing to the absence of its visionary leader, Steve Jobs, from 1985 until 1986, when he was brought back into the fold with the acquisition of NeXT.

Facebook To Announce New Look For News Feed

Facebook is rolling out a fresh design for its central page, the News Feed, at an event Thursday.

The main column that cuts down the center of the Facebook home page currently shows a hodgepodge of updates, photos, links and likes from friends, companies, organizations and any other pages you follow. The feed is the heart of Facebook, where many members spend the majority of their time reading, liking and clicking.

Go Ahead. Fold Your Tablet In Half

Corning – the ‘glass company’ that came up with the telescope mirror for the Palomar Observatory, lighter and tougher windshields, and with Gorilla Glass for the first iPhone (GG now in its 3rd generation) – has showcased their new, ultra-thin, 100-micron thick, flexible glass.

Let’s be clear, we’re talking about glass, not plastic. It’s called “Willow Glass” and it bends. By “it bends,” we mean it’s supple and bendable like plastic. But it’s glass. And it could change the shape and form of how next-generation electronics are ultimately designed.

Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions: Fasten Your Seatbelts

Much of the reporting about Google’sdriverless car has mistakenly focused on its science-fiction feel. While the car is certainly cool—just watch the video below about a 95%-blind man running errands—the gee-whiz focus suggests that it is just a high-tech dalliance by a couple of brash young multibillionaires, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

In fact, the driverless car has broad implications for society, for the economy and for individual businesses. Just in the U.S., the car puts up for grab some$2 trillion a year in revenue and even more market cap. 

iPhone 5S will bring back 'one more thing,' Analyst says

On the heels of a Galaxy S4 release that was solid but not mind-blowing, word is that Apple is planning a killer software feature for the next iPhone.

Not wowed by the HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4? One analyst says never fear -- Apple is preparing a killer feature for the iPhone 5S that will crush the notion that smartphones are becoming a commodity product like so many soybeans traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (or smartypants similes on gadget blogs).