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Google Search for Human Traffickers, Drug Cartels

Forget videos of cute kittens or good deals on iPads. For the past few months, Google has been quietly turning its search capabilities to something far more challenging: criminals.

Drug cartels, money launderers and human traffickers run their sophisticated operations online — and Google Ideas, Google Inc.'s think tank, is working with the Council on Foreign Relations and other organizations to look for ways to use technology to disrupt international crime.

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Facebook Buys Mobile Gadget Focused Spool

Facebook added more mobile technology to its arsenal with the acquisition of Spool, a startup specializing in bookmarking and sharing content on smartphones or tablets.

"The Spool team has deep expertise in mobile software development and a passion for making content easy to consume," Facebook said Monday in response to an Agence France Presse inquiry.

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Appy Ever After, With a Smartphone Network for Lovers

A smartphone app that caters mainly for bashful Asian lovers has recorded a million downloads since its launch last November, and now the developers are eyeing new markets.

Couples unwilling to share their relationship with the world through Facebook or other social media have flocked to sign up for Between, an intimate app designed for two.

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Google's First Female Engineer Jumps to Yahoo! Helm

Insights to Marissa Mayer can be found in her approach to cupcakes.

Google's first female engineer and the new Yahoo! chief executive carefully matched ideal ingredients, temperatures and other factors to create a sublime baked treat, according to a tale told by those who know her.

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Study: YouTube Source for News, Disaster Footage

A new study has found that YouTube is emerging as a major platform for news, one to which viewers increasingly turn for eyewitness videos in times of major events and natural disasters.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism on Monday released its examination of 15 months of the most popular news videos on the Google Inc.-owned site. It found that while viewership for TV news still easily outpaces those consuming news on YouTube, the video-sharing site is a growing digital environment where professional journalism mingles with citizen content.

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Legendary Citroen 2CVs Hit New York Streets

New York fans of the Citroen 2CV got a treat Sunday when 20 owners of the iconic French car cruised through Manhattan along with drivers of other Citroen models in honor of France's Bastille Day holiday.

"To drive to New York with a bunch of Citroens -- it's not a thing you see and do every day. It's just an unbelievable experience," raved George Tavares, 46, a Portuguese immigrant living in New Jersey.

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Microsoft Breaks from NBC to Launch Own News Portal

Software giant Microsoft has parted company with NBC News, pulling out of their joint venture MSNBC to launch its own online news service, the two companies announced Sunday.

Moving on "allows us to go out and innovate," Bob Visse, general manager of MSN.com, said, confirming that MSN.com had begun hiring for a new news operation -- as yet unnamed -- that will launch later this year.

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RIM Hit with $147.2 Million Patent Payout

A California jury has ordered BlackBerry maker Research in Motion to pay $147.2 million in damages for infringing on a patent for remote management of wireless devices, RIM announced Saturday.

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Nvidia: 400,000 Coded Passwords May Have Been Hit

U.S. semiconductor maker Nvidia Corp. says up to 400,000 users of its forums have had their encrypted passwords compromised in attacks dating back to early July.

It's the latest in a stream of data thefts which has hit major Internet companies over the past few weeks. Search provider Yahoo, networking sites LinkedIn and FormSpring, and dating site eHarmony have all recently reported breaches which collectively compromised the online credentials of millions of users.

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Wikipedia Hits Defining Moment in Social Web Era

It is another defining moment for Wikipedia.

The public knowledge website is more than a decade old and remains among the top 10 Internet sites in the world, but some say it is becoming old and dowdy. Others want to keep it that way.

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