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Skype's new strategy for 2010: Your flat-screen TV in your living room can now be your phone. Or, if your tastes run more toward "The Twilight Zone," think of it as your TV watching you -- as you watch TV ...

2009 may have been a year of recession, but don't tell that to the blue-skinned aliens of "Avatar," the hormonal teen wizards in the new "Harry Potter" film or the needy talking dogs of "Up." Their adventures in special 3-D theater screenings helped push U.S. box office receipts past home DVD sales for the first time in seven years, according to a new study...

What are we calling the 10 years that just flew past? "The Naughts?" "The Naughties?" "The 'Aughts?" "The Digital Decade?" I nominate the "Coolness Decade," but it's going to require a little less irony and cynicism than what is normally exhibited in our culture to fully embrace that title. ...

Back in early October -- nearly three months before Umar Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a jetliner bound for Detroit -- the Transportation Security Administration's blog cheerily announced it had received US$355 million of Recovery Act money for "a lot of really nifty improvements to aviation security." [*Correction - Jan. 4, 2010] ...

President Barack Obama named ISF President Howard Schmidt to serve as national cybersecurity coordinator on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2009. This story was originally published on Nov. 18, 2009, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series ...

A new University of Utah study released Monday provides more fuel for the conviction that sending and receiving text messages while driving affects concentration and reaction times. However, more potential digital distractions lie down the road -- as shown by another Monday announcement: Ford Motor said its second-generation Sync service will turn cars into rolling WiFi hotspots in 2010...

Verizon recently doubled its early termination fees (ETFs) to US$350 for customers who want out of their wireless phone contracts -- a fee much higher than competing carriers charge. However, there's no need to worry; the extra money coming into Verizon not only helps the nation meet its mobile broadband goals, it also helps lower-income consumers to consider buying a smartphone...

"Avatar" could indeed light the way to fresh, uncharted territory for filmmaking and entertainment thanks to its groundbreaking special effects and 3-D technologies -- but that's not necessarily a good thing ...

Does it really matter whether Operation Chokehold shuts down AT&T's network today? Even if every iPhone user in the country dials up video highlights of "Pirates of Silicon Valley" exactly at noon Pacific time -- and somehow the bits keep flowing and the phones keep ringing -- it'll be too late: Operation Chokehold has already put the squeeze on the U.S.'s second-largest wireless carrier...

Those following the progress of U.S. broadband initiatives were going to need a bandwidth boost of their own Thursday; there was a lot of new data to digest ...

Wednesday's announcement by the Federal Trade Commission that it is suing Intel over its business practices must have looked like computer-generated deja vu to the technology industry. Those who were around for the Clinton Justice Department's case against Microsoft in the late 1990s are hearing familiar arguments from both sides -- the government claiming a monopolist is using its market share to bully partners and push around competitors, and a corporation claiming a government agency that's clueless about technology is trying to stifle innovation...

Amazon seems to be writing a self-help book of its own. You could call it, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective E-Reader Companies, and the first item on that list would appear to be: Lock in an exclusive deal with one of the most popular business writers ever ...

They are early Christmas presents from Google to technology reporters and bloggers eager to swallow up any news regarding the tech giant: tweeted weekend photos of Mountain View, Calif., employees testing an experimental Android phone of Google's own design ...

For all its graphics firepower and blockbuster action, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" couldn't blow up the perception that the video game industry is still reeling from the recession's aftershocks. Industry market-watchers NPD Group released November sales figures Thursday, showing continued year-over-year declines in software (down 3.1 percent), hardware (down 13.4 percent) and accessories (down 5.5 percent)...

The iPhone was calling me. It was daring me to run free down the aisles of the Apple App Store in much the same way my 3-year-old son does when he hits our neighborhood Toys 'R' Us. ...

You may have taken time out from playing "Mafia Wars," "FarmVille" or answering that "Which Muppet Are You?" quiz to update your privacy settings on Facebook this week. However, when you were clicking on your choices for who could see your updates and personal data, did you happen to notice any mention of those third-party applications involving games, quizzes and other outside software linking up to the world's largest social media network? How much access to your personal info do the developers of these apps have?...

For every traditional media publisher who tries to place Google at the scene of the crime -- the death of newspapers -- the search giant offers up a new alibi. The latest defense exhibit is Wednesday's announcement of Google "Living Stories," an online experiment that organizes news around a specific topic, and the coconspirators are two of the biggest newspaper names in the country: The New York Times and The Washington Post...

You couldn't find a more appropriate name for the world's first commercial spaceship, which Virgin Galactic officially unveiled to the world and the media Monday night at California's Mojave Air and Space Port. The SpaceShipTwo reusable suborbital plane is now the Virgin Space Ship (V.S.S.) Enterprise, and it represents a business undertaking worthy of a James T. Kirk-led mission: private spaceflight...

The United Nations has jumped into the controversy involving leaked emails on climate change data from the University of East Anglia, with a senior UN official saying Friday that his agency would investigate the matter ...

It already handles your Gmail and eventually wants to have you surf its Wave. It hopes you'll take a shine to Chrome. It assigns you a phone number so you can have a Voice. You use its applications to compose professional, smart-looking Docs when you're not being a messy, profane Blogger. It has desires for the world's Books. ...