Internet, Mobile | featured news

Instagram, the popular photo-sharing service that Facebook bought this year, is the target of a storm of outrage on Twitter and other sites after a change in its user agreement hinted that it might use shared photos in ads.

...It’s an echo of the so-called browser wars of the 1990s, when Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator fought for dominance on the personal computer. This time, though, the struggle is shaping up to be over which company will control the mobile world — with browsers on smartphones and tablets. Entrenched businesses are at stake. Google’s browser-based business apps, for instance, threaten Microsoft’s desktop software, and mobile Web apps threaten Apple’s App Store.

Poor Microsoft. People who use your search engine seem especially interested in ... Apple. Bing published its most-searched news stories for 2012, and topping the list -- ahead of the presidential election, Superstorm Sandy and the London Olympics -- was the iPhone 5, the newest version of Apple's iconic smartphone.

At the University of Tulsa school, students learn to write computer viruses, hack digital networks and mine data from broken cellphones. Many graduates head to the CIA or NSA.

With only sporadic access to text messaging and the Web, many in Hurricane Sandy's no-power zone quickly cobbled together systems for passing along information and arranging when and where to meet.

The idea behind mobile payments currently holds more appeal than the reality does. Can Google change that? Retailer support for mobile payments is hard to find outside major metropolitan areas, and even then, the gaggle of tap-to-pay options means your favorite NFC-friendly store may not accept your preferred mobile wallet technology. If a new leak proves true, Google may have worked its way around the hurdle, albeit in an NFC-free manner.

A new study finds that teens who had access to the Internet on their cellphones were more than twice as likely to engage in sex with a person they met online compared with those without access to the Internet on their phones.

Yahoo (YHOO) announced its first acquisition under CEO Marissa Mayer on Thursday, a New York-based mobile startup named Stamped that was founded by two former Google (GOOG) employees and received financing from celebrities including Justin Bieber.

Facebook lost $59 million in the third quarter, but the newly publicly traded social networking site saw its shares soar on Wall Street early Wednesday. Facebook shares gained $4.35, or 22%, to $23.85 in early trading, after the company reported gains from mobile advertising.

Yahoo Inc's new CEO Marissa Mayer sketched out her plan for revamping the mobile and search advertising business, outlining publicly for the first time her vision for getting the ailing Web company back on its feet.