Water-saving device uses the length of your first shower as a benchmark, indicating via a series of gently flashing "traffic lights" when you need to get out of the shower already!

Solar start-up 1366 Technologies is working on a technology that promises to dramatically cut the cost of solar cell manufacturing.

When simple games like Farmville snag 83 million users, designers who are used to working for years on a project have little choice but to embrace the era of Facebook titles.

roundup This week's Game Developers Conference brings together designers, programmers, publishers, and others for the latest from the world of video play.

Exactly 10 years ago, during the height of the dot-com mania, the Nasdaq reached its all-time high of 5,408.62 on March 10, 2000. It has never recovered.

Intel Labs is showing off technology that would allow consumers to collect and analyze environmental data and then share it over the Internet.

The competition will be particularly fierce at the annual digital-culture bash between Foursquare and Gowalla, rival social-media services that want to own the location-based networking market.

Steve Jobs personally threatened to sue Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz says. Sun warded off that and a Microsoft threat with its own patent portfolio.

Cyclists will be able to use Google Maps to plot directions around 150 U.S. cities when bike directions go live on Google later on Tuesday.

The troubled actress is suing E-Trade, claiming that it mocked her in one of its cute baby ads. She is asking for $100 million.

The Unreal Engine 3 is on its way to the iPhone, though creators Epic Games have had to make some compromises to get there.

Software developers can cater to Google Apps customers through a new application store announced at Google's Campfire One event in Mountain View.

Harmonix and MTV Games are getting the band back together, with Electronic Arts handling distribution once more.

A new restaurant guide has a section specifically dedicated to the difficult area of online dating. Its author believes only certain very specific places are suitable for an online date.

One of the most imposing (and wealthiest) bands of all time sues EMI over online royalties. EMI is reportedly arguing that an album-unbundling ban applies only to physical products.

Increasing cyberattacks against the online bank accounts of small and mid-size businesses has prompted growing calls for improved online banking security.

Apple's agreement with iPhone developers contains several "troubling" clauses that paint the company as a "jealous and arbitrary feudal lord," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Tuesday.

Not all Android apps are business-related. Some are just, well, fun.

The launch of Apple's iPad will pave the way for a slew of rival products this year, an ARM executive said Wednesday, predicting over 50 tablet PC devices will be launched globally.

Procter & Gamble Co. is letting several hundred of its employees use their own laptops at work as part of an experiment -- one of numerous efforts by companies trying to keep workers happy.

Twitter launched a new link-screening service on Tuesday aimed at preventing phishing and other malicious attacks against users of the popular microblogging service.

In another move to work its way into the enterprise, Google has unveiled an online store where users can buy cloud-based applications designed to work with Googles own apps.

Don't expect Jonathan Schwartz to go quietly.

Some BlackBerry users are complaining of an inability to use data services for the second day in a row.

Imagine my horror the other day when I saw an otherwise sharp friend of mine shut down his laptop by holding down the power button until the system turned off. Why is that a really bad idea? I'll explain this week--and I'll also tell you about a Web service that could very well save your life.

View more news and analysis from Computerworld.com

Spotfire Statistics Services option exposes S+ and R models within a layman's data-analysis and data-visualization environment.

HP Offers iPad Alternative

U.S. developers authorized to offer Internet communication apps to Iran, Sudan, and Cuba.

Column about a conversation between a CEO and a CIO about the power of cloud computing to reduce IT costs, accelerate processes and product development, and create opportunities to increase revenue.

Telehealth services enabled via American Well's Online Care system are coming to BlueCross Blue Shield in upstate New York.

The Google Apps Marketplace will let third-party developers sell their Web apps to Google Apps customers.

The government plans to release a Web-based platform for federal agencies to use prizes and challenges to crowdsource innovative approaches to government problems.

Obstacles abound, no doubt. But three huge constituents will demand it: government, large providers -- and the customers who will benefit.

If the company hits its sales goals -- 2.5 million 3-D televisions and 67% more TVs overall -- its TV business will be profitable for the first time in seven years.

The administration is addressing a bug that caused its VistAWeb e-health records system to return incomplete data.

A light Patch Tuesday brings word of a new zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 and 7.

The $90,000 CSR-3 switch is positioned as a flagship enterprise product capable of handling high demand for video on 100G networks.

Bank plans to use OpenPages platform to build program to measure and manage operational risk and calculate capital requirements.

CEO Bob Beauchamp talks trends in data centers and IT management.

Revamped home page features a more prominent Bing search engine and direct integration with Facebook.

AP - Want to be the first one on your block with a 3-D television? It will cost you about $3,000.

AP - Google Inc. will sell the online services of other business software makers in an effort to fill its own product gaps and persuade more companies to rely on applications piped over the Internet.

AP - Long-ago lapped by Facebook in popularity and with fast-growing Twitter on its tail, social networking site MySpace is planning a series of updates over the next months that will link its users' posts to those sites more easily and carve out its niche as an entertainment hub more clearly.

AP - Google Inc. is adding a bike lane with its latest online mapping option.

AP - An upcoming musical video game lets players strum a real six-string electric guitar instead of tapping buttons on a fake instrument.

AP - A Microsoft Corp. researcher won the $250,000 Turing Award, one of technology's most coveted prizes, on Tuesday for his work helping design and build what is widely considered the first modern personal computer.

AP - Google's CEO says mobile smartphones are transforming the Internet, and defended his company's growing dominance over information on the Web.

Macworld.com - TeamViewer already offers a remote control and desktop sharing program for desktops. Now the software maker wants to go mobile, with a similar offering for iPhone and iPod touch users that lets them access and control remote computers from their handheld mobile device.

AP - China Mobile Ltd., the world's biggest phone company by subscribers, said Wednesday it was investing $5.8 billion in a Chinese bank as part of a plan to develop mobile phone banking and business services.

NewsFactor - On the heels of the big 3-D television presence at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Sony and Samsung are joining Panasonic, LG Electronics, and others in promoting the new technology. On Tuesday, Sony said it is aiming for 10 percent of its TV sales within the next year to be 3-D models, and Samsung announced a range of HDTV sets and Blu-ray players will ship later this month.

AP - During the 1990s, the Square brand was synonymous with the role-playing video game. A generation of gamers got hooked on the challenging quests, quirky characters and sweeping story lines of Square RPGs like "Chrono Trigger," "The Secret of Mana" and, of course, the "Final Fantasy" series.

Macworld.com - Students of the hadouken have a new venue to test their fighting mettle: Street Fighter IV launched Wednesday for the iPhone and iPod touch. This seminal arcade fighter brings high-end graphics, complex combos, and a memorable cast of characters to the mobile platform.

AP - Defense contractor Science Applications International Corp., or SAIC Inc., on Wednesday said it received a contract from the U.S. Navy to develop and enhance command and control software.

Reuters - IBM has started a two-year research program that aims to make cellphones easier to use for groups including the elderly and the illiterate.

AFP - Microsoft on Tuesday warned that hackers are targeting a freshly-uncovered weakness in some earlier versions of its Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser software.