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

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Palm surprises everyone (including Epic Games) by having a working demo of the Unreal Engine running on the company's Web OS.

Company announces Thursday that it will offer mobile device users inventory checks on local stores, allowing them to see if products are available.

Mozilla Messaging updates the Lanikai build of Thunderbird to beta status. Notably, Thunderbird 3.1 beta 1 shares the same Gecko engine as Firefox 3.6.

Verizon Wireless exec tells The Wall Street Journal it will have a 4G wireless phone on the market within three to six months of launching its 4G LTE network.

CNET Reviews has overhauled its Blu-ray testing for 2010 by adding inline charts, more systematic image quality tests and a detailed spreadsheet for easy comparison.

Sanyo's new eneloop hybrid bicycle recharges while it's being pedaled; Iwatani showed off a fuel cell bike that runs on a hydrogen fuel cell stack.

Brain scans identify which short film clip volunteers were remembering, which could help researchers better understand memory recording patterns and, ultimately, dementia.

Most Firefox users have upgraded to Firefox 3.6. The stragglers who haven't may have their reasons, but Mozilla is starting to pressure them.

Sony's PlayStation 3 motion controller finally gets a name. We also talk Bill Gates' drop into being merely the world's second-richest man, and the results of Pink Floyd's court battles with EMI.

JetBlue said it had 1,000 free tickets to give away to New Yorkers who showed up at a location broadcasted via Twitter. The only complaint so far: Couldn't there be more?

Share of U.S. search requests for Microsoft Bing rises to 11.5 percent, though Google still leads the pack with 65.5 percent of all search queries, says ComScore.

A push by Net neutrality advocates to reclassify ISPs as telecommunications providers has dangerous implications, argues Stanford Law Fellow Larry Downes.

Google's open-source approach to Android is a key reason that it is quickly gaining ground on closed-source competitors like Apple's iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry. But challenges remain.

Production and assembly factory producing 1,100-megawatts worth of turbines annually will create 1,000 permanent jobs for the state.

A certain technology-challenged relative, who shall remain nameless, frequently calls me to ask the same question: "I just connected my projector to my laptop. How do I make it, uh, go?"

At the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week, security vendors pitched their next generation of security products, promising to protect customers from security threats in the cloud and on mobile devices. But what went largely unsaid was that the industry has failed to protect paying customers from some of today's most pernicious threats.

At the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week, security vendors pitched their next-generation of security products, promising to protect customers from security threats in the cloud and on mobile devices. But what went largely unsaid was that the industry has failed to protect paying customers from some of today's most pernicious threats.

A data service outage affecting some BlackBerry users nationally this week seems to have left them angry but not deeply concerned about the future of BlackBerry's maker, Research In Motion.

In a cost cutting move, New York's state legislature passed legislation could replace IT consultants by adding up to 500 workers to the state payroll.

Beginning on Friday, iPad buyers will finally be able to order the tablet-styled device -- or reserve one at an Apple store. Here's what you need to know before buying.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has added tools to the Broadband.gov Web site to help users measure their broadband speeds or report that they do not have broadband available.

The Country Code Name Supporting Organization of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has criticized ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom for "inflammatory" comments that the Domain Name System is not as secure as it used to be.

A Canadian interface design firm accused Mozilla of stealing user interface (UI) elements for a development tool in the browser maker's Jetpack project, which aims to simplify add-on making.

The Italian edition of Wired magazine has nominated the Internet to be a contender for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

View more news and analysis from Computerworld.com

Software vendor teams with state officials to offer access to e-learning courses and certification exams.

Senator Christopher Dodd said Thursday that he will present on Monday his own version of a financial reform bill after compromise talks with Senate Republicans broke down.

Major shareholders in Britain's Prudential are warming to the insurer's $35.5 billion bid for AIG's Asian business following meetings with chief executive Tidjane Thiam, investor sources said.

The Department of Justice indictment alleges that a former TSA employee tampered with servers containing data from the Terrorist Screening Database.

Enhancements to the enterprise content management suite include a "full-featured" offline client, Mobile Workflow for BlackBerry and workflow integration with Microsoft Outlook.

null

As the networking behemoths battle over router speed claims, both are attempting to cement public personas, and clue in non-technical consumers on who they are.

The deal calls for Science Applications International Corp. to develop new software and modify existing Navy command and control systems.

CBOE Holdings Inc, which operates the biggest U.S. options exchange, said on Thursday it is planning to raise as much as $300 million in an initial public offering.

Aspire Performance Reporting service now deployed for 12,000 financial advisors and nearly seven million clients.

The former chief investment officer for New York State's comptroller Wednesday pleaded guilty to helping favored firms gain access to the state's $129 billion pension fund.

Former HSBC computer specialist allegedly tried to sell Swiss private banking account data in Lebanon.

E-mail verification company RPost has brought a federal suit charging the Swiss agency of patent and trademark infringement.

New search service sends New York cyclists into prohibited lanes and onto streets filled with careening trucks and crazed cabbies.

The consumer electronics firm joins rivals Samsung and Sony in championing 3D TV home systems.

AP - Repressive regimes have stepped up efforts to censor the Internet and jail dissidents, Reporters Without Borders said in a study out Thursday.

AP - Federal regulators are pledging rigorous reviews of Comcast Corp.'s proposed purchase of NBC Universal to ensure that it would not stifle competition or harm consumers.

AP - VeriSign Inc., whose technology is key to allowing Internet users to access Web sites with names ending in ".com" and ".net," plans to spend more than $300 million over the next decade to upgrade its systems.

AP - U.S. retail sales of video games declined 15 percent in February, hurt in part by an ongoing decline in sales of music games and lower sales of the Wii system.

AP - Twitter can now let the world automatically know your whereabouts as well as your thoughts and activities.

AP - Sony has a new message for Nintendo Wii gamers: Come join us.

AFP - Charging online readers will give The New York Times a critical second revenue stream but the print newspaper will be important for "many years to come," publisher Arthur Sulzberger said Thursday.

Macworld.com - On Wednesday, Firemint was honored with four awards from handheld gaming Website Pocket Gamer at a ceremony held at the annual Game Developers Conference. The company behind Flight Control () and Real Racing () has few titles on the iPhone market-virtually every one has become a mega-hit.

NewsFactor - Verizon Wireless hopes to debut its first 4G smartphone in the middle of next year, months earlier than planned, a company executive revealed Wednesday. The new handset will debut about three to six months after its Long-Term Evolution network launches, Verizon Wireless CTO Anthony Melone told The Wall Street Journal.

AP - A Georgia man who posted a video of himself on the Internet holding a sign that said "Elton John must die" has been arrested for making terroristic threats.

AP - THE GAMES: Video game software sales dropped 15 percent in February compared to a year ago to $624.4 million. "Bioshock 2" from Take 2 Interactive, which launched in February, and "New Super Mario Bros." from Nintendo were the top two sellers.

NewsFactor - Version 4.0 of the operating system for Apple's iPhone, iPod touch, and the forthcoming iPad will represent a major overhaul of the software and will feature a "full-on solution" to one long-standing gripe about Apple's devices -- their inability to multitask.

AP - SkillSoft PLC, an education software company that has agreed to be taken private, said Thursday its fourth-quarter net income fell 16 percent from a year earlier, when it benefited from a tax windfall.

AP - RadiSys Corp., a maker of servers that support wireless phone networks, said Thursday it acquired privately held Pactolus Communications Software Co. Terms were not disclosed.

PC World - A security researcher has published exploit code for the latest Internet Explorer zero-day flaw on the Web and Microsoft is warning that more attacks against the unpatched vulnerability can be expected in-the-wild. One thing seems to be more apparent with each passing Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerability: its time to upgrade the Web browser.