MI-80

After being ordered by a federal judge on Tuesday to stop selling its Mac clones, Psystar was reported to be going out of business, according to a Dow Jones Newswires story on Thursday. Psystar's Web site was also inaccessible late this week.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-10418821-260.html...

McDonald's announced that it is going to provide free Wi-Fi access starting in January 2010 at 11,000 McDonald's locations across the nation. It's about time.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/184939...

Microsoft closes The Noughties by trying to keep up with competitors and to remain a top destination for developers by embracing cloud computing and open source. It opened the decade with another massive platform shift, though: the introduction of .NET.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/17/dot_net_noughties/

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a police department violated the constitutional privacy rights of an employee when it inspected personal text messages sent and received on a government pager.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/us/15scotus.html?_r=3

It's still not called the "Google Phone", but the Nexus One - to be made by HTC - is as close as I think we're going to get. The WSJ cites sources familiar with Google's plans and says that Google has designed this handset and plans to sell it directly to consumers, unlocked.

http://www.wiseandroid.com/NewsItem.aspx...

The Ohio Supreme Court said Tuesday police officers must obtain a search warrant before scouring the contents of a suspect's cell phone, unless their safety is in danger.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/15/us/...

Operation Chokehold - a flashmob-style protest against AT&T that began as a joke on Fake Steve’s blog — looks like it may actually take place.

http://www.cultofmac.com/operation-chokehold-is...

Barely weeks after its launch, Barnes & Noble’s Android-based Nook e-reader has been hacked and ‘rooted’ (root, or full system access, has been obtained). A loose team of hackers reported the work on their wiki, Nook Devs.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/nook-torn...

McAfee's December spam report suggests that while antivirus and antispyware vendors continue to improve their security software offerings on a daily basis, hackers are still taking advantage of America's technology and fascination with pop culture to spread their spam.

http://www.esecurityplanet.com/features/article.phpr...

Microsoft Thursday announced a broadening of its licensing program around its exFAT file system, which is designed to handle large multimedia files.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/121009-microsoft...

AT&T talks the talk about Net neutrality, but don't believe it: The big carriers have a different idea

http://www.infoworld.com/t/regulation/atts-net-neutrality...

Five months after it first announced coming privacy changes this past summer, Facebook is finally rolling out a new set of revamped privacy settings for its 350 million users. The social networking site has rightly been criticized for its confusing privacy settings, most notably in a must-read report by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner issued in July and most recently by a Norwegian consumer protection agency. We're glad to see Facebook is attempting to respond to those privacy criticisms with these changes, which are going live this evening. Unfortunately, several of the claimed privacy "improvements" have created new and serious privacy problems for users of the popular social network service.

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For a technology that's all about being fast, 802.11n Wi-Fi sure took its sweet time to become a standard.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9141692/802.11n_Fast_Wi_Fi_s_long...

Problems with li-ion batteries are still not going away. Packard Bell, a well-known maker of personal computers, on Wednesday announced that it would recall batteries contained in certain notebooks made in 2007 since those computers can catch fire because of their lithium-ion accumulators.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/monitors/display/20091209120904_Packard_Bell_Recalls...

The retail giant Westfield is considering introducing controversial face recognition technology at its Penrith shopping centre in Sydney's west.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/no-place-for-crooks-to-hide-20091208-khqk.html

Google's first search engine let people search by typing text onto a Web page. Next came queries spoken over the phone.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/08/google.goggles/index.html

Apple has sent a clear message to any developers who try to game its iTunes App Store. Software developer Molinker has been kicked out, along with more than 1,000 of its iPhone applications.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/apple-expels-1000-apps-from-store-after-developer...

After a long wait, Google has finally released the first official beta release of Google Chrome for Mac. This being a beta release, it is not yet entirely on par feature-wise with the Windows version, but in return Mac users get a browser that is very well integrated with Mac OS X. Update The Linux beta is out too! More here.

http://www.osnews.com/story/22589/Google_Chrome_for_Mac_Beta...

Companies with Twitter accounts are becoming more and more popular as time passes. Microsoft, Google, and even us here at Neowin use it, to help spread announcements & news. Dell, however, uses it to drive sales, and so, the company has apparently pulled in $6.5M in revenue because of it.

www.neowin.net/news/main/09/12/09/dell-pulls-in-65-million-in-revenue-thanks-to-twitter

The first external builds of Mac OS X 10.6.3, the next incremental update to Apple's Snow Leopard operating system, should arrive this week, AppleInsider has been told.

www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/12/08/apple_preparing_first_betas_of_mac_os_x_10_6_3.html