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- The International Consumer Electronics Show , the largest trade show in the U.S., opens this week in Las Vegas with a full slate of giant TVs and inventive gadgets, despite the pall of a recession hanging over the industry.

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The economic downturn will temper the normally dizzying extravaganza, and some attendees are wondering if the whole technology trade show business is past its peak. Consumer Electronics Association , which is hosting, expects the same number of exhibitors this year for the 42nd annual show, but on a slightly smaller floor space: 1.7 million square feet, or about 29 football fields. That's down three football fields from last year.

Full Story: Recession to steal some glitz from gadget show (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO - The nonprofit foundation that runs Wikipedia , the popular online encyclopedia of user-contributed articles, said Friday it has met its $6 million fundraising goal for fiscal 2008.

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With about six months left in this year's campaign, the Wikimedia Foundation said it has raised $6.2 million. A flood of donations came in after the site's founder, Jimmy Wales , posted an appeal for support in late December. The foundation said about 50,000 contributors chipped in a total of $2 million in the space of eight days, bringing the total number of donors to more than 125,000.

Full Story: Wikipedia meets $6 million fundraising goal (AP)

analog to digital television broadcasts looms and as many as 8 million households are still unprepared, but the government program that subsidizes crucial TV converter boxes is about to run out of money.

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To subsidize the converter boxes , most of which cost between $40 and $80, the government has been letting consumers request up to two $40 coupons per home. But any day now, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the arm of the Commerce Department in charge of administering the coupon program, expects to hit a $1.34 billion funding ceiling set by Congress. Now the NTIA is warning that unless lawmakers step in quickly with more funding or new accounting rules, it will have to create a waiting list for coupon requests. That would mean it could send out additional coupons only as unredeemed ones expire, freeing up more money for the program.

Full Story: Digital TV subsidy program running out of money (AP)

- Gadget blogs on New Year's Day were aflutter with word that an application called Yellowsn0w was available for those who want to unlock the iPhone 3G .

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. Way at the bottom, though, it points out that "this is all in beta and there is no guarantee of success." It follows with this note: UPDATE - I haven't been able to get it to work on two iPhone 3Gs, both with fresh 2.2 firmware and baseband. I've heard plenty of people HAVE had luck, however, so it seems to be an either/or thing. I suspect some cells aren't accepting the iPhones as valid equipment. has embraced the damn beta culture just to make the release on a cute date. It looks like the old days of solid versions are long gone by.

Full Story: Unlocking the iPhone 3G - or maybe not (CNET)

MySpace restrict photos of nursing babies. The disputes reveal how the sites' community policing techniques sometimes struggle to keep up with the booming number and diversity of their members.

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Facebook began as a site just for college kids , but now it is an online home for 140 million people from all over the world. Among the new faces of Facebook are women like Kelli Roman, 23, who last year posted a photo of herself nursing one of her two children. One day, she logged on to find the photo missing. When she pressed Facebook for an explanation, she got form e-mails in return.

Full Story: Facebook nudity policy draws nursing moms' ire (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO - The alleged ringleaders of a Chinese counterfeiting gang that sold at least $2 billion worth of bogus Microsoft Corp . software were sentenced Wednesday to prison terms of up to 6 1/2 years, in what is believed to be the harshest penalties yet under China 's tightened piracy laws.

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The punishments meted out against the 11 defendants, and announced by Microsoft Corp., could help China improve its image as a country that doesn't crack down hard enough on copyright violators, though the technology and entertainment industries still say China has a long way to go. The sentences ranged from 1 1/2 to 6 1/2 years, according to Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft . The fact that Microsoft, and not the Chinese courts, disclosed the sentences is not unusual. Lawyers are the only source of information in many cases in China because rulings often are not publicly announced. Court officials usually refuse to disclose details to reporters.

Full Story: Chinese software pirates get prison sentences (AP)

Thousands of Microsoft's Zune media players — the software company's answer to Apple Inc.'s iPod — unexpectedly conked out Wednesday and showed users an error message, prompting references to "Y2K for Zunes." The problems appeared when people tried to start up their devices.

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Frustrated users lit up Microsoft's online support forum for Zunes with more than 2,500 messages by Wednesday afternoon. Late Wednesday, the Redmond, Wash.-based company said the outage affected only the 30-gigabyte Zune models and was caused by a problem with their internal clock.

Full Story: Microsoft's Zune players freeze on New Year's Eve (AP)

GREEN BANK, W.Va. - Of all the threats to scientific research Wesley Sizemore has stymied over the years, satellites and cell phone towers don't stick in his memory quite like the possessive old hound and its treasured heating pad .

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Sizemore is an interference hunter, vigilantly pursuing stray electromagnetic signals that bedevil researchers at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory , which sits on 13,000 square miles tucked away in the nation's only radio-free quiet zone. Though buffered by ridgetops in a West Virginia mountain valley, 50 miles from the nearest town of any size, the Green Bank observatory is under an audio assault unlike any it's faced in the 50 years since Congress created the quiet zone. Wireless computers and other gadgets are cluttering the same frequencies occupied by signals from neutron stars .

Full Story: Shhh! Gadget racket threatens pulsar research (AP)

HONOLULU - President-elect Barack Obama 's top asset in pushing his agenda will not be his Cabinet secretaries or aides, but rather his online network.

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Obama's political e-mail list tops 13 million names, a digital force that the incoming White House can tap to push for his legislation, tamp down critics or bolster popular support. It's also a way for Obama to reach into every state, every city, and every neighborhood. A study released Tuesday found that a quarter of Obama voters said they would continue to work online to support the new administration. The nonpartisan Pew Internet and American Life Project also found 62 percent of Obama's voters say they would ask others to support Obama's policies.

Full Story: Obama online supporters key to pushing his agenda (AP)

So I challenged myself to avoid the driver's seat as much as possible during a recent West Coast trip , something made practical with all the online transit planners that have cropped up in recent years.

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In the old days, I'd have to track down bus schedules and maps on paper to figure out where to go. I'd have to manually determine which transfers to take and where. Even if I did, I'd worry about catching a bus in the wrong direction. The car usually won out, as my hatred of driving was far less severe than my intolerance for ending up stranded in an unfamiliar city.

Full Story: Review: Ditching car OK with Net transit planners (AP)