Why does Google build apps for its rival Apple's iPhone?

Why help a key competitor? Two words: Advertising and dataThere isn't any other way to say it: Apple and Google really don't like each other. Apple CEO Steve Jobs vowed to destroy the Google geniuses behind the Android operating system for allegedly stealing the basic mechanics of the iPhone. Apple and Google-partner Samsung are constantly at one another's throats over patents. And most recently new...

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Samsung Smart TVs: The next frontier for data theft and hacking [video]

Smart TVs, particularly Samsung’s (005930) last few generations of flat screens, can be hacked to give attackers remote access according to a security startup called ReVuln. The company says it discovered a “zero-day exploit” that hackers could potentially use to perform malicious activities that range from stealing accounts linked through apps to using built-in webcams and microphones to spy on...

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Huge Wave of Google App Updates Hits iOS, Android

Google just brought iPhone and Android phone users a holiday gift. Google Maps has returned to the iPhone, this time in the form of its own separate app, while Google Currents -- the company's Flipboard-style online magazine app for Android -- received a substantial update as well.Besides the two big updates, about a half-dozen other apps for Android and Google TV received bug fixes and new features,...

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Valve Confirms New Game Console on Its Way

In an interview with Kotaku's Jason Schreier at the Spike TV Video Game Awards, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell confirmed that a "living-room-friendly PC package," designed to "compete with next-gen consoles from companies like Microsoft and Sony," will be available for purchase starting next year.What makes a PC a PCMost of the machines Newell described, which he expected "companies" would "start selling"...

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$35 Raspberry Pi computer gets its own app store

DIY developers adore the $35 Raspberry Pi and huge communities have enabled the Linux-powered computer to do cool things like emulate Super Nintendo games and run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. What’s next for the cheap computer? The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced it’s launching the “Pi Store” – an app store created in partnership with IndieCity and Velocix. Anyone will be able to download and...

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6 predicted apocalypses that never happened

We have a long history of auguring our own demiseIt's the end of the world as we know it. Again. This time it's the Mayan Apocalypse, which could supposedly see the planet Nibiru emerge from its hiding place behind the sun to crash into Earth on Dec. 21. If you're feeling nervous, take a look back at six other doomsday predictions from years past, and take comfort in knowing that no such prediction...

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Welcome to Tough Love with Starshine Roshell

Coming soon to TheWeek.com: A weekly advice column. Send us your dilemmas!Give me your confused, your aggravated, your bewildered. Send me your perplexed, your rattled, your befuddled masses yearning to breathe free.Yes indeed — I'm the new advice columnist at TheWeek.com, and I'm here to steer you right on dating dilemmas, parenting pickles, workplace woes, and every juicy quandary in between. SEE...

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Did the human hand evolve for fighting?

Apes don't throw punches. And now scientists think our ability to form an effectively clenched fist is no accidentThe question: The human hand is quite unlike the appendages of our great ape cousins. Our palms are shorter, and our fingers are long and lithe. For years, evolutionary scientists believed humans developed this way because it helped our ancestors use tools better — gripping hammers and...

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6 movies for the end of the world

If December 21 doesn't usher in the apocalypse after all, face the final curtain vicariously by watching one of these recent Hollywood filmsIf you forgot to flip the page on your Mayan calendar this month, we have some bad news. The world is coming to an end on December 21 thanks to the preordained Mayan Apocalypse. At least, that's what dubious sources have spent the past few years alleging. But...

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WATCH: The hyperactive new trailer for The Great Gatsby

Baz Luhrman's glittery take on the Great American Novel is slated to hit theaters in May 2013The trailer: Director Baz Luhrmann's visually stunning adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was originally slated for a Christmas Day release, and, although the film has been bumped to May 2013, Warner Bros. has delivered a new trailer as a form of season's greetings. (Watch the new trailer...

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