Internet & Media

Google could announce a settlement in the long-running Street View privacy case as early as next week, according to new reports.

Bloomberg said the search giant had agreed to pay about $7 million to settle allegations that it improperly collected personal data using Street View between 2007 and 2010. Attorneys general representing 30 states have sued over the program, which the Federal Communications Commission found to have improperly collected sensitive data including e-mail, text messages, passwords, and Web history.

The parties have reached an agreement in principle, according to Bloomberg. A spokesperson told AllThingsD: "We work hard to get … Read more

Facebook has acquired the team behind storytelling platform Storylane, a blogging site akin to the likes of the slower-paced Medium.

Storylane founder Jonathan Gheller posted the news to the site today, assuring Storylane members that Facebook isn't buying any of the site's user-generated content:

The beautiful stories you have decided to share with us are yours to keep and share in … Read more

Microsoft has a vision for the future. People interact with large digital screens via voice and touch, presumably running future versions of Windows and Skype. For example, recipes are suggested based on what's in the refrigerator, and a video hosted by a professional chef walks a novice cook through the steps of making a dish. In another example, grandma can read bedtime stories to the grandkids remotely via a large screen.

The scenarios are part of a video showcasing Microsoft's new Envisioning Center, which opened this month on the company's Redmond, Wash., campus. The Envisioning Center is … Read more

Facebook is letting the third-party apps that track some of your lifestyle habits -- exercising, reading, and movie or TV-watching -- post more of your activities to the Timeline.

"We want people who use your apps to be excited about how their stories are presented in News Feed -- whether they're sharing a major life moment, like their first marathon, or something smaller, like finishing a book they were reading," Facebook engineer Dan Giambalvo wrote in a blog post to app developers.

This means if you use apps like Runkeeper, Goodreads, or Hulu, the apps can post … Read more

CBS News' Rebecca Jarvis reports on the group of 13 artists and engineers who create more than 300 Google doodles a year that live for 24 hours on Google home pages across the world.

This story originally appeared on CBSNews.com.

Windows users will get the usual round of security patches from Microsoft next Tuesday.

Among the seven fixes due to roll out March 12, four are rated critical, which means they address flaws that could let an attacker execute malware on a remote PC by steering a user to a malicious Web site or e-mail link.

The patch for Internet Explorer is designed to shore up all versions from IE6 to IE10 across all iterations of Windows from XP to Windows 8 and RT. The patch for Microsoft's Silverlight, a browser plug-in that can display online videos and other … Read more

Toss a creative challenge at CNET readers and they always step up. Yesterday, we asked for help jazzing up the above picture of Mark Zuckerberg speaking to the media at Facebook's event.

The company announced changes to its News Feed, with Zuckerberg repeatedly using the phrase "personalized newspaper" to describe the direction of the site's core feature. We thought this photo needed a bit of personalization itself, and that's where our readers came in. Zombies and superheroes, anyone? … Read more

Facebook rolled out its big News Feed news yesterday. The result is more emphasis on photos and a "following" tab that will let users actually see all the updates from pages and people that they want to, instead of relying on Facebook's mysterious algorithm to deliver posts to their attention.

If this sounds a lot like the way Twitter works, that's not a coincidence. Twitter has a reputation as a breaking news source, a place to follow the commentary as it happens. The Facebook changes could put it in a similar position. All you would do is hit up the "following" tab to watch the information flow in from your favorite sources.… Read more

Subscribers of Google's Fiber TV service who own a 3D TV and glasses can now opt to watch a couple of new channels in 3D.

Announced yesterday, Google has launched 3net and ESPN3D.

Subscribers to the Google Fiber Gigabit + TV Plan will automatically receive 3net, which will offer documentaries, family entertainment, concerts, lifestyle and cooking shows, and scripted series, all in 3D.

Sports fans who want to catch their favorite teams in 3D can grab ESPN3D for an additional $5 per month with their Gigabit + TV plan. Subscribers can call Google Fiber to sign up for ESPN3D.

Launched last July, … Read more