Features

• The social network wars are over. The winner: email!

  With every new social network and social service, with every new instant and not-so-instant way to communicate, email rises in importance. Columnist Mile Elgan explains how innovation has transformed email into the best social network.

• Despite Schmidt's timeline, Google may ship Glass in 2013

  Just a month after a top Google executive said Glass wouldn't be officially released for another year, sources say the computerized eyeglasses actually should ship by the end of this year.

• State social media privacy laws a mixed bag for businesses

  New social media privacy laws that have been enacted in several states around the country, or are in the works, present something of a mixed bag for businesses.

• Opinion: More innovation means less control. Is that bad?

  Innovation in mobile computing, search and social media increasingly means taking control away from users, but at what cost?

• Analytics boost social marketing efforts

  Big-name companies including General Electric and Best Western are maturing their social marketing programs and integrating social metrics with back-end systems.

• SOPA blowback, and other tech predictions for 2013

  The most controversial tech issue taken up by the outgoing Congress was, by far, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Here's the outlook for legislation for the next Congress.

• Worst security snafus of 2012

  The first half of 2012 was pretty bad - from the embarrassing hack of a conversation between the FBI and Scotland Yard to a plethora of data breaches - and the second half wasn't much better, with events including Symantec's antivirus update mess and periodic attacks from hactivists at Anonymous.

• Women in IT: How deep is the bench?

  Superstar women lead IT at some of the biggest global corporations, yet the path to the top isn't clear for the next generation.

• Can the US military fight a war with Twitter?

  Students at a U.S. military graduate school in California are mining social media with new methods that may change the way the armed forces collect intelligence overseas.

• Apple iOS: Why it's the most secure OS, period

  In June 2007, Apple released the iPhone, and the device quickly took off to become a major brand in the smartphone market. Yet when the iPhone shipped, security on the mobile operating system was nearly nonexistent. Missing from the initial iOS (then called iPhone OS) were many of the security features that modern-day desktop software has as a matter of course, such as data-execution protection (DEP) and address-space layout randomization (ASLR). Apple's cachet lured security researchers to test the platform, and in less than a month, a trio had released details on the first vulnerability: an exploitable flaw in the mobile Safari browser.

• Who’s using Twitter? Some surprising answers

  Eight percent of online Americans may use Twitter, as the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported on Thursday. But does that mean your small business should use the service in its marketing and communications efforts?

• Twitter 2.0: Not just for narcissists

  Using Twitter is like being trapped in an elevator with someone who has a severe case of attention deficit disorder and just consumed three pots of truck-stop coffee.

• Google's Realtime Search update does what Twitter won't

  Searching for status updates is not Twitter's forte, so leave it to Google to make its own Realtime Search engine more powerful instead.

• Goodbye Kin, Sidekick and 'social phones'

  If there's any correlation between the recently killed Kin and discontinued T-Mobile Sidekick -- aside from Microsoft having a hand in both discontinued phones -- it's that they tried to distinguish themselves from both high-powered smartphones and simpler feature phones.

• Skeptical shopper: Enhanced advertising in augmented reality

  Have you ever found yourself in an unfamiliar city with no clue about where to go and what to see? What if you could just hold up your phone, snap pictures of your surroundings, and discover interesting local restaurants and landmarks? With augmented-reality apps, you can do just that. But advertisers are jumping on the trend as well, so the same application that reveals intriguing potential destinations might also bombard you with ads for nearby fast-food chains. Can augmented reality actually be useful for consumers, or is it simply another way for corporations to get a hand in your wallet?