A businessman walking through the East Side of Manhattan Monday was startled when a three pound helicopter drone crash landed a few feet from him. The man recovered a memory card from the downed craft

New Dell Venue tablets offer the ability to connect, share, and access content with ease

WASHINGTON (AP) — The roiling debate over the U.S. government shutdown is extending to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as fed-up Americans turn to social media to register their disgust with federal lawmakers for shutting down the government.

By Esteban Israel and Alonso Soto SAO PAULO/BRASILIA (Reuters) - For tech companies in Brazil, the government's decision to target their operations in response to U.S. spying is about as smart as sending an angry email in the heat of an argument. President Dilma Rousseff's plan to force Internet companies to store user data inside the country will not fix Brazil's security concerns and could instead send costs soaring and hurt future investments in a key emerging market for companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter, industry executives and analysts say. ...

TORONTO (Reuters) - BlackBerry Ltd has drawn interest from private equity group Cerberus and at least one other investor, CNBC said on Wednesday, quoting Dow Jones, which cited unnamed sources. Shares of BlackBerry jumped as the news hit, and were up 2.5 percent at $8.11 on Nasdaq. (Reporting by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

· New Dell Venue Pro tablets offer the ability to connect, share and access content with ease

DENVER (AP) — A popular Colorado trail where a rock slide killed five members of the same family will remain closed at least until spring, the U.S. Forest Service said Wednesday.

Surprise! It turns out that people who take Microsoft’s “Bing it on” challenge don’t actually prefer Bing to Google by a rate of 2-to-1. Yale Law School professor Ian Ayres, writing over at Freakonomics, says that he and his students recently conducted their own third-party studies using Microsoft’s own “Bing it on” website to determine whether Internet users really did think that Bing retrieved better search results than Google when presented with a Coke/Pepsi-style “blind taste test.” The results, Ayres found, actually showed the opposite. “To the contrary of Microsoft’s claim, 53% of subjects preferred Google and 41% Bing (6% of results were ‘ties’),” he writes. “This is not even close to the advertised claim that people prefer Bing ‘nearly two-to-one.’

Over two-thirds of the intelligence communities civilian employees have been told to go home in the government shutdown. But is the disheartening furlough an impending disaster or a sign that the US intelligence apparatus isn't as vital as it says? Today, a spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence told Defense Tech, part of military and veteran membership group Military.com, that the NSA, CIA, and other intelligence agencies were scrambling to cover vacancies. ...

When the Xi3 Piston modular PC / game console ships this November, it'll ship like most PCs do: without a gamepad. Sadly, the in-house controller from Piston will be sold separately for a separate, undisclosed price. "There will be a future announcement about our plans for controllers," was the most that chief marketing officer David Politis would share during a brief interview this morning.

Major tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and many others have been pressuring the White House and Congress for more transparency around government requests to collect user data, but today the US Justice Department indicated its not willing to pull back its shroud of secrecy just yet. According to papers filed with the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) , the Justice Department says that it opposes requests from technology companies to reveal more information to the public about user data requests because it believes it would hurt national security. ...

By Emily Flitter NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. law enforcement authorities have shut down "Silk Road," an anonymous Internet marketplace for illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine and criminal activities such as murder for hire, and arrested its alleged owner. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday it arrested Silk Road owner, Ross William Ulbricht, 29, known online as "Dread Pirate Roberts," in San Francisco on Tuesday, according to court filings. Ulbricht, who holds an advanced degree in chemical engineering, appeared in federal court on Wednesday and a bail hearing was set for ...

New Dell Venue tablets offer the ability to connect, share, and access content with ease

New Dell Venue tablets offer the ability to connect, share, and access content with ease

The price of Bitcoin, the semi-anonymous e-currency that acts like virtual cash, is falling rapidly after the bust of underground drug marketplace Silk Road. Silk Road was by far the largest single source of Bitcoin transactions, conducting more than $1 billion worth of business exclusively in the virtual currency. Federal agents shut the site down today and arrested the man they say is behind it.

Samsung has come under fire this week for allegedly inflating the benchmark scores for the Galaxy Note 3 among other Android devices, but -- shocker -- the company is not alone in enhancing scores. AnandTech just published a ...

Ouya, one of Kickstarter's more high-profile success stories, is looking to make more of an impact overseas. The company announced plans today for its massively funded Android mini-console to be available across a wider swath of European markets. According to a report on Gamasutra, deals with select distributors are already in place and consumers in both Western and Eastern Europe should see stock appear at retail outlets by the end of October.

With the Fairfax Holdings deal all but certain, BlackBerry is reportedly drawing interest from at least two other suitors, a potentially positive note that could lead to a more favorable buyout. The Wall Street Journal reports that private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management and at least one other investor are showing interest in the struggling handset vendor. Cerberus is reportedly in the process of gaining access to BlackBerry’s private financial information, and it will then determine whether or not to make a bid. As for the other interested party, it could be none other than BlackBerry co-founder and former co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. The former executive wouldn’t confirm the news but he has apparently held talks with a number of groups, including

Light just reached one of the darker corners of the web: the FBI has seized Silk Road, a site infamous for hosting anonymized, Bitcoin-based drug and gun sales. The move follows a sting operation that also led to the arrest of site founder Ross Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) for alleged hacking, money laundering and narcotics trafficking. While the seizure isn't likely to stop online contraband purchases, it's potentially a big blow.

The inventive and modern August smart lock is inching closer to availability today. The company has begun taking pre-orders for its beautiful Yves Behar-designed product that, like the Nest thermostat, aims to reinvigorate a market that's long lacked any real innovation. August set up a reservation list shortly after unveiling its "secure, simple, and social way to manage your home’s lock," but now it's moving one step further by collecting payment information with all pre-orders. ...