Stories by John P. Mello Jr.

Facebook's latest privacy blunder is just the latest in a long line of SNAFUs for the world's largest social network. Here are some of the social network's greatest privacy faux pas.

Sony Ericsson announced today that it's cutting the cord with the Symbian operating system, a move that may put the platform on life support. Sony Ericsson's withdrawal of support for the mobile OS means that the only major player left building phones for the platform is Nokia, which is currently in troubled financial waters.

After a UK exec spilled the beans, Microsoft officially announced that it will be releasing a tool to allow phones running its Windows Phone 7 software to sync some content with Apple Macintosh computers. The official announcement lacked the promise of a tweet made earlier by the exec that Microsoft was preparing a full-blown version of its Zune software for the Mac.

The economy isn't the only thing that goes through cycles. Hype, believe it or not, is cyclical, too, according to the analysts at Gartner, who today released their 2010 Hype Cycle report. Technologies closing in on the "Peak of Inflated Expectations" are the 4G wireless standard and 3D flat panel TVs.

As it warned us last week, Twitter launched another scheme today to exploit its 200 million users for advertising purposes. In addition, it took some baby steps toward smoothing relations between itself and third-party developers.

Microsoft's Windows Live Essentials 2011, is ready for prime time. Microsoft announced Thursday it's consumer focused suite of free applications, has moved from testing mode (beta) to the final release. The productivity suite is Microsoft's flagship bundle of Web-based productivity apps for managing and sharing images online, editing video, and sharing documents and files between PCs.

We can browse in bookstores. We can browse the web. And now we can browser Facebook.

Amazon today released a new version of its Kindle e-book reader app for smartphones running the Android operating system.

Google on Monday announced that it will introduce versions of Google Docs for tablets running both the Android and Apple iOS4 mobile operating systems.

It takes more than an exclamation point at the end of your name to create excitement. Maybe Yahoo! is finally waking up to that. At least there were signs of it at the company's press event held today at its headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Twitter's update to its homepage, that stresses community and multimedia content, is a welcome change to the staid site. Of course, when you impose order and elegance to Twitter's current lackluster homepage, you're going to get more kudos than questions. Still, you'll be hard pressed to find a dissonant voice in the chorus of opinion about the redesign of world's favorite micro-blogging site.

More and more Americans are downloading applications for their mobile phones, and even if they don't know what to do with them, the programs are becoming an important part of the technology world of cell phone users.

Leaving the house this weekend? Telling all your Facebook buds about it? You might want to reconsider that.

With the frothing anticipation usually reserved for an Apple press event, the Web has been buzzing in recent days about an announcement Wednesday by Google that will change search as most people know it.

HP has sued its former CEO Mark Hurd, claiming his new position as president of Oracle "has put HP's most valuable trade secrets and confidential information in peril."