Google debuts $250 laptop -- the Chromebook

Google laid out the next step of its Chromebook effort on Thursday by introducing a thin, light, Samsung-built laptop attached to a killer number — $250.

"It's the best laptop that's ever been designed at this price," said Sundar Pichai, who oversees Google's Chrome browser, OS and product teams. "We assume that you have a Windows machine in your home, or maybe a Mac. This isn't built to replace those machines but instead be an additional computer." The same way a tablet or smartphone are for many today.

American history unfolds in 'Assassin's Creed 3'

History, we are told, is immutable. What has happened cannot be changed and, when lessons are not heeded, is doomed to repeat itself.

The entertainment industry, however, has been known to tamper with our historical memories, changing them to fit a story or to create an entirely alternate version of history.

Hate illegal robocalls? FTC offers $50,000 to help stop them

During election season, phones across the country ring with more unsolicited, automated calls than usual. So it's especially timely that on Thursday the U.S. Federal Trade Commission held a Robocall Summit to "explore innovations designed to trace robocalls, prevent wrongdoers from faking caller ID data, and stop unwanted calls."

Backyard Brains: On neuroscience and cockroach legs

Neuroscience may not be for everyone. But Backyard Brains co-founder Greg Gage hopes to make it a little less intimidating and a lot more accessible.

Gage believes that basic neuroscience research is the answer to curing many of the most devastating neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Internet providers to begin warning customers who pirate content

It is about to get a bit more difficult to illegally download TV shows, movies or music online.

A new alert system, rolling out over the next two months, will repeatedly warn and possibly punish people violating digital copyrights. The Copyright Alert System was announced last July and has been four years in the making.

Hundreds of social media messages from around the world were received by CNN for Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani teen activist attacked last week by the Taliban in retaliation to her outspoken efforts to educate girls.

If unable to see the messages below, please click here.

Apparently This Matters: $10,000 BBQ sauce

The silliest thing I ever purchased on impulse through eBay was a signed photo of the late Jerry Orbach from NBC's "Law & Order." Which, I suppose, really isn't all that silly.

He was an American television icon, and I was proud to have Detective Briscoe framed and mounted near my toilet. Above Orbach's signature he wrote, "Best of Luck."

Social media users rally to find a #Rabbit4Nic

Stuart Henshilwood is a South African father of two (and, in the interest of full disclosure, my former boss).

His 9-year-old son, Nic, recently had his thyroid and some lymph nodes removed after a lump was found in his throat and cancer was suspected.

Man behind 'Jailbait' posts exposed, loses job

An internet troll reviled for his pornographic posts on Reddit and recently revealed as a middle-aged software programmer told CNN that he made "a huge mistake."

For years, 49-year-old Michael Brutsch hid behind the online screen name "Violentacrez," creating hundreds of subforums on the user-generated website, such as "Rapebait," "Incest," "Pics of Dead Kids," "Choke a Bitch," and "Rape Jokes." "Violentacrez" has been banned from the site several times, although Brutsch still maintains a separate account.

Apple vs. Samsung: A peace treaty

On an historic autumn day in 2012, online warriors from both sides of the epic Apple-Samsung feud agreed to set aside their powerful smartphones and resolve their tensions, which had grown intolerable. What follows is the HTML version of their agreement, the Cupertino-Seoul Apple-Samsung Fanboy Treaty.

Conciliatory Treaty

Isis mobile wallet will finally launch next week

In the crowded mobile payments space, a major player is about to make a long-awaited debut.

Isis, a mobile commerce network founded by three of the nation's biggest wireless carriers -- Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500), AT&T (T, Fortune 500) and T-Mobile -- will launch in its first two cities, Austin and Salt Lake City, on Monday, October 22. It's partnering up with major retailers including Foot Locker (FL, Fortune 500), 7-Eleven, McDonald's (MCD, Fortune 500) and Sports Authority.

Ahead of Windows 8, Microsoft posts flat sales

As Microsoft prepares to launch Windows 8 -- a product it hopes will be transformative -- the company posted financial results on Thursday showing that its sales are treading water.

PC sales have been woeful, dragging Windows revenue down 9% during the quarter. Windows sales typically stall ahead of an anticipated new product launch, and Microsoft is gearing up for a massive one: Windows 8 and Surface, the first PC tablet of the company's own design, will go on sale Oct. 26.

Google's stock falls 8% after grim earnings come out early

Google accidentally announced its third-quarter earnings about four hours early, and it wasn't good news.

The company missed analysts' estimates on both sales and profit. Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) shares slumped on the news before being halted for about 3 hours. The stock resumed about 40 minutes before the end of the trading day and closed down 8%.

AMD announces job cuts amid declining PC sales

Chipmaker AMD announced Thursday that it was cutting 15% of its workforce, with declining PC sales sending its revenues sinking.

The company said the cuts, expected to be completed by the end of the year, should save roughly $20 million in the fourth quarter and $190 million next year. The announcement came as part of AMD's third-quarter earnings release, which showed sales fell 25% versus a year ago.

Verizon sold just 651,000 iPhone 5s last month

 Verizon sold 3.1 million iPhones last quarter, only 651,000 of which were the new iPhone 5.

The nation's largest wireless carrier blamed Apple's iPhone 5 supply constraints, not weak demand, for the surprisingly low number of iPhone 5s sold in their first week on store shelves. The highly anticipated smartphone went on sale on Sept. 21, only 10 days before the end of the third quarter, yet Wall Street analysts were still expecting an iPhone 5 sales number almost twice as high as the one Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) actually reported.

A bra that could detect cancer

Bras can do miraculous things these days (thank you underwire). But can they detect cancer?

That's the claim for First Warning Systems new bra, equipped with a series of sensors embedded in the cups that pick up temperature changes in breast tissue and, says the Reno, Nev.-based company, provide a thermal fingerprint that can alert doctors to the presence of malignant cells.

Apple loses UK tablet design appeal versus Samsung

Apple has lost its appeal against a UK ruling that Samsung had not infringed its design rights.

A judge at the High Court in London had originally ruled in July that the look of Samsung's Galaxy Tab computers was not too similar to designs registered in connection with the iPad.

He said at the time that Samsung's devices were not as "cool" because they lacked Apple's "extreme simplicity".

Foxconn admits using underage interns in China

Foxconn Technology Group -- the world's largest electronics manufacturer and supplier to companies like Apple, Samsung and Microsoft -- admitted that interns as young as 14 worked at one of its Chinese plants.

"An internal investigation carried out by our company has confirmed media reports in China that some participants in the short-term student internship program that is administered at our campus in Yantai, Shandong Province are under the legal working age of 16 years," the company said in a statement. "This is not only a violation of China's labor law, it is also a violation of Foxconn policy and immediate steps have been taken to return the interns in question to their educational institutions."

Social world thumbs through 'binders full of women'

Forget serious discussion about the future of America. On social media -- from the snark-centric world of Twitter to the picture's-worth-1,000-insults pages of Tumblr -- it's an ill-timed slip of the tongue that fires folks' political passions.

And Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney served up a doozy Tuesday night with a weird turn of phrase that instantly launched "binders full of women" into the Internet's lexicon.

5 e-mail habits you should avoid

Unless you are a shiftless layabout, you're probably going to have to e-mail someone more important than you during the course of your lifetime: a boss, a professor, President Barack Obama (if you're a confused elderly person and you think those campaign e-mails he and Beyoncé are always sending are actually addressed to you).

Twitter blocks content of German neo-Nazi group

Twitter will withhold content from a neo-Nazi account at the request of German authorities, the first time it has put into action a policy of local censorship it adopted in January and a step that will probably reignite debate over freedom of expression on the Internet.

Alex Macgillivray, Twitter's general counsel, tweeted the company's decision Thursday: "We announced the ability to withhold content back in Jan. We're using it now for the first time re: a group deemed illegal in Germany."

Verizon sold just 651,000 iPhone 5s last month

Verizon sold 3.1 million iPhones last quarter, only 651,000 of which were the new iPhone 5.

The nation's largest wireless carrier blamed Apple's iPhone 5 supply constraints, not weak demand, for the surprisingly low number of iPhone 5s sold in their first week on store shelves. The highly anticipated smartphone went on sale on Sept. 21, only 10 days before the end of the third quarter, yet Wall Street analysts were still expecting an iPhone 5 sales number almost twice as high as the one Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) actually reported.

Why Facebook should pay you for your personal info

The social network's users willingly supply Facebook with deeply personal information, including likes, dislikes, their close associates, politics, religion and relationship status, just to name a few. That means Facebook is sitting on a treasure trove of data -- an advertiser's dream.

Yet the company hasn't been able to turn that potential gold mine into actual gold. Predominately through advertising sales, Facebook (FB) makes just $1.28 per user each quarter, compared to the $7 Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) makes on each of its users. The company's stock is worth half of what it was when it first started trading in May, mainly because of investors' fears that Facebook lacks a clear path to increasing the revenue it makes off of its subscribers -- despite having more than 1 billion of them.

AOL unveils Alto, an email service that syncs 5 accounts

AOL, struggling to shed its outdated image, is reimagining one of the most visibly aging parts of its platform: Its email service.

Alto is a new web-based email service that syncs up to five email accounts through a highly visual system -- and you don't even need an AOL address to use it. It's designed to minimize "inbox fatigue": those seemingly endless email threads, daily deal notifications and newsletter subscriptions most of us have strewn across multiple accounts.

Why Apple will never bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.

At the end of Tuesday night's presidential debate, CNN's Candy Crowley asked both candidates a question that has plagued Apple since the beginning of the year.

"IPad, the Macs, the iPhones, they are all manufactured in China, and one of the major reasons is labor is so much cheaper there," Crowley said. "How do you convince a great American company to bring that manufacturing back here?"

Funniest tweets on the second presidential debate

Every debate seems destined to have a break-out meme. In the first round, it was Big Bird. This time it was Mitt Romney's binder full of women, which instantly became a trending hashtag, Twitter handle, a Facebook group and a Tumblr. (Talking about his effort to hire women for his cabinet, Romney said "And I brought us whole binders full of, of women.")

Bindersfullofwomen.com snapped up in 90 seconds

To cash in on a pithy election sound bite, you have to move fast. The domain name bindersfullofwomen.com was snapped up less than two minutes after the instantly viral phrase left Mitt Romney's mouth on Tuesday night.

The speed race winner was American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic super PAC. The group's biggest funder is hedge fund billionaire George Soros, who made a $1 million donation earlier this year.

Microsoft Surface tablet goes on sale for $499

The Microsoft Surface tablet picture has abruptly come into focus. Tuesday morning this Redmond giant filled in the blanks on the new tablet's pricing, availability and specs.

Starting today at 9 a.m. PT, consumers can preorder Microsoft's upstart 10.6-inch tablet at Surface.com, with prices starting at $499 for the 32GB model and $699 for the 64GB model. Both tablets are Wi-Fi only.

A123 files for bankruptcy

Battery maker A123 Systems, a one-time darling of the U.S. electric car industry and recipient of millions in government funding, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday.

The filing highlights the controversy over federal subsidies for "green energy" companies that has been a part of the 2012 presidential campaign.

Intel sales sink as PCs slump

Weak PC sales finally caught up to Intel, dragging the chipmaking giant's sales and profits lower in the third quarter.

Back-to-school sales typically boost computer demand in the late summer, but a weakening global economy and consumers' shift to tablets cut PC demand to half its third-quarter norm, Intel said. The company's PC chip sales fell by 8% last quarter, in-line with the overall global PC market.

IBM sinks on sales miss

Tech giant IBM posted third-quarter earnings Tuesday in line with expectations, though shares sunk in after-hours trading as the company reported a dip in sales.

The Armonk, N.Y.-based firm's revenue slipped 5.4% versus a year ago, coming in at $24.75 billion. Earnings per share, excluding special items, were $3.62.

Apple announces likely iPad mini event on Oct. 23

Apple announced Tuesday that it has scheduled an event for Oct. 23, at which it is widely expected to introduce a smaller version of the iPad, dubbed the "iPad mini."

The "iPad mini" is believed to be a seven-or-so-inch tablet with a sub-$300 price tag. Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) current iPad lineup starts at $399 for the year-old iPad 2 and $499 for the third-generation iPad, both of which have a near-10-inch screen.

Microsoft Surface priced at iPad-like $499

Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled pricing for its Surface tablet, which will go on sale on Oct. 26.

The tablet -- Microsoft's first PC of its own design -- will start at $499 for a 32-gigabyte version, making good on Microsoft's promise in June that Surface would be priced "comparably" to other tablets on the market. The $499 price point is also the entry-level cost for the iPad, though that price will only get you 16 GB of storage on Apple's tablet.

The tech behind the Stratos jump

As high-tech reality TV goes, it's hard to top Sunday's riveting leap from the stratosphere by Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner.

It took courage and skill, to be sure. But the technology required to get a guy well on his way to outer space, then allow him to plummet safely back to Earth, deserves some credit, too.

Car battery maker A123 files for bankruptcy

Electric car battery maker A123 Systems filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday, after the company said it expects to default on debt payments.

The company had $459.8 million in total assets and $376 million in debt as of Aug. 31, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Tuesday.

Facebook 'likes' Republicans

Facebook has spent $140,000 "friending" Republicans this year.

As the social media company prepares to influence policy, Facebook's political action committee has raised a sizable amount of money. It has doled out more to Republicans, $140,000, compared with $127,000 to Democrats through the end of September, according to a CNNMoney review of federal records released Monday.

Amazon to hire 50,000 seasonal workers

It's only October, but companies like Amazon are already thinking about the holidays. The online retailer is the latest to announce its seasonal hiring plan, and it's significant: 50,000 jobs in the United States

Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) currently employs 20,000 people at its 40 fulfillment centers across the country, where the seasonal employees will be placed. The company said it expects thousands of seasonal workers to stay at Amazon in full-time positions after the holidays are over.

Amazon and Apple customers to get credits for price-fixed e-books

Amazon and Apple have informed some e-book buyers that they'll receive credits for future book purchases, as part of a recent settlement three major publishers signed to settle a price-fixing lawsuit.

Eligible Kindle e-book customers will receive credits ranging from 30 cents to $1.32 per book, Amazon estimated. Apple did not specify a range.

'SNL' mocks iPhone 5 gripes

"Saturday Night Live" has added a little perspective to users' gripes about the new iPhone.

In a biting sketch on Saturday's episode, Christina Applegate hosts a fake talk show in which three tech bloggers voice complaints about the iPhone 5: Its new maps are glitchy, its camera takes purple-tinged photos, its casing scratches too easily, and so on.

Google doodle celebrates 'Little Nemo' comic

The doodles that spice up Google's plain white home page keep getting more elaborate.

Web users awoke Monday to find an animated doodle atop Google's search page that commemorates the 107th anniversary of "Little Nemo in Slumberland," a pioneering comic strip by illustrator Winsor McCay. (Again, that's "Little Nemo," kids, not "Finding Nemo.")

SoftBank buying 70% stake in Sprint

Sprint Nextel on Monday said that it has agreed to sell a majority of the company to Japanese tech giant SoftBank.

The deal, worth $20.1 billion, has been mostly hailed by Sprint's investors as a path for the nation's third-largest wireless company to compete against larger rivals AT&T and Verizon. It also gives Sprint the cash necessary to avoid bankruptcy -- a situation many analysts thought Sprint could soon face if its ongoing network transformation plan didn't go according to plan.

How claustrophobia almost grounded supersonic skydiver

Of all the things Felix Baumgartner had to worry about while pursuing his dream of skydiving from 120,000 feet, the one that almost stopped him cold was ...

Claustrophobia.

"Fearless Felix" got a bit freaked out by the pressurized suit he'll wear during his ascent and, more importantly, his supersonic descent from 23 miles up -- now tentatively scheduled for Sunday or Monday. Getting over his discomfort was a key hurdle to clear as the Austrian adventurer set out to make the highest skydive ever.

Apparently This Matters: R.I.P., 'Gangnam Style'

It was cute for a while. We had some fun. And a few Americans even learned to locate South Korea on a map. (I think it's near Pittsburgh.)

But now it's time for all of us to come together and stop the madness. Thus, let it be known that I hereby declare October 12, 2012, as the day "Gangnam Style" died.

Sorry, folks. We're done. It's officially no longer a thing. Psy seems like a really good dude, and I hate to have done this to his song, but this morning I slowly walked "Gangnam Style" out into the backyard, thanked it for the good times and shot it.

Cash-strapped millennials curate style via social media

When she's not working her day job at a used bookstore, Brittany Jasper spends most of her time perusing consignment stores, yard sales and flea markets for clothing and accessories.

She's not really brand-loyal, since she can't afford the ones she likes at full price, "but secondhand isn't so bad." Instead, she tends to gravitate toward whatever fits her style and budget, which could be a pair of lightly used Banana Republic chinos one day or a vintage oversized tunic and tangerine leggings the next.

Google Street View adds 250,000 miles of roadways

With fallout still swirling from Apple's decision to replace Google Maps with its own mobile mapping, Google on Thursday announced the biggest upgrade ever to its Street View tool.

The update adds more than 250,000 miles of roadways in 17 countries, said Ulf Spitzer, Google's Street View program manager, in a blog post Thursday.

The Street View feature on Google Maps lets users see a real-world, 360-degree view of locations. Showcasing Google's global reach, the new coverage areas include parts of Macau, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Canada and the United States.

Softbank could play Sprint's savior

Sprint Nextel's seven-year nightmare may soon be over. The nation's third-largest wireless carrier confirmed Thursday that it is in talks with Japanese technology giant Softbank to sell at least part of the company.

Sprint (S, Fortune 500) has struggled to keep up with stronger competitors Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) and AT&T (T, Fortune 500) ever since its disastrous 2005 merger with Nextel. The company is up to its eyeballs in debt, undergoing an expensive -- and late -- transition to 4G-LTE, and losing contracted customers in the wake of its decision to ditch the Nextel brand. With smaller rival T-Mobile entering into an agreement to buy MetroPCS (PCS, Fortune 500) earlier this month, Sprint is feeling the heat of stronger competition from all sides.

Google awards $60,000 prize for Chrome hack

Google is one of a growing number of companies to offer a "bug bounty" to hackers who can find security issues in its products -- and on Wednesday, a teenager scored the top $60,000 prize for uncovering a vulnerability in the Chrome browser.

It's the second time that the hacker, a teenage male who goes by the handle "Pinkie Pie," has taken home Google's money. Google fixed the problem with a software update about 10 hours after the bug was exposed, congratulating Pinkie Pie on "another beautiful piece of work."

Google search for 'completely wrong' yields page of Romney photos

To the amusement of Mitt Romney's critics, a Google Image search for the phrase "completely wrong" on Wednesday returned a page nearly full of images of the Republican presidential candidate.

A Google spokesman said the gallery of photos is the unintentional result of normal Google analytics, which produce images associated with popular phrases in news headlines and search terms, and not the result of any effort to skew the results.

YouTube moves to be Web's cable provider

Part of the enduring appeal of YouTube is the sheer random nature of it all -- the way videos of a South Korean pop song or a doped-up kid after a dentist visit can go from obscure to internationally known in a matter of days.

But increasingly, the Web's leading video site has also been working to become the Internet's cable provider, mixing channels of its own original content, often in partnership with established stars, into the mix.

Slingbox releases two new devices for watching TV anywhere

The way we watch TV is changing. People want to decide when, where and on what screen they watch their favorite shows.

One of the simplest tools for viewing your shows from any device is the Slingbox, which is releasing two new models of its popular TV-streaming tool.

The Slingbox is a device that streams content from cable and satellite providers to mobile devices and computer, allowing you to watch whatever is playing on your