Articles by David Vranicar

Iceland's credentials as a progressive country are beyond reproach. The prime minister is openly gay, for starters, plus the recently rewritten constitution includes input from citizens who joined the discussion via social media Even so, Iceland is considering a ban of online pornography. Not because the country is suddenly conservative, but becau...

The European police agency, Europol, announced Wednesday that it haddismantled a Russian-led, Spain-based cybercrime organization The organization extorted millions of euros across more than 30 countries, mostly in Europe, according to The New York Times....

Iran's defense minister is going to be ticked off at the Photoshop minister A photo of Iran's Qahar 313 stealth fighter is bunk -- just like the last one, according to The Atlantic Wire....

Rembrandt Social Media is suing Facebookfor its use of the Like button, according to the BBC Rembrandt claims that Facebook's success is owed, at least in part, to patents belonging to Dutch programmer Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer, who died in 2004....

Apple, Microsoft and Adobe have been summoned by the Australian Parliament to explain why their products cost so much more in Australia than elsewhere, according to TechCrunch The tech trio was called by the House Committee on Infrastructure and Communications, which is overseeing an inquiry into why hardware and software ranging from e-books and m...

Unable to justify the operating costs, BlackBerry will not launch its newest handsets, the Z10 and Q10, in Japan -- at least not anytime soon The requirement to modify its operating system to accommodate the language influenced BlackBerry's plan to bow out of Japan, Reuters reported.

An attempted antipiracy campaign came screeching to a halt when, after just four days, the Icelandic Film and Movie organization, SMAIS, took down its Facebook page, according to Torrent Freak SMAIS apparently wanted to spur dialogue with Icelanders, but that backfired when Facebook users -- who were "fans" of the SMAIS page -- began blasting the g...

A court in Australiahas ruled in favor of Google in its lengthy legal fight with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, according to The Sydney Morning Herald The case, which lasted six years, concerned search results from 2006-07....

Microsoft announced Monday that it is teaming up with Chinese telecom Huawei to sell a low-cost, Windows-powered smartphone in Africa, which according to The New York Times is the world's fastest-growing smartphone market The phone, which will initially cost around $150, is called the "Huawei 4Afrika" and will be sold in seven countries, including ...

Apple has launched an investigation into Qihoo, a giant Chinese software company and search engine, based on concerns the app maker is violating terms of service, according to Tech In Asia Citing a Chinese-language article, the website reports that Qihoo apps were removed from Apple's App Store. Apple is also concerned that Qihoo is encouraging jai...

A user-created search engine now makes it easy to scour the new, controversial file-sharing site Mega, according to Wired Unveiled two weeks ago by Kim Dotcom, a German national living in New Zealand and wanted on a slew of charges in the U.S., Mega initially did not have a search function to scour its own content.

This game is over before it even started China's Ministry of Culture said that it is not considering lifting the nation's ban on videogame consoles, according to Tech In Asia....

Looks like Antigua's gamble paid off The World Trade Organization OK'd Antigua's request to suspend U.S. copyrights, which will allow the country to move forward with a government-run download portal that offers *copyrighted* movies, music, TV shows and software, according to Torrent Freak....

The Pentagon's cybersecurity forcealso popped up inThe New York Times' article about the expansion News of the expansion broke Sunday, but it apparentlywas approved in late 2012, perhaps not long after U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's ominous...

It is known, rightfully so, as the largest annual migration on Earth -- and the ticket lines, even on the Web, are accordingly long But there's an app for that -- a few of them, actually....

A court in Saudi Arabia declined to hear the case of Raif Badawi, a liberal blogger who was accused of apostasy, according to the BBC Apostasy,defined as the abandonment of one's faith, is a particularly grievous charge in Islam. Had it been so inclined, the court that turned down the case could have sentenced Badawi to death....

Cuba has activated an underwater cable that could alter the nation's Internet landscape -- but its impact would be greater if the cable were turned on all the way The long-awaited cable is only facilitating incoming -- not outgoing -- Web traffic, according to Internet monitoring company Renesys.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt took to Google+ to discuss his recent trip to North Korea Schmidt's Google+ post discusses the "very limited" technology available in North Korea. Schmidt said that North Koreans are not allowed to use the Internet without someone watching them, and that it wouldn't be difficult for North Korea to connect its highly res...

Google seems to have had a dustup with a donkey -- literally Images plucked from Google Street View have raised questions about whether a Google Street View car ran over a donkey in the African nation of Botswana....

Video games strive to be realistic, but this was probably too real Two game developers from the Czech Republic were released on bail after being jailed for taking photos and videos of military bases and installations in Greece, according to the BBC....