Nearly three-dozen computer scientists have signed off on a court brief opposing Oracle's effort to copyright its Java APIs, a move they say would hold back the computer industry and deny affordable technology to end users.

Privacy advocates are pushing the U.S. Congress to rein in the U.S. National Security Agency's efforts to collect massive amounts of data from U.S. residents, as alleged in recent news reports.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has issued an angry formal response to a proposed set of HTML5 standards from the World Wide Web Consortium, saying that stringent digital rights management technology will be harmful to online freedom and prevent many users from getting access to important content.

The company that owns a U.S. patent for podcasting is confident the patent will stand up to a challenge initiated this week by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

A 1996 podcasting patent is in the crosshairs of two digital rights groups, which are hoping the public will help them get the patent invalidated.

Last week Gen. David Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, resigned in response to what has turned out to be a much bigger scandal than it first appeared.

Well, that was fast. Do-it-yourself electronics kit maker and hobby retailer Adafruit recently announced that a hacker had won the company's Open Kinect Bounty. Spain-based hacker Hector Martin Cantero, who is known online as "marcan," released a proof-of-concept video Wednesday night showing the Kinect interfacing with his Linux-based laptop.