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(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

In a move that might make some privacy advocates breathe a sigh of relief, Google said late Friday that it won't be approving facial recognition capabilities in software meant for its high-tech Glass specs.

"As Google has said for several years, we won't add facial recognition features to our products without having strong privacy protections in place," the company said in a post to the Google+ page for Project Glass. "With that in mind, we won't be approving any facial recognition Glassware at this time."

As it's inched its way closer to becoming a real-world consumer product, the headline-grabbing wearable computing device has captured the imagination of the technorati, sparked the curiosity of the general public, inspired the scriptwriters at Saturday Night Live, and raised the eyebrows of the privacy-minded.

Earlier this month, several members of Congress sent a letter to Google to ask about privacy concerns related to Glass, including how the company will prevent Glass from unintentionally collecting data without user consent.

Here's this evening's post from Google in its entirety:

Glass and Facial Recognition

When we started the Explorer Program nearly a year ago our goal was simple: we wanted to make people active participants in shaping the future of this technology ahead of a broader consumer launch. We've been listening closely to you, and many have expressed both interest and concern around the possibilities of facial recognition in Glass. As Google has said for several years, we won't add facial recognition features to our products without having strong privacy protections in place. With that in mind, we won't be approving any facial recognition Glassware at this time.

We've learned a lot from you in just a few weeks and we'll continue to learn more as we update the software and evolve our policies in the weeks and months ahead.

The Acer DA220HQL AIO will be priced just above $400 at most resellers. Note: That's an Android -- not a Windows 8 -- screen.

(Credit: Acer)

Update: This article was originally posted on May 30 at 1:31 PM PDT.

Less Windows, more Android. Acer is about to give us a taste of this trend, as Android PCs begin to creep onto the market.

The Acer DA220HQL comes with a 21.5-inch multi-touch display 1,920x1,080 display, Android 4.0, and a Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 dual-core ARM Coretex-A9 processor.

(Note: resellers are incorrectly listing it with an Intel "Haswell" 4430 processor. See correction below).

It also includes 1GB of memory, 8GB internal storage, front-facing camera, built-in speakers, Wi-Fi, Micro-HDMI, Micro USB 2.0, and wireless keyboard and mouse.

Acer confirmed the AIO with CNET on Thursday.

Acer's new AIO system will go for less than $400 at some resellers, though most listings put it about $425. Some are higher than $425.

And that's the appeal of Android. Systems sans Windows 8 can be priced lower and require less hardware.

Updated on May 31 at 1:35 p.m. PDT: corrects processor. Though the system as listed on reseller sites was confirmed with Acer on Thursday, those specs are incorrect. Resellers are incorrectly showing the AIO with an Intel 4430 processor. It is a Texas Instruments 4430 ARM chip.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

(Credit: Activision)

Yet this is precisely what the Los Angeles Police Department confronted late Thursday night when officers stormed the building of game studio Robotoki. The LAPD, guns draw, faced off with a gun-wielding, very human-like replica of a soldier Simon "Ghost" Riley from Robotoki's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 -- that and a very startled Robert Bowling, the company's president, who happened to be working late that night.

You might think that the looming presence of a life-like gunman was what inspired the LAPD to raid the building. But actually, it was the result of an unknowing employee mistakenly hitting the panic button of the office's newly installed security system, according to gaming news site Polygon.

Bowling told the publication that the employee hit the button, saw that nothing happened, and left. How does Bowling know this? Thanks to one of the office's security video cameras.

Reports had circulated earlier Friday that the raid was the result of a "swatting" attack, a prank that involves calling 911 with the goal of having a SWAT team show up at a certain location. But those reports were mistaken, Polygon said.

Ghost's days as the inspiration for office decor may be numbered.

[Via Polygon]

A detailed analysis of the bead shows it meteorite origin.

(Credit: Open University)

There have been plenty of far-out theories about otherworldly alien visitations of the ancient Egyptians, especially those involving aliens building the pyramids. That's all a load of bunk, but at least now we have a real scientist-approved story involving ancient Egyptians and objects from space.

Strings of unusual iron beads were excavated from a burial site near Cairo in 1911. The beads date back to around 3300 BCE. It took more than 100 years for scientists to conclusively sort out what they are made from. As it turns out, they are fashioned from meteorites.

Some scientists had already hypothesized that the beads were extraterrestrial in origin, but others thought them to be early attempts at smelting. Researchers from the Open University and The University of Manchester have now confirmed that a bead from the Gerzeh cemetery is, indeed, from a meteorite.

The bead was analyzed using an electron microscope and an X-Ray CT scanner. The study has been published in the Meteoritics & Planetary Science journal under the title "Analysis of a prehistoric Egyptian iron bead with implications for the use and perception of meteorite iron in ancient Egypt."

"Today, we see iron first and foremost as a practical, rather dull metal. To the ancient Egyptians, however, it was a rare and beautiful material which, as it fell from the sky, surely had some magical/religious properties," says study co-author Joyce Tyldesley, senior lecturer in Egyptology at The University of Manchester.

In this age of Swarovski crystals and man-made diamonds, the Gerzeh bead doesn't look flashy, but its origin story is as beautiful as they come.

With a project called Portable Native Client now making its way into Chrome and potentially onto the Web itself, Google is violating its own principles for its Blink browser engine, a Mozilla programmer said Friday.

Portable Native Client, or PNaCl, is a Google technology to let Web apps run specially created software at nearly the speed of the native apps that run on operating systems like Windows or iOS. It plugs into the browser with an interface called Pepper.

Mozilla representatives have been frosty toward Native Client for years, but one programmer, Robert O'Callahan issued a new criticism Friday, arguing that the Blink programming team's admirable Web standards principles take a back seat to Google's priorities with Chrome overall.

"Unfortunately it appears Blink's principles only apply to Blink, not Chrome as a whole," O'Callahan said in a blog post. "I'm sad, because this seriously undermines the value of the Blink team's good intentions; a Google team that doesn't want to be a good Web citizen can probably find a way to be "not Blink" and run roughshod over the Blink team's good work."

CNET contacted Google for comment and will update this post with its reply.

Google has been developing PNaCl, its less flexible predecessor called Native Client, and Pepper for years, but it has yet to win over any other browser maker about the merits of the approach. The technology is geared for programmers who want to bring C and C++ software such as videogame engines or audio decompression software to Web apps. (Native Client, has the same abbreviation, NaCl, as table salt, whose chemical composition is sodium chloride. Salt, naturally, is paired with Pepper.)

O'Callahan voiced his concern because of two recent Google moves.

The first move was the creation of the Blink browser engine underlying Chrome, a Google change that was accompanied by the publication of principles for deciding what new technologies to add to the browser engine. The second move was the announcement May 15 that Chrome 29 would have PNaCl built in, albeit disabled by default. And unlike how Google treats NaCl, which is only available in apps downloaded through the Chrome Web Store, Google said Chrome will run any PNaCl apps on the Web.

"Once PNaCl is fully released, users will be able to run PNaCl modules on any Web page -- applications will not need to be deployed through the Chrome Web Store in order to run PNaCl modules," Google said in an announcement

O'Callahan argued PNaCl violates Blink principles to favor technology standardized and supported by multiple browsers; to avoid technology that risks compatibility problems that mean Web sites don't work on any browser; and when a technology poses a compatibility risk, Google will propose a draft standard of the technology.

"None of this is happening for PNaCl and Pepper," O'Callahan said.

Mozilla has been developing a technology called ASM.js that accomplishes some of what PNaCl does -- provide a way to C and C++ programmers to bring their code into browsers. Unlike Native Client, though, it doesn't add a new foundation for running Web-based software to the Internet.

Instead, ASM.js relies on programming tools, notably Mozilla's own Emscripten, to convert C or C++ to a special subset of JavaScript, the universal Web programming language. Browsers than are optimized to run this subset of JavaScript particularly fast. Google has shown interest in ASM.js, but adopting one need not necessarily mean avoiding the other.

Speck brings its usual assortment of cases to the GS4.

(Credit: Speck Products)

Editors' note: This post was updated May 31, 2013, with two new products from M-Edge and iSkin.

iPhone owners have always had a variety of cases and covers to choose from, but the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4 are among the few ultrapopular Android smartphones that have spurred cottage industries of cases and covers.

In boiling down the best of what's currently out there, I tried to provide a good mix of well-designed, affordable cases with more-expensive models that offer some unique attributes.

One thing to watch for when buying cases these days is that you can come across pricier products from better-known brands that sell under unknown brand names for much less (yes, factories in China are churning these out and the same reference designs appear to be available for purchase for whomever comes along and buys them).

While higher-end cases tend to cost from $30 to $50, perfectly good cases can be had for less than $10 shipped.

Of course, when it comes to protective cases, personal taste is a big factor (and plenty of people don't bother with them), and we may have missed a few that you think should have been included. We'll be updating this list as more products arrive, so feel free to make any suggestions or criticize our picks in the comments section below.

Click on any image below to start the slideshow. (Products are listed in alphabetical order).

Twitter platform director Ryan Sarver said today that he is leaving the company. Twitter is already looking to fill his position.

In a tweet sent today, Sarver announced his departure, saying that after four years at the social-networking giant, he is leaving on June 28. He has "no plans but rest."

Sarver's soon-to-be-vacant position is a big one. In the job listing Twitter has posted for director of platform partnerships, the company noted that "the Twitter platform has matured into a diverse range of partners that integrate Twitter into applications, devices, and Web sites. We need your help to build an international team who will drive great partner experiences for these new platform products."

As the Director, Platform Partnerships, you will lead the team of platform relations managers, developer advocates, platform growth managers, and partner engineers on a global basis. You will work cross-functionally with a variety of different teams within Twitter such as product, engineering, analytics, sales and business development. You will be leading a team focused on driving the success and adoption of Twitter's most important platform products such as Twitter Cards, Twitter for Websites, Twitter APIs, Ads API, the Vine Platform, our mobile platform and much more. You and your team will think deeply about Twitter integration opportunities and possibilities across a wide range of verticals and partners.

Twitter had no additional comment about Sarver's departure or its plans for the role.

Lifeproof's $80 Fre case is the leading waterproof case for iPhone 5, but it has several competitors.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Waterproof smartphone cases used to be bulky, ungainly contraptions, but they've been trimming down lately.

That said, building a truly waterproof case is not easy (a waterproof case is defined as one that can be fully submerged underwater for at least 30 minutes). Often there are tradeoffs in creating a waterproof design, the biggest of which usually involves access to the headphone jack on your phone. They also tend to be pricey, usually costing more than $50.

In boiling down the best of what's currently out there, I tried to provide a good mix of well-designed cases with a few more affordable options that are step up from a Ziplock bag.

Click on any image below to start the slideshow. (Products are listed in alphabetical order).

(Credit: LinkedIn)

Following Twitter's lead, LinkedIn introduced two-step verification as an optional security feature members can use to protect their accounts.

LinkedIn's new security measure emulates the two-step verification process of other sites and requires members to input a code, sent via SMS, when logging in from an unrecognized device for the first time.

"Most Internet accounts that become compromised are illegitimately accessed from a new or unknown computer," LinkedIn director Vicente Silveira wrote on the company blog. "When enabled, two-step verification makes it more difficult for unauthorized users to access your account, requiring them to have both your password and access to your mobile phone."

The update follows a similar addition from Twitter, where high-profile members are often the frequent targets of hacking exploits. But LinkedIn has been far from a safe haven. Last year, the company was publicly embarrassed when it fell victim to hackers who managed to get access to millions of passwords that were then posted online.

Enabling two-step authentication should make it more difficult for hackers to access your LinkedIn account, but it's not an impenetrable system, as CNET senior reporter Seth Rosenblatt explains in his FAQ on the log-in system.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Well, that was quick.

Days after LG confirmed that it will release a white version of its <"http://reviews.cnet.com/lg-nexus-4/">Nexus 4 in the U.S. and U.K. after an initial launch in Hong Kong, T-Mobile reported that it will sell the model starting today online for a limited time only.

The black model will still be available in retail stores.

The new coat of paint is only applied on the battery door, while the phone's bezel remains the same stark black.

Other than that, the handset will not change. It will feature a 4.7-inch screen, an 8-megapixel camera, and a quad-core processor.

For a better look at the white Nexus, be sure to check out CNET's slideshow below.

Development of the long-standing alternative browser Camino has been cancelled.

Camino was one of the first alternative browsers for OS X, developed using the Gecko engine. Starting initially under the name Chimera, it offered a number of optimizations over Apple's Safari browser, and an alternative to Firefox before Chrome even existed.

Yesterday the browser's development team announced that Camino would no longer be developed, citing an inability to keep up with the fast pace of Web development, and encouraged Camino users to look to other browsers to maintain a secure and fast Web experience:

After a decade-long run, Camino is no longer being developed, and we encourage all users to upgrade to a more modern browser. Camino is increasingly lagging behind the fast pace of changes on the web, and more importantly it is not receiving security updates, making it increasingly unsafe to use.

Fortunately, Mac users have many more browsers to choose from than they did when Camino started ten years ago. Former Camino developers have helped build the three most popular - Chrome, Firefox, and Safari - so while this is the end of Camino itself, the community that helped build it is still making the web better for Mac users.

Thank you to all our loyal users, and to everyone who contributed in countless ways over the years to make Camino what it was.

While no longer in development, the latest builds of Camino are still available for download from the Camino Web site.

Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or !

Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.

Don't worry, this big boy isn't on a collision course.

(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

An asteroid the size of a small town, and its smaller satellite "moon," are zooming past Earth this week, and you can watch on Friday afternoon as binary asteroid "1998 QE2" reaches its closet point to Earth for the next 200 years.

The 1.7-mile-long asteroid and its smaller satellite, which was just discovered this week, will come closest to Earth around 2 p.m. PT, but will still safely stay about 15 lunar distances away from us.

The stream of NASA TV embedded below will show live telescope shots of QE2, beginning at 10 a.m. PT Friday:

BlondeChell's ingenuity at finding low-cost solutions to bring her dream to life, as well as her attention to detail, have resulted in a space any Portal fan couldn't help but love.

(Credit: BlondeChell)

Some videogame worlds are just incredible. From Hyrule to Columbia, from the instant you set (virtual) foot inside, you'd be happy to stay there forever.

Although the Aperture Science laboratories aren't necessarily on the same scale, the world and backstory of Portal are rich, and the character of Chell so full of possibility and strength, that we couldn't blame anyone for wanting to spend more time there.

Especially a fan who goes by the Reddit handle BlondeChell. After acquiring her own home where she could do whatever she liked, her penchant for interior decorating and Portal led her to create her very own Portal-themed room.

But not just any old slapdash affair.

"I spent hours searching on the Internet, looking to see if anybody else had done a Portal-themed bedroom yet," BlondeChell said. "And while they had, and there were some cool ones, most of them either erred on the side of 'Too video-gamey-looking' or 'Not Portal enough.' So I issued myself a challenge: to design a Portal-themed bedroom that while obviously Portal, would also be designed well enough a non-gamer would still look at the aspects and go 'Hey, that's a really neat-looking room!' rather than 'What's up with all the weird stuff on the walls?'"

In all, the project took many months, including hand-creating various elements, acquiring props such as Portal guns and turrets, and having a friend, electronics engineer Steve Gilbertson, help build actual real portals (well, almost) to hang on the walls.

Although BlondeChell said she didn't want the room to be too "videogamey," we think the result is unmistakeably Portal -- looking like it was sucked right out of the screen and into real life.

Like what you see? Head on over to BlondeChell's Portal bedroom Web page to see how you can make one for yourself.

(Source: Crave Australia)

(Credit: Marbly)

Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov has launched a new game designed exclusively for mobile devices.

Dubbed Marbly, the title is available for both Apple's iPhone and iPad. The game's description in Apple's App Store says that it's an "easy to get, but tricky to master real puzzle game" It comes with over 180 puzzles that users must work their way through.

Pajitnov has been developing games for decades, but he's best known for creating Tetris -- the massive hit for Nintendo's Game Boy.

Marbly is available now as a free download in Apple's App Store. It's not clear whether the title will come to Android.

(Via Pocket-lint)

(Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)

The man who discovered how to grow bacteria in a small dish is the subject of the latest Google Doodle.

Julius Petri, who would've turned 161 years old on Friday, May 31, created the laboratory place-setting that bears his name. Working as an assistant to bacteriologist Robert Koch in the 1870s, Petri developed the process of applying bacteria cultures onto a dish to see how they grow. Such a process paved the way for researchers to learn which bacteria were responsible for different diseases.

The interactive Google Doodle simulates how little beasties progress through their formative moments in an actual Petri dish.

Clicking on the Play button among the array of dishes in the doogle triggers a hand that swabs all the dishes with a dose of bacteria. After watching the cultures grow, you can hover over each dish to reveal the source of the bacteria, including a stinky sock, a door knob, a PC keyboard, a dog's tongue, soil near a plant hit by rain, and a sponge.

(Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)

The man who discovered how to grow bacteria in a small dish is the subject of the latest Google Doodle.

Julius Petri, who would've turned 161 years old on Friday, May 31, created the invention that bears his name. Working as an assistant to bacteriologist Robert Koch in the 1870s, Petri developed the process of applying bacteria cultures onto a dish to see how they grow. Such a process paved the way for researchers to learn which bacteria were responsible for different diseases.

The interactive Google Doodle simulates how things would grow in an actual Petri dish.

Clicking on the Play button among the array of dishes in the doogle triggers a hand that swabs all the dishes with a dose of bacteria. After watching the cultures grow, you can hover over each dish to reveal the source of the bacteria, including a stinky sock, a door knob, a PC keyboard, a dog's tongue, soil near a plant hit by rain, and a sponge.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom.

(Credit: 3News)

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has won another one.

A New Zealand court on Friday ruled that the warrants used by law enforcement officials to raid Dotcom's home in 2012 were illegal. Therefore, the court said, police is required to provide copies of all evidence it deems relevant in its prosecution of Dotcom for alleged piracy. Anything that is deemed by the court to not be relevant must be returned to Dotcom.

Until now, Dotcom's defense attorneys did not have access to the seized evidence. According to Reuters, which earlier reported on the story, the attorneys believed that there were at a disadvantage because they didn't have access to all of the materials that prosecutors did.

The U.S. is trying to extradite Dotcom to its shores to charge him for operating Megaupload -- a site the government claims, committed wide-scale piracy. Dotcom has been able to sidestep those extradition requests, though a hearing on the matter is scheduled for August.

According to a report from January 2012, $42 million in assets were seized from Megaupload and Kim Dotcom. It's not clear how much of that will be returned to him.

(Credit: Jay Greene/CNET)

Hon Hai is trying to expand beyond its role as a parts supplier to tech companies by devoting more research into display panels.

The company announced today that it will set up a new R&D center in Japan to focus on display and touch panels, according to Reuters. Any new technologies created at the center will be used for consumer, commercial, and medical products, Hon Hai said.

The new Japanese center will mark the company's third R&D facility in Asia, following one in Taiwan and another in China. Hon Hai said it plans to consolidate technical resources among the three centers.

"We choose Japan to build the display R&D center because it has the proximity to the Sakai plant and it is the hub for our display business," Hon Hai spokeswoman Laura Liu said, according to Reuters.

Also known as Foxconn, Hon Hai has gained a name for itself by supplying parts to Apple and other large technology firms. But with margins in the component manufacturing business relatively low, the company has been seeking other avenues for generating revenue.

(Credit: CNET)

Android has upped its lead in the growing Chinese smartphone market.

Google's mobile OS reached a milestone at the end of the first quarter as it gobbled up a 51.4 percent slice of all smartphones owned in China, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said on Friday. That figure showed a gain of 2.8 percent over the fourth quarter of 2012.

Among all Android vendors, Samsung proved the fastest growing with a 15.2 percent share among Chinese smartphone owners. And Kantar expects more growth on the way.

"Samsung has recently launched the Galaxy S4, selling over 10 million units globally in less than one month," Craig Yu, consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said in a statement. "We predict the launch of Galaxy S4 Mini in the not too distant future will greatly increase its product reach in urban China."

Nokia's Symbian took the No. 2 spot in China last quarter with a market share of 23 percent, down 2 percent from the prior quarter. As Nokia phases out its older mobile OS, Kantar expects Symbian to drop to third place sometime in the next two quarters. Apple's iOS came in third with a 19.9 percent share.

Smartphones in general continue to see heavier demand among Chinese buyers. Smartphone ownership reached 42 percent in China last quarter, up 1.2 percent from the prior quarter. Much of that growth came from owners of feature phones upgrading to smartphones. Almost half of feature phone owners who changed their devices last quarter opted for a smartphone.

"Feature phones are losing their price advantage as Android smartphones are rapidly becoming more affordable and delivering better value," Yu said. "We expect to see accelerated smartphone adoption in China in the coming months."

(Credit: Getty Images)

A federal judge has ruled that Google must comply with the FBI's warrantless requests for confidential user data, despite the search company's arguments that the secret demands are illegal.

CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco rejected Google's request to modify or throw out 19 so-called National Security Letters, a warrantless electronic data-gathering technique used by the FBI that does not need a judge's approval. Her ruling came after a pair of top FBI officials, including an assistant director, submitted classified affidavits.

The litigation taking place behind closed doors in Illston's courtroom -- a not-open-to-the-public hearing was held on May 10 -- could set new ground rules curbing the FBI's warrantless access to information that Internet and other companies hold on behalf of their users. The FBI issued 192,499 of the demands from 2003 to 2006, and 97 percent of NSLs include a mandatory gag order.

It wasn't a complete win for the Justice Department, however: Illston all but invited Google to try again, stressing that the company has only raised broad arguments, not ones "specific to the 19 NSLs at issue." And she reserved judgment on two of the 19 NSLs, saying she wanted the government to "provide further information" prior to making a decision.

NSLs are controversial because they allow FBI officials to send secret requests to Web and telecommunications companies requesting "name, address, length of service," and other account information about users as long as it's relevant to a national security investigation. No court approval is required, and disclosing the existence of the FBI's secret requests is not permitted.

Because of the extreme secrecy requirements, documents in the San Francisco case remain almost entirely under seal. Even Google's identity is redacted from Illston's four-page opinion, which was dated May 20 and remained undisclosed until now. But, citing initial filings, Bloomberg disclosed last month that it was Google that had initiated the legal challenge.

While the FBI's authority to levy NSL demands predates the Patriot Act, it was the controversial 2001 law that dramatically expanded NSLs by broadening their use beyond espionage-related investigations. The Patriot Act also authorized FBI officials across the country, instead of only in Washington, D.C., to send NSLs.

EFF's separate challenge

Illston, who is stepping down from her post in July, said another reason for her decision was that she did not want to interfere while the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing the constitutionality of NSLs in an unrelated case that she also oversaw.

In that separate lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of an unnamed telecommunications company, Illston dealt a harsh blow to the bureau's use of NSLs.

EFF had challenged the constitutionality of the portion of federal law that imposes non-disclosure requirements and limits judicial review of NSLs. Illston ruled that the NSL requirements "violate the First Amendment and separation of powers principles," and barred the FBI from invoking that language "in this or any other case." But she gave the Obama administration 90 days to appeal to the Ninth Circuit, which it did on May 6.

Neither the FBI nor Google responded to requests for comment. (In March, Google began publishing summary statistics about NSLs it received, making it the first major Internet company to do so.)

These aren't the first cases to tackle whether NSLs, including gag orders, are constitutional or not. In a 2008 ruling (PDF), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a mixed decision.

A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit took an odd approach: the judges agreed "that the challenged statutes do not comply with the First Amendment," but went on to rewrite the statute on their own to make it more constitutional. They drafted new requirements, including that FBI officials may levy a gag order only when they claim an "enumerated harm" to an investigation related to international terrorism or intelligence will result.

Illston's decision in the Google NSL case said the FBI had submitted "classified" evidence "intended to demonstrate that the 19 NSLs were issued in full compliance with the procedural and substantive requirements imposed by the Second Circuit."

That includes classified declarations submitted by Stephanie Douglas, executive assistant director of the FBI's national security branch, and Robert Anderson, assistant director of the counterintelligence division at FBI headquarters.

A 2007 report by the Justice Department's inspector general found "serious misuse" of NSLs, and FBI director Robert Mueller pledged stricter internal controls. Mueller has called the investigative technique invaluable.

This illustration imagines a world where robots can kill autonomously.

(Credit: Russell Christian for Human Rights Watch)

When you think of killer robots, you probably imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger running around in a leather jacket and sunglasses, or even ED-209 from "Robocop" causing all kinds of damage. Those sorts of mechanical menaces from film are turning out to be the subject of some real concern in the actual world.

A month ago, Human Rights Watch launched a campaign aimed at stopping killer robots. "Urgent action is needed to preemptively ban lethal robot weapons that would be able to select and attack targets without any human intervention," the organization said in a release.

Now, Christof Heyns, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, is on the anti-killer-robot bandwagon. He is concerned about lethal autonomous robots (LARs) that could make life and death decisions without the intervention or explicit command from a human. Imagine a drone with a Terminator mindset, and you'll see why he's worried.

A lot of this talk about killer robots is preemptive. So far, the world hasn't created armies of electronic Schwarzeneggers to go against each other, but warfare has become an increasingly digital affair with long-distance weaponry, attack drones, and remote surveillance. Perhaps it's time to stamp out potential killer robots before they stamp us out instead.

It sure sounds like science fiction, but it's not much of a stretch to imagine a weaponized drone with software that recognizes human forms and fires against them. Are you concerned that killer robots could become a real threat in the future, or are you writing this off as a baseless worry? Vote in our poll and chat about it in the comments.

(Credit: CNET)

Android has upped its lead in the growing Chinese smartphone market.

Google's mobile OS reached a milestone at the end of the first quarter as it gobbled up a 51.4 percent slice of all smartphones owned in China, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said on Friday. That figure showed a gain of 2.8 percent over the fourth quarter of 2012.

Among all Android vendors, Samsung proved the fastest growing with a 15.2 percent share among Chinese smartphone owners. And Kantar expects more growth on the way.

"Samsung has recently launched the Galaxy S4, selling over 10 million units globally in less than one month," Craig Yu, consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said in a statement. "We predict the launch of Galaxy S4 Mini in the not too distant future will greatly increase its product reach in urban China."

Nokia's Symbian took the No. 2 spot in China last quarter with a market share of 23 percent, down 2 percent from the prior quarter. As Nokia phases out its older mobile OS, Kantar expects Symbian to drop to third place sometime in the next two quarters. Apple's iOS came in third with a 19.9 percent share.

Smartphones in general continue to see heavier demand among Chinese buyers. Smartphone ownership reached 42 percent in China last quarter, up 1.2 percent from the prior quarter. Much of that growth came from owners of feature phones upgrading to smartphones. Almost half of feature phone owners who changed their devices last quarter opted for a smartphone.

"Feature phones are losing their price advantage as Android smartphones are rapidly becoming more affordable and delivering better value," Yu said. "We expect to see accelerated smartphone adoption in China in the coming months."