Internet

Asthma sufferers have long relied on inhalers for relief from wheezing or coughing attacks. But as of Dec. 31, Primatene Mist -- the only available over-the-counter asthma inhaler -- was taken off shelves because of its adverse effect on the environment. Other inhalers are available, but these require a doctor's prescription. Some people with asthma aren't happy about the change, but lung doctors and asthma specialists agree that Primatene Mist wasn't the best option for patients anyway.

NASA will provide periodic televised coverage of the SpaceX mission to the International Space Station on the Internet. Coverage can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv, now scheduled for: Thursday at 11:30 p.m. PT: Live coverage from NASA's Johnson Space Center mission control in Houston as the Dragon spacecraft performs its flyby of the space station. Friday at 11 p.m. PT: Live coverage of the rendezvous and berthing of the Dragon spacecraft to the space stationcontinuing through the capture and berthing of the Dragon to the station's Harmony node.

"Oh, you mean the guy with the 70-year-old head and the 20-year-old body-builder body? That picture has got to be Photoshopped." Dr. Jeffry Life smiles when I tell him about the general reaction I get about the famous picture of him with his shirt off, the shot that turned a mild-mannered doctor in his mid-60s into a poster boy for super-fit aging and controversial hormone replacement Appearing in medical-clinic ads in airline magazines and...

SACRAMENTO - As state leaders sweat over another possible round of cuts from schools and social services, casino operators are offering officials a cut of the action if they will legalize Internet poker in California. After two years of hearings and study, the proponents - who are also generous political contributors - say the stars may finally be aligning for them. The California Senate leader this year is co-sponsoring legislation that he hopes will put hundreds of millions of dollars into the state treasury.

If you think Bluetooth is a rare dental condition and an app is what you eat before the entree, you might not be a candidate for today's high-tech, whiz-bang smart phones. Instead, you might be happier with a mobile phone geared toward seniors. Those phones typically don't have Web-surfing capability, GPS maps and video games. Instead they have large buttons, oversized digital readouts and hearing-aid compatibility, along with a relatively simple calling plan. Although senior-friendly phones aren't new, their lower prices and variety are. A recent price skirmish among wireless companies means seniors can get an easy-to-use cellphone and cheap service to go with it, said Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy for the independent and nonprofit Alliance for Generational Equity.

Auto leasing deals abound these days, with offers that often seem too good to be true. How about a well-equipped Honda Accord for $250 a month with no down payment or any other drive-off fees? Or better yet, $199 a month for a Chevrolet Malibu? So, what's the catch? There isn't any if you know what you're getting into. There are always details. You need top-tier credit to qualify. You pay a penalty if you turn that Honda in with more than 36,000 miles. And the payment is not $250 a month because of that little matter of tax. It is more like $275, depending on where you live.

'Life is short. Have an affair." That's the slogan of the Ashley Madison dating service, a website for people who want to cheat on their partners. That's right, unlike traditional Internet dating sites -- where you're expected to say you're unattached no matter what the truth is -- Ashley Madison is honest about its duplicity. Unlike match.

BEIJING - "Beijing power struggle heralds end of China Communist Party," screams one headline. More sensational headlines purport to reveal how the wife of recently sacked Politburo member Bo Xilai poisoned an Englishman, who may have been her lover. And if that weren't enough, other stories claim that "Bo planned airline crash" and "slept with more than 100 women. " It's payback time for Chinese exiles, especially those with a printing press, television station or just a computer at their disposal.

Vertigo. For most people, the word summons images of Jimmy Stewart dangling from high places in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller by the same name. It means something else, however, to hundreds of thousands of people who experience the strange, dizzying affliction. The most common cause of vertigo, known as benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, usually can be treated with one visit to the doctor.

A small wooden cabinet went up for auction on EBay. Inside were two locks of hair, one granite slab, one dried rosebud, one goblet, two wheat pennies, one candlestick and, allegedly, one "dibbuk," a kind of spirit popular in Yiddish folklore. The seller, a Missouri college student named Iosif Nietzke, described the container as a "haunted Jewish wine cabinet box" that had plagued several owners with rotten luck and a spate of bizarre paranormal stunts.

SACRAMENTO - Legislation that opponents fear will strip the state Public Utilities Commission of its power to regulate Internet phone services in California put the commission on the spot, and it punted. For the second consecutive meeting, the commission Thursday postponed taking a stance on the proposal that would prohibit the PUC and other state agencies from regulating phone service using Internet connections. The commission, meeting in Fresno, had been expected to oppose a Senate bill written by state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima)

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal jury handed Oracle Corp. a major setback in its high-stakes copyright infringement case against Google Inc. by failing to agree on a key issue in the case. The 12-member panel concluded that Google lifted technology from Oracle's Java programming language to build its popular Android mobile software that powers more than 300 million devices, but could not reach a unanimous decision on whether Google had the legal right to do so under "fair use. " The impasse after five days of deliberation means that Oracle is unlikely to wring hundreds of millions of dollars from the search giant on copyright infringement claims.

That stereotypical image of the American teenager glued to the phone needs an update. A new study from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that 37% of Internet users ages 12 to 17 participate in video chats using such applications as Skype, Google Talk and iChat - and girls are more likely to engage in them than boys. "As more and more devices in our lives have video capabilities - as laptops and computers come with built-in video cameras, and many smartphones have cameras that allow for video chatting, for taking videos - teens are taking advantage of that," said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist with Pew Research Center.

In a move that heightened competition in online education and brought more prestige to the still-fledgling field, Harvard University and MIT announced a partnership Wednesday to offer the public mainly free Internet classes. Harvard and MIT are each donating $30 million to create a nonprofit organization, to be called "edX" that will develop an Internet platform for the classes and design new ways to teach and learn with technology, according to the two Cambridge, Mass., schools.

This month, just before the Pennsylvania primary, Mitt Romney's campaign bought a 30-second commercial on CBS-owned KYW-TV Philadelphia that ran during the station's late local news. The ad cost $1,800. That's hardly confidential information. The details of such political advertising purchases are available to anybody willing to schlep to their local television station and ask to see the public files. But now the Federal Communications Commission wants to take that same material, which is required by law to be made available to the public, out of a dusty filing cabinet and onto the Internet.

The engineers who designed the Internet focused on connection and communication, not safety and security. That's one reason hackers have been able to take surreptitious control of Internet-connected devices, cripple websites and steal valuable data. Now, lawmakers are considering whether to vastly expand the government's role in protecting Internet services and corporate computer networks against cyber attack. But while the online security threats are serious, encouraging private industry to funnel information to the government poses its own set of problems.

As TV was to radio, so the Internet is to TV. PAUL R. JACKSON Pico Rivera

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration took aim Monday at what it called "digital guns for hire," unveiling new sanctions against Syria and Iran for using the Internet, social media and other technology to track and target dissidents. The governments of those countries and some telecommunications companies working with them have used technology to "facilitate grave human rights abuses," the administration said. "These technologies should be in place to empower citizens, not to repress them," President Obama said in announcing the sanctions at a speech at the U.S.

U.S.-based companies raised $6.3 billion through 717 venture capital deals during the first quarter of 2012, an 18% decline in capital and 9% decline in deals compared with the same period last year, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. "The declines were pretty evenly spread across industries so there weren't any big winners or big losers in the quarter, but there were some surprises. Investment in consumer Internet companies fell after two exceptional investment years, while the IT industry fared well thanks to strong interest in software start-ups," said Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource.