Internet Computer Network

More airlines are allowing passengers to check in for their flights using their cellphones and other mobile devices so they can avoid long lines and save time. Singapore Airlines passengers can now check in for any flight from anywhere in the world using their mobile phones. They can even change or select a seat. Later the airline plans to allow passengers to book tickets and view schedules, features that Southwest Airlines recently added to its mobile tool.

The human race seems to be falling for the space aliens' devious scheme: We're watching more television than ever, according to a report released Monday. If you've seen that Hulu.com commercial starring Alec Baldwin, you know that TV is a plot devised by aliens to turn our brains into mush so they can scoop them out and eat them. Computers, the ad says, are making our brains even mushier by giving us more places to watch TV. The Nielsen Co.'

The nervous woman in a gray suit clicked on a photo lineup on an overhead screen labeled "Jihadi Martyrs." It flashed to mug shots of men with names like Abu Issa, an Al Qaeda recruiter, and Abu Jabber, a trainer. A man in one photograph was pointing a machine gun. "They are all me," said the blond mother from Montana, speaking before an audience of computer experts, law enforcement agents and investigators at the first International Conference on Cyber Security, held last week in New York.

A plan by Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp. to ensure that people who watch TV on the Web are already cable-TV subscribers faces several hurdles, including the technical -- a workable encryption system -- and the political -- whether consumers will view it as an attempt to wall off free content.

Liberals were disgusted when Sarah Palin warned that President Obama wanted "death panels" in his healthcare overhaul. They called it a deliberate deception and a despicable tactic. But the term went viral. And now two groups that favor the legislation, including Obama's own grass-roots organizing network, are trying to turn the phrase to their benefit. Search Google for "death panels," and often an ad headlined "Death Panel Myth" will appear. It directs users to a "Setting the Record Straight" page on the barackobama.

Robotics expert Robert Finkelstein has had a company in the field for nearly a quarter of a century without controversy. He never paid attention to blogs, didn't have a company website until last year and never felt the need to issue news releases about his work. That is, until blogs and news sites feasted on his EATR project. EATR, for Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, is a robotic ground vehicle that Finkelstein's small company is designing with U.S.

The Web is a great place to freeload. But that could be changing. In the latest example of fees being introduced for a service that once came with no strings attached, Eastman Kodak Co. says it'll begin charging $4.99 to $19.99 annually for its previously free online photo-storage service, Kodak Gallery. If you don't pay by May 16, the company warns, all your photos could be deleted.

The number of Americans with fast Internet connections continues to swell even as the nation's economy lumbers along at dial-up speed. The U.S. broadband adoption rate rose to 63% of adults as of April, a nearly 15% increase from a year before, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. The adoption rate grew even though the price of home broadband increased, the study found.

This promises to be the Silent Spring for big print media. Already this year we've lost the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Dozens of other papers have been driven to the brink by double-digit losses in circulation and print advertising revenue and an overburden of untenable corporate debt. My beloved L.A. Times, owned by the bankrupted Tribune Co.

About half of California's low-income households have no Internet access, the California Emerging Technology Fund says, creating a gap that the nonprofit is hoping to close with its $1.5-million Get Connected campaign debuting in Boyle Heights today. Financial constraints and a misunderstanding of technology are the major factors causing this "digital divide," said Sunne Wright McPeak, the fund's chief executive.