Technology

Can't log into Skype? You're not the only one. Millions of Skype users around the globe found themselves unable to log onto the chat service Wednesday, with Skype acknowledging in a tweet that "some of you may be having problems … Full Story »

Santa's just a few days away, but there's still time to snag some enticing deals on some of the hottest smartphones of the year. One of the most enticing Android handsets of 2010 has also remained stubbornly expensive — until … Full Story »

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Micron Technology said it expects lower pricing for NAND memory chips but pointed to signs of improvement as demand for the chips used in smartphones, tablets and solid-state hard drives grows. Full Story »

Skype, the low cost/no-cost Voice on the Net service used on desktop computers as well as on apps for the iPhone and Android devices, took a dive yesterday, leaving millions of calls dropped or disrupted. Today, it is gradually returning to normal. Full Story »

2011 will be another big year for smartphones in China, putting access to the Internet in the hands of more Chinese and making mobile computing widespread among those who can't afford a laptop. Full Story »

We just posted a Black Ops parody, but the news doesn’t end there. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick spoke with CNN about the insane popularity of the newest Call of Duty game, which he claims is so popular it is on par with common activities like texting and Facebooking. “More people play Black Ops every day than watch Jay Leno, David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon, combined,” Kotick gloated. “The audience of Call of Duty is probably greater in terms of size … than in any other interactive form of entertainment.” 60 percent of all Xbox Live traffic comes from Call of Duty games, he added. Full Story »

Call of Duty: Black Ops is so hot right now. The shooter has grossed $1 billion in less than two months and gamers have logged more than 600 million hours since its Nov. 9 release. So popular, in fact, that a group of gamers have already spoofed the game, creating a real-life version of Black Ops. Yesterday, YouTube user “Freddiew” uploaded the parody, which shows us what future first-person shooters may look like. The video has unusually high production values and captures the game better than almost any parody we’ve seen. Even the weapons and poses look authentic. These guys are fans. Check it out below. Full Story »

Skype has started to recover from the outage that started Wednesday and lasted throughout the night, but its problems are still far from resolved. Full Story »

Remote and Dictionary.com are a pair of apps that, if you haven’t downloaded them, you should immediately. They both have free versions and are great to have on your iOS device. More recently, they each have just received big updates to make them even more useful. We feature both today in our Fresh Apps list below, so check them out, then get downloading. Full Story »

NEW YORK/BANGALORE (Reuters) - Rovi Corp will pay $720 million in cash and stock to buy Sonic Solutions, which owns the popular digital video player software DivX, in a bid to broaden its footprint across the digital entertainment space. Full Story »

Teradata will pay $525 mil for privately held cloud-based market ing software firm Aprimo. The enterprise data storage company expects Aprimo's 2010 revenue to hit $80 mil, with long-term sales growth in the high teens. Teradata fell 2.2%. Full Story »

BOSTON (Reuters) - Lookout Mobile Security, a provider of antivirus software for mobile devices, has raised $19.5 million in funding from a group of investors led by Index Ventures. Full Story »

OpenBSD development lead Theo de Raadt says that he believes a government contracting firm was hired to write back doors into communications and encryption technology, but that those back doors, if written, did not make it into the OpenBSD code base. However, he is still encouraging contributors and users of the open source project to audit the code to look for any problems—and a few other issues have been uncovered. Full Story »

Today's Fresh Android Apps features a widget that might help you to better juggle your demanding online social life, and another for your Android homescreen that will help you to burn off all that holiday ham. What more can you ask for on the eve of Christmas eve? Full Story »