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The central issue in Oracle's Java copyright/patent case against Google, which has been lost after a million-and-one interpretations of the case over the last two years, remains this:  If Company #1 implicitly grants Company #2 the right to use technology that #1 created and owns, to the extent that it's perfectly fine with #2 copying portions of that technology for its own purposes without seeking explicit permission first, does that implied consent transfer to Company #3 when it acquires Company #1?  The interim answer, issued by a jury in U.S. District Court in San Francisco today, appears to have been, "It depends."

If you've wondered why so many companies are eager to control data storage, the answer can be summed up in a simple term: data gravity. Ultimately, where data is determines where the money is. Services and applications are nothing without it.

Today's theme is growing up cyborg. We hope that technology will usher in the next phase of human development, but our cyborg adolescence is a little bit awkward.

What will we be when we grow up?

The jury in the copyright case between Google and Oracle has returned a split, partial verdict as to whether Google infringed on Oracle’s copyrights of Java and its APIs. Are computing languages copyrightable? The answer is not exactly clear cut.

With huge, futuristic, "smart glass" windows, colorful LED lights, and big TV screens, Boeing's new 787 'Dreamliner' isn't just a new plane, it's a great new gadget for passengers.

Late last month, Japan Airlines launched the first 787 route to the United States, from Tokyo to Boston. Come along for the journey and see what it's like inside Boeing's newest, high-tech airplane.

After closing a $70 million deal last week, Evernote announced today that it has acquired the handwriting app Penultimate, the fourth-best-selling iPad app of all time. Penultimate fans don't have to worry; when Evernote buys apps, they stick around. Evernote lovers should be excited to add this one to the family. Here's why.

Google has announced today that Hangouts On Air are going worldwide. That means any Google+ user who wants to stream live video to the whole world can do so. Hangouts have always been the killer app for Google+, and this announcement makes them into a truly new broadcast medium. Here's how to get started.

Spotify gets praise for a lot of things, but user experience design is typically not one of them. It's not that its desktop and mobile applications are hideous. They're perfectly functional, but few would describe them as beautiful or especially enticing to use. 

However, with its new iPad app, the music subscription service signals a new direction in terms of how its apps look and feel. It's a much-welcomed shift. 

As Managing Director of T2 Venture Capital, a Silicon Valley venture firm that helps build “innovation ecosystems” around the globe, Victor Hwang knows quite a lot about what it takes to create an environment where high-tech startups can grow and thrive.

In fact, it’s the subject of his new book - The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley, with co-author Greg Horowitt. We asked Hwang to share some of those insights:

Here’s a statistic that may make you do a double take: Pinterest (which is still in beta) sends more referral traffic than Twitter despite having a user base only seven percent as large as the microblogging service's numbers. That was one of the findings in a study released last Wednesday by Eloqua as part of a product launch, which also found that Pinterest is responsible for as much referral traffic as Facebook despite having just 1% of the user base of the social media heavyweight.

Taken together, it’s just more proof that Pinterest is the next [insert name of big Web 2.0 success story], at least in terms of referral traffic, although we may have to wait a while before we know if Pinterest can actually generate revenue. But does referral traffic mean you should push your brand on Pinterest, post haste?

The software venture that switched to a dog-walking service. The dating site that morphed to data storage. The e-commerce play that transformed itself to make board games. We’ve seen them all.

Actually, we’re lying. We just made them up. But you get the picture: There are times in the life of a startup - especially in its early life - when change is necessary.

Editor's note: This is the second story in a three-part series by Alex Korth on privacy. Read the first post: On Privacy in Social Networks: What Drives Users?

Most of the time, providers of social networks are commercial enterprises. Developing, bootstrapping and running a social network comes with very high costs, but most services do not charge their users and instead choose different revenue streams. Unfortunately, the meanings and consequences are not questioned by many users. As Andrew Lewis famously wrote, "If you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold."

Fourth in a five-part series.

Right now you can use a service like Ning or GROU.PS to create your own social network. You can develop and launch a customized platform for little money. In short, you can be the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Or maybe not.

Over the weekend Facebook bought another mobile social app, this time a product called Glancee. One of the leading apps in a very new category known as "ambient location," Glancee and its main competitor Highlight were the most talked about apps at this year's SXSW Interactive conference in March. Highlight won the popularity contest amongst mobile phone toting hipsters at SXSW and it now has the most users of the two. However, as I discovered when I interviewed Glancee co-founder Andrea Vaccari at SXSW, Glancee's technology is superior - at least on the backend. And that is almost certainly what Facebook was after: Glancee's technology and talent.

So the big question is: what will Facebook do with Glancee?