Gadgetory

it's Wednesday January 18 2012 I'm Bridget Carey on sina com and it's time to get loaded some of the web's most popular websites like Wikipedia craigslist even Google have modified their home pages today to protest the SOPA bill encouraging visitors to write to their representatives to kill the bill SOPA short for Stop Online Piracy Act was created to stop rogue websites from stealing copyrighted material its controversial because it gives the US government broad power to say what should be censored on the web Wikipedia is blacked out for all of wednesday in protest but you can get around the blackout by searching for a cached version of a Wikipedia topic through google and if you're looking for humor you also find several web comics I'm joining the blackout like the oatmeal com yahoo co founder jerry yang has resigned from the company he built 17 years ago and has given up his seat on the board of directors many have wanted him to resign after yahoo rejected microsoft's 47 billion dollar bid to buy yahoo it's been reported that yang was one of the biggest opponents to the bid not wanting to see the company he created be sold All Things D is reporting that more board members could soon follow yang out the door yang said in a statement quote the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo there's been a recent increase of iphone sales compared to android in the US according to research from nielsen a folks who got a new smartphone in the past three months about forty-five percent said they chose an iphone compare that to october when only twenty-five percent got an iphone android still holds the overall lead about forty six percent of smartphone owners use androids but the recent rush of iphones show the gap could be closing alienware launched its new x51 slim tower pc the starting price for the small form factor gaming desktop is 699 available for purchase today the customizable system sold by parent company dell includes intel's core i3 i5 or i7 series processors and Vidya GT and GTX graphics cards and 7.1 digital audio output ailee we're known for its powerful beast size desktops has never before sold a slim tower desktop the shopping tech of mara has been on display the national retail federation conference in New York City this week I got to scope out the show floor yesterday and some of the more visionary highlights includes self checkout lanes that don't require you to scan a barcode it knows what you bought by the look of the box until showed off touchscreen vending machines that show nutritional information of your Oreos or whatever snack you pick and it can also detect the agent sex of a user for promotional purposes and later this year some stores will use Microsoft Kinect cameras to let you try on clothes in a virtual dressing room and then you could just ask your Facebook friends if it makes you look fat those are your headlines for today I'm Bridget Carey for sina com and you just been loaded