If consumers like the new Windows 7 operating system, they'll have the much-maligned Windows Vista to thank. In part, that's because Windows 7 actually builds on the under-the-hood changes that came with Vista. But, it also turns out that the vast headaches created by Vista were just what the PC industry needed to improve their cooperation. With consumers lukewarm to Vista and many businesses shunning it entirely, both Microsoft and the computer makers realized that the standard way of business ...

A Pennsylvania soccer mom was chatting with a friend via webcam when she was shot to death by her husband, who then went upstairs and shot himself, police said Friday. Meleanie Hain, 31, made national headlines last year as the mother who carried a loaded, holstered handgun to her 5-year-old daughter's soccer game. She was found dead in her Lebanon, Pennsylvania, home along with her husband, Scott Hain, 33, on Wednesday evening, Lebanon police said. Hain was ...

Gary McKinnon, the hacker who broke into Pentagon and NASA computers, was at risk of suicide Friday after losing an effort to fight extradition to the United States, his attorney said. "This is the wholesale destruction and bullying of a small individual by the United States and now our own government," attorney Karen Todner said in a statement. McKinnon's mother Janis Sharp described her son as "suicidal." The British government did not respond. McKinnon, a British citizen, has admitted breaking ...

Amazon said it would begin selling an international version of its popular e-reader that will work in more than 100 countries on October 19. The world's largest online retailer also said it was lowering the price of the Kindle 2 in the US from $299 to $259, a move likely to spur sales ahead of the holiday season. The announcements come as the e-reader market is becoming more competitive. Sony has already introduced a line of e-book readers, and various ...

Residents of close-knit American Samoa are pulling together to help Pago Pago recover from Tuesday's devastating earthquake and tsunami, one of them told CNN on Wednesday. "That's how we operate over here in American Samoa -- basically everyone is related," said iReporter Maneafaiga T. Lagafuaina, 29, of the town of Lu'uuli. "And I know, at this time, especially with what American Samoa has experienced, we have pulled together as one. "Families and friends from both ends of the island have ...

Google Wave, a product that promises to revolutionize online communication, will go out to about 100,000 beta testers Wednesday. The Web application from Google Inc. combines elements of e-mail, chat, Wiki documents, blogs and photo-sharing sites to create a form of Internet communication called a "hosted conversation," or a "wave." Google demonstrated Wave at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, California, in May. The closed group of beta testers will help Google fish bugs ...

The Web application from Google Inc. combines elements of e-mail, chat, Wiki documents, blogs and photo-sharing sites to create a form of Internet communication called a "hosted conversation," or a "wave." Google demonstrated Wave at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, California, in May. The closed group of beta testers will help Google fish bugs out of the application before a public release by the end of the year, according to the Google ...

They were crimes born of the Internet age -- romantic solicitations on popular Web site Craigslist that police say led to the fatal shooting of one woman and the robbery of another in Boston hotels this past spring. And it was high-tech, 21st-century sleuthing, along with some old-fashioned gumshoe detective work, that put police on the trail toward a suspect and eventually an arrest. CNN's Randi Kaye recently took a behind-the-scenes look at how technology was used to lead ...

Oliver Yeh is the kind of guy who cooks up ideas so kooky, so out-of-this-world, that even his fellow MIT students tend to roll their eyes when they hear them. But that never stops him. His latest concept -- to launch a camera into near-space using a weather balloon, a cell phone, hand warmers and a drink cooler -- fell flat when he sent out an e-mail message to dozens of his classmates, asking for help. Unfazed, Yeh managed to ...

As millions of students across the world go back to school this month, 178 students from 49 countries will turn on their computers and step onto the virtual campus of the world's first global, tuition-free online university. Called University of the People, the non-profit, California-based endeavor comes from Israeli entrepreneur Shai Reshef who says he founded the school to provide higher education to those who might otherwise never have access to it. "Our mission is to change people's ...