Germany set to prohibit online gambling
New regulations, which take effect Jan. 1, have drawn criticism from Internet betting companies and lottery brokers.

Discover teams with Parents magazine
Like a good parent, the often-overlooked credit card company is taking a gentle and patient approach with a soft-sell campaign.

Warner Music Group in deal to sell songs online free of copy protection
Warner Music Group, a major holdout on selling music online without copy protection, caved in to the growing trend Thursday and agreed to sell its tunes on Amazon.com Inc.'s digital music store.

The Pogies: Envelope, please
Welcome to the third annual Pogie awards presentation. Formal attire is not required, but some measure of product improvement is.

The aura of Apple draws customers to its stores
The party inside Apple's store in New York, and in 203 others around the world, is one reason the company's stock is up more than 135 percent for the year.

Blogs can be an advantage for select small business
A recent American Express survey found that only 5 percent of businesses with fewer than 100 employees have blogs.

U.S. government documents to go on the Internet
The Boston Public Library's paper-based government documents collection will be hand-scanned into digital form and made available on the Internet.

Briefing: Sony to exit market for projection TVs
Sony said it would focus its resources on liquid crystal display and organic light-emitting diode technology.

Macro photography, microscopic details
With an add-on or two, digital cameras make it easier to capture close-up shots.

The experience of surround-sound speakers at Home, but without all that surround
At next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Definitive Technology will be showing off its $1,099 Mythos SSA50 array, which will go on sale in February.

It's a case. No, it's a battery. No, it's both for iphones.
The Juice Pack is a thin battery that slides onto the back of an iPhone and gives it some extra power: up to eight hours of talk time or 24 hours of music-listening time.

Recline in an easy chair and play your favorite game, no wires dangling in the way
The $129.95 system, called the Phantom Lapboard, has a rotating keyboard that moves up and down at an angle and includes a matching mouse.

A small label Printer for stickers on the spot
The Brother QL-570 Label Printer, due early next month for $99, pops out a wide variety of peel-and-stick labels with your own text and graphics.

The aura of Apple draws customers to its stores
The party inside Apple's store in New York, and in 203 others around the world, is one reason the company's stock is up more than 135 percent for the year.

Sony said Thursday that it would stop making rear-projection televisions, becoming the latest company to distance itself from a technology once seen as a promising rival of LCD and plasma displays in the flat-TV market.

Sony said it would focus its resources on liquid crystal display and organic light-emitting diode technology to address the flat-TV market, which is growing rapidly as consumers trade in their boxy tube sets for sleeker flat screens.

The company said it planned to stop making rear-projection TVs at three plants in Japan and overseas in February. Sony has lowered its global sales forecast for rear-projection TVs to 400,000 from 700,000, which is down from 1.1 million the previous year.

China said it was likely to extend regulations aimed at easing restrictions on foreign reporters beyond the Olympic Games.

China lifted restrictions that required foreign journalists to seek government permission to report outside their base city since Jan. 1.

"If practices show that it will help the international community know better about China and it is in the interests of China's efforts of reform and opening up, it is not at all necessary for us to change a good policy," said Cai Wu, minister of the State Council information office.

China remains the world's leading jailer of journalists and writers, the Committee to Protect Journalists says.

Nokia has pushed back the introduction of its N-Gage gaming service because of delays in software testing, a spokesman said, the latest blow to the Internet services ambitions of the world's top cellphone maker.

The service, together with a music shop and mapping services, is one of the cornerstones of Nokia's drive into mobile Internet services under its new "Ovi" brand.

Nokia showed off the gaming service in August, saying at the time it would be available globally in November. But in November it was delayed into December. A spokesman said the service would be available in early 2008.