Not wanting to get left behind, Barnes & Noble on Wednesday announced two new tablets: the 7-inch Nook HD and the 9-inch NOOK HD+.

The two tablets are playing catch-up to Apple, Google and, most notably, Amazon, which just this month announced its own set of new tablets.

The new Nook HD features a 7-inch screen with a higher resolution than its competitors at 1,440 by 900 pixels. Barnes & Noble said the Nook HD also weighs just 315 grams, or 11 ounces, has a 1.3Ghz dual-core processor and is available starting at $199 for an 8 GB model and $229 for a 16 GB version.

The Nook HD+ plays in the higher-end tablet market and boasts a 9-inch 1,920 by 1,280 pixel screen with a 256 pixel per inch density. It weighs 515 grams, or about 18 ounces, has a 1.5Ghz dual-core processor and starts at $269 for 16 GB and $299 for 32 GB.

Taking a jab at Amazon, Barnes & Noble said neither tablet will come with "annoying ads."

Both tablets, which run on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, can be pre-ordered online...

You won't find much innovation on the iPhone 5, but Apple has improved the iPhone just enough to make sure it's still the best smartphone.

The iPhone 5 is thinner, lighter and quicker than its predecessors and competitors, and it now features a 4-inch screen. Individually, none of those features is jaw-dropping, but put them together and the iPhone 5 is very impressive.

Powered by the new Apple A6 processor and now with the ability to connect to 4G LTE, the iPhone runs faster than ever. When you Google a query, it can almost be unsettling how quickly the phone will show you results. Boot up 3-D maps and the iPhone 5 will quickly start generating buildings. It's fast.

PHOTOS: iPhone frenzy means lines, high-fives around world

The 4-inch screen is also a great addition. Any iPhone user who's held one of the latest 4.5-inch-plus Android-running phones can easily tell the iPhone's 3.5-inch screen was no longer cutting it. But fortunately, Apple didn't just copy the competition and make a...

Can Marissa Mayer save Yahoo Inc.?

That’s the question Mayer tried to address in an all-hands meeting Tuesday as she laid out in very broad strokes her game plan for turning around the troubled Internet company.

She also continued to shake up the executive ranks, announcing that Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse would leave the company. Morse, who kept a tight rein on finances since he took over as CFO in 2009, will be replaced by Ken Goldman, the CFO of Fortinet who has three decades of experience at software and Internet companies, including Siebel Systems and Sybase.

Mayer, a longtime Google executive who became Yahoo’s chief executive in July, has been reviewing the business. From a stage at the company’s Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters, she told Yahoo employees that she plans to again make Yahoo an everyday part of people’s lives, reigniting user growth and generating more advertising dollars.

Many of her talking points echoed her predecessors' with pledges to...

Pandora has long argued that webcasting royalties are cripplingly high, and tech-friendly members of Congress have periodically sought to rewrite the law to bring the rates down. Nevertheless, companies keep jumping into the market -- the latest being Fuzz, a site that lets people listen to playlists uploaded by other Fuzz users.

Why? One reason is that people respond to the lure of (free) music, both in the giving and in the receiving. So companies can rely on the public to put together the programming, market it to their friends and build an audience for the site, all at little or no cost. Fuzz Chief Executive Jeff Yasuda put it this way: "If you give people a voice, they will work their tails off to really curate and bulid a cool listener experience for their followers."

In Fuzz' case, user DJs compete to have their playlists gain a prominent spot on the site. That privilege goes to the playlists attracting the most listeners, that are freshly updated, or that are trending among Fuzz...

We already suspected the iPhone 5 has a tougher, more durable screen than the Samsung Galaxy S III, but now it appears Apple's device might be more water resistant too.

SquareTrade, a company that offers device warranties, put the two popular smartphones through a series of durability tests — the most compelling one being a dip in a pool — and the iPhone 5 came out on top.

The video, which you can see above, shows the two flagship phones getting dropped into a pool while playing Psy's "Gangnam Style."

PHOTOS: iPhone frenzy means lines, high-fives around world

Both phones have cameras attached, so we see them as they go below the surface of the water. Both phones keep playing the music video as they submerge, but as they come back up, the Galaxy S III's screen goes black. After being pulled out, the SquareTrade crew is unable to power the Samsung phone back up.

Meanwhile, the iPhone 5 never stops playing the popular song. Even after being pulled out of the water, the person in...

Be careful of what you do in front of a rent-to-own computer. You never know who may be watching.

On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced it had reached a settlement with seven rent-to-own companies that spied on their customers through the very computers they rented to them.

The FTC said that each of the seven companies — including Aspen Way Enterprises, J.A.G. Rents and C.A.L.M. Ventures — installed a piece of software called PC Rental Agent that enabled them to see keystroke logs, take screen shots and even take pictures using the computer's webcam, all without their customers’ knowledge.

PC Rental Agent, designed by the now-bankrupt software firm DesignerWare, was marketed to rent-to-own companies as a way to keep track of a rented computer's physical location and disable it remotely through a kill switch if the renter began skipping payments.

The FTC had no problem with those functions.

But Tracy Thorleifson, an FTC attorney at its office in Seattle,...

Integrating Facebook to your iPhone 5 is a nifty new feature of Apple's latest operating system, iOS 6.

When you activate your Facebook account on your iPhone 5, iOS 6 will offer to import your Facebook calendar and contact information.

But one drawback we found with integrating Facebook to your iPhone 5 is that you'll end up with duplicate contact information for some of your Facebook friends.

PHOTOS: iPhone frenzy means lines, high-fives around world

Fortunately, fixing duplicates is easy.

You can quickly do this by going into the Contacts app and clicking on one of the duplicates. Once on the person's page, click on "Edit" at the top right. Scroll down to the bottom and find a field that reads "Link Contact." Click that and select the contact you want to link to.

Once you've done that, the two sets of...

The rift between Apple and Google over a map app grew wider Tuesday as Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said Apple device users shouldn't expect the company to offer them a Google Maps app anytime soon. 

Apple dropped Google's app and replaced it with its own in the latest operating system, iOS 6, that it released last Wednesday. That meant the new iPhone 5 also did not include the Google Map. It had been a feature on the iPhone since the smartphone first launched in 2007.

The Apple Maps app offers new features to iPhone users, including 3-D maps, advanced live traffic updates and voice navigation, but it doesn't support directions for public transportation and its maps app doesn't appear to be as accurate as Google's in some areas.

"In my opinion it would...

A Los Angeles maker of kid-oriented products is suing Toys R Us Inc. for allegedly ripping off its business plan to sell a tablet computer geared for children.

In a suit filed in federal court in San Diego, Fuhu Inc. accuses the toy giant of stealing trade secrets and trademark information to launch its own $150 tablet called Tabeo, which will hit store shelves next month.

Last holiday season, Fuhu sold a similar tablet called Nabi exclusively through Toys R Us before terminating the agreement in January. The company alleges that Toys R Us did not follow through with promises to advertise and order the Nabi in sizable quantities, but then used its strategy for its own Tabeo tablet.

"We shared with them the whole ecosystem of the Navi tablet," Fuhu Chief Executive Jim Mitchell said. He said some of the strategic tactics that was shared with Toys R Us included putting a rubberized border -- called a bumper -- around the device, working in parental controls and pre-loading the tablet with...

There's a new Myspace coming, and it looks....pretty.

The site that once ruled the social networking space released a preview video Monday showing a newly imagined Myspace that provides an airy environment for artists to connect with their fans.

Whether it is enough to save the troubled site remains to be seen.

Like Facebook, the new Myspace will let users make connections with friends, and post photos and comments to what looks like a visual combination of Facebook's timeline and Pinterest. (I think it's nicer looking than both.)

A "Discover" section points the user to new music as well as concert events. Musicians can also use the service to find their most influential fans and send them messages directly.

The focus on musicians is no accident. Even after Myspace was eclipsed by Facebook as the most popular social networking site on the Internet, it continued to be popular with recording artists. 

In 2011, a survey of Myspace's registered users found that 60% said they continued to...

The iPhone 5 is off to a fast start with great reviews, but that's not to say it isn't generating a bevy of consumer complaints.

As with every major Apple product launch, people are going online to point out issues. Some of the problems seem widespread and you may need to consider them, while others are affecting just a portion of new iPhone owners. Whatever the case, here they are.

Scratches

The iPhone 5's screen appears to be more durable than any iPhone before it, but its back and edges seem less resistant to scratches. Unfortunately for some people, myself included, the iPhone 5 even came out of the box with scuff marks. Be careful about placing it next to keys or sharp objects.

Here's a video showing how scratchable the back of the iPhone 5 is.

Screen issues

But some issues aren't just external. Other people are reporting problems with their iPhone 5 screen, including a weird problem in which the screen appears to have an air bubble, which you can see in the video below. Others are...