News

Yahoo launches new home page with 'endless' news feed

Yahoo has delivered a new home page design for news fanatics.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced the update on her company's blog today, saying the new design delivers a "more modern experience."

The focal point of the design is news. Users can head to the page and customize what's displayed based on their interests. If they prefer sports or entertainment information, for example, they can choose to see only news items related to those topics in the page's feed.

According to Mayer, the new home page's news feed has "infinite scroll, letting you … Read more

PlayStation 4: What we expect, what it needs, and why

CNET's live coverage of Sony's event on Wednesday

Sony's February 20 event in New York City will likely mark the announcement of the PlayStation 4 and simultaneously usher in the next generation of console gaming. (Sorry, Wii U, but you're more last-gen than next-gen.)

Rumors mills are also churning out details confidently declaring that the Xbox 360 successor will also see the light of day before June's big E3 gaming show in Los Angeles.

Perhaps the biggest news? Both consoles could make their debuts -- gasp -- this year. That's a hyperspeed acceleration in … Read more

Thirst brings you the news from around the Web with an easy-to-browse interface

Thirst for iOS had already been out for a few months, giving us a new way to view Twitter by organizing tweets into categories so you could read them in a sort of digest. But the latest version takes this news aggregator to a whole new level, scouring the entire Web for content, then displaying it in categories that are easy to browse.

What makes Thirst a compelling alternative to other newsreaders like Flipboard is that it doesn't just give you the latest story to hit a particular RSS feed. Instead, it uses a complex algorithm to perform a … Read more

NBC deems EveryBlock a dead end, turns off news service

NBC shut down its hyperlocal news site EveryBlock -- a data-driven platform that let users search for news based on where they live -- because the site wasn't doing well as a business.

EveryBlock, once heralded as an innovative approach to media, said its final good-bye to its users in a blog post on the now dark site:

It's no secret that the news industry is in the midst of a massive change. Within the world of neighborhood news there's an exciting pace of innovation yet increasing challenges to building a profitable business. Though EveryBlock has been … Read more

'Chinese still hacking us,' says Wall Street Journal owner

Several U.S. media outlets experienced a massive wave of cyberattacks allegedly coming from the Chinese military over the last few months. While some newspapers have claimed that their networks are now safe, the Wall Street Journal may still be a victim of the online onslaught.

The newspaper's owner Rupert Murdock tweeted today, "Chinese still hacking us, or were over weekend."

Chinese still hacking us, or were over weekend.

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) February 6, 2013

The Wall Street Journal confirmed last week that it had been the target of cyberattacks in recent months because of its coverage … Read more

Watch as Vine becomes the next great news-gathering tool

What if the Arab Spring, or Hurricane Sandy had been Vined?

Much has been made over the years about how Twitter is one of the world's most important new tools for reporting breaking news. But with the launch of Vine, has Twitter now expanded its control over citizen journalism to video?

Until now, most of the conversation about Vine has been around the service's ability to capture life's quirky moments, or as a way to create interesting (and sometimes artistic) stop-motion video. And of course, everyone knows that there's plenty of porn to be found.

Today, … Read more

Google settles French copyright complaint -- with 60M euros

Google is settling a copyright dispute with French news publishers by dumping 60 million euros ($81.98 million) into a digital publishing fund and agreeing to help publishers make money off online ads.

The search giant's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, posted about the new fund in a blog post today, writing that these two initiatives would "help stimulate innovation and increase revenues for French publishers." He didn't provide details of how exactly either effort is supposed to work.

Schmidt didn't mention a settlement in his post, but Google has confirmed that these actions resolve a … Read more

Predicting the next big thing up Mark Zuckerberg's sleeve

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg won't be phoning it in tomorrow when he shows off something rumored to be quite grand.

Will he unveil a Facebook phone, a search engine, a reimagined version of the mobile News Feed, a measly Messenger app for iPad, or all of the above? Anything seems possible at this point. Perhaps, the only thing we know for certain is what he will be wearing: jeans, his characteristic tee, and maybe even that famous hoodie.

CNET will be live-blogging the news as it happens at 10 a.m. PT. Until then, we've rounded up the … Read more

Get the most talked about news stories with NewsWhip

It's going to take a lot to break me of my Newser habit. Newser has been my go-to iPhone news app for a while now and I don't see this arrangement ending any time soon. New iOS news app NewsWhip, however, appears to be a worthy challenger. This free, universal iOS app puts a new spin on news aggregation. It delivers the news stories that people are tweeting about and sharing and liking on Facebook. NewsWhip doesn't just look at your friends and followers to deliver the news. No, "each minute NewsWhip scans a billion people … Read more