Report: Justin Bieber is 3 percent of Twitter
A tweet by designer Dustin Curtis suggests that a Twitter employee has confirmed to him that, at any given moment, teen phenomenon Justin Bieber uses 3 percent of Twitter's infrastructure.

Trend Micro bets on the cloud
Trend Micro revamps its consumer-protection suites by wagering heavily on cloud-based protection, creating security suites that the company claims are faster at detection and lighter on system resources.

Zombies to fill brains at University of Baltimore
No, really. Students getting a minor in pop culture will be learning about the walking dead and how they are represented in various types of media.

New Firefox beta offers audio API, menu tweaks
A new audio data API, default hardware acceleration, and a return of some menu options that had been missing in previous betas are the keystones to Firefox 4 beta 5.

Woman makes teary YouTube movies, gets back ex
A woman is heartbroken after splitting with her lover. So she takes to YouTube and pours out her woes. Moved by her performances, her lover returns.

Microelectrodes help brain signals 'speak'
Using two grids of 16 microelectrodes implanted atop the brain, Utah researchers are one step closer to enabling paralyzed people to speak via their thoughts.

Court allows warrantless cell location tracking
Philadelphia appeals court rules that no search warrant is needed for police to track Americans' cell phone whereabouts but says individual judges can "sparingly" require one.

Android app is like Foursquare meets Pirate Bay
Created as part of The Guardian's Music Hack Day, Piracy app lets users "drop" songs from their music collection in physical locations for other users to pick up later.

Why iTunes song samples are still only 30 seconds
Apple in "active negotiations" for song samples with rights holders, but some music publishers want Apple to pay. How the negotiations fare could set the mood for negotiations over cloud music.

Coming Wednesday: Live at Google's search event
Google plans to host a search event featuring top executives and engineers Wednesday, and we'll provide live coverage in this post.

Facebook closes hole that let spammers auto-post to walls, friends
Social-networking site plugs a second hole that allowed spammers to automatically post to people's pages.

Dell prepares for Windows XP's final act
Computer maker will end sales this month of machines factory-downgraded to older OSes to prepare for an October deadline to halt all shipments of XP.

PS3 firmware update reportedly blocks jailbreaks
System software update 3.42 contains features that PS3 owners say patch the exploit used to let console owners play pirated games.

HP suing former CEO Mark Hurd
Hewlett-Packard accuses Hurd of breach of contract and potential misappropriation of trade secrets a day after he signs on to become Oracle's co-president.

Google taps State Dept. vet for Google Ideas
Jared Cohen, known as a tech evangelist within the State Department, will be joining Google to launch a think tank called Google Ideas.

Report: Android to win half of smartphone market
A bevy of Android devices will ultimately mean that Google's mobile OS will control largely half of the market, according to a Piper Jaffray report.

ZigBee Alliance coordinating vehicle-to-grid technology
What will happen when millions of electric vehicles plug into the grid at at the same time? If ZigBee Alliance's blueprints for the smart grid go according to plan, not much.

New IBM projects striving for cleaner water
Harnessing the power of its World Community Grid of users, Big Blue embarks on a series of projects designed to improve the quality of drinking water around the world.

Top Microsoft game employee jumps to Amazon
A Microsoft employee who played an integral role in the success of the Xbox is taking a new, undisclosed job at Amazon.