The Computer Guys And Gal

A trio of major newspapers made news last week after hackers in China allegedly attacked their systems, possibly in retaliation for their reporting on Chinese leaders. BlackBerry unveiled two new smart phones, but some say it's too little too late for the mobile phone pioneer. And the FCC wants to build free nationwide Wi-Fi networks, which could mean free cell phone calls via the Internet. The Computers Guys and Gal are back to explore these tech stories and more.

Computer Guys And Gal Picks

The Computer Guys and Gal select the best Valentine's Day gifts for the techie in your life and ways to observe National American Heart Month. Plus, the gadget headlines that are breaking and making our hearts this month.

Allison Druin

1. A must-have for the commuter or road tripper, the inverter can power three devices at once

2. Design-A-Skin for cell phones, laptops and more

3. Bluetooth Wireless Mobile Speaker

4. ILuv Ref Headphones: Plug these headphones into your smartphone to enjoy hands-free conversation, or play your favorite track.

5. GPS FOR THE SOUL: Free iPhone app

6. Heart Rate Monitor by Azumio Free, named the best Health & Fitness app on Mobile Premier Awards.

7. Have a Heart Swarovski USB key necklace

8. Is China hacking our websites?

9. Your Twitter account may be hacked

10. Amazon last week experienced an outage of its main Amazon.com homepage that lasted for nearly one hour

11. Facebook privacy in the news with facial recognition. To opt out of this feature, follow these steps:

a. Click the wrench icon at the top right of Facebook, select Account Settings, and then click on click Timeline and Tagging.
b. At the bottom, locate the setting that says "Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded?" and click Edit on the far right.
c. Select your preference from the drop-down menu: Friends or No One.
d. If at step three you do not see an Edit Settings option, you will likely see "(this is not yet available to you)." This simply means Facebook has yet to roll out the feature to your account, and you'll need to wait for it to do so before you can change your privacy settings for it.

John Gilroy

1. Kojo to organize a field trip to the Smithsonian to view a desktop computer: Tyrannosaurus Rex

2. Google declares “war” on the password

3. Teens say Apple has jumped the shark
4. Blackberry attempts to make it cool in the enterprise

5. Vint Cerf makes sartorial statement, “Your shirt shouldn’t have Internet access.”

6. STEM, Capitol Hill and Allison Druin, Director of the Future

7. Will Skynet start in China?

8. Facebook Graph from a security perspective

9. Squeeze play: Apple & Google have 90 percent of the smart phone market

Bill Harlow

1. The year of the snake? The New York Times was the target of Chinese cyber attacks over a four month period. The Wall Street Journal was also attacked... As was the Washington Post.

2. Erich Schmidt's new book discusses the potential threat that is modern China, pointing out how it's in a position to play more fast-and-loose with its digital espionage.

3. What will happen to the software that helped with Obama's reelection?

4. The new Blackberry! Does it matter?

5. Robohand: Is the future open source prosthetics?

6. Netbooks were supposed to be all the rage a few years ago. Incredibly cheap, small, portable, anyone could afford a laptop. The reality, of course, is that netbooks were often too underpowered to do most things well