Jennifer Sultan Pleads Guilty to Selling Prescription Drugs

At the height of dot-com mania 13 years ago, Jennifer Sultan and a few colleagues sold their small technology company for $70 million in stock and cash. She and her boyfriend rented a large house in the Hamptons for the summer and bought a spacious loft near Union Square. John Marshall Mantel for The New York TimesJennifer Sultan faced 15 years to life on the top charge against her, and...

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Gadgetwise Blog: App Smart Extra: Starry Night

Stars, galaxies, meteors and satellites were the subject of App Smart this week as I tested out astronomy apps to help identify objects in the night sky. These apps typically use your phone or tablet’s sensors to display a view of what you’re pointing your device at in the sky in real time, helping you identify planets and constellations. Here are more apps like this to try out:Star Walk — 5 Stars...

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Gadgetwise Blog: Tip of the Week: Clean Your Phone and Its Camera

Smartphones spend a lot of time in hand, where they can pick up germs and dirt. Wiping down the phone regularly with an antibacterial cloth intended for use with touch screens can help keep it clean. Many office supply stores like Staples or Office Depot carry disposable wipes for use on phone and tablet screens.If your phone has a camera and your photos have been looking blurry, you can clean its...

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Gadgetwise Blog: From Energizer, Big Light in a Compact Package

Hurricane season doesn’t start until June 1, but after Hurricane Sandy caused so much destruction and left millions without power, it’s never too early to start preparing for the next big storm.To help, Energizer is introducing a new portfolio of innovative lighting products this spring that use “light fusion technology,” which distributes light uniformly through laser-etched acrylic panels.The line...

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Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Staying Safe From Java Threats

I hear lots of scary stuff about hackers getting into computers thru Java. What do I need to do to make my Mac and PC safe? Any worries about tablets?Java is a computing platform with its own programming language that is used in many games, business applications and other utilities. It runs on more than 850 million computers worldwide and is used often by Web browsers. Recent attacks on Apple and...

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Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Recommending Web Pages With the Google +1 Button

What happens if I click that +1 button on a Web site?The +1 button on some Web pages is Google’s version of a personal-approval stamp or recommendation, similar to Facebook’s “Like” button for publicly declaring favorite things on a social network; you probably get the most out of the feature if you are a member of the Google Plus social network. The +1 button often appears on news and entertainment...

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Mobile Revolution Buffets Taiwan PC Rivals

TAIPEI — Two computer-making neighbors in the technologically inclined economy of Taiwan seem headed in opposite directions. Personal computer sales have slumped worldwide as smartphones and tablets have proliferated and gained in popularity. One Taiwan heavyweight, Acer, has shared in the suffering: It is expected to report a second straight annual loss in 2012 after losing 6.6 billion...

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In a Slight Shift, North Korea Widens Internet Access, but Just for Visitors

HONG KONG — North Korea will finally allow Internet searches on mobile devices. But if you’re a North Korean, you’re out of luck — only foreigners will get this privilege. Cracking the door open slightly to wider Internet use, the government will allow a company called Koryolink to give foreigners access to 3G mobile Internet service by next Friday, according to The Associated Press, which...

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Gadgetwise: An Invisible Wetsuit for Phones and Tablets

It’s a little heart-stopping to watch someone purposely dunk a cellphone or tablet in a water tank. Seeing it continue to work underwater is astonishing.It does because the components inside have been nano-coated. Such coatings are best applied to a phone’s components before assembly. You can have nano coating done afterward through Liquipel, but it will cost you.A cellphone case can seal against...

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Gadgetwise Blog: Tip of the Week: Search the Text on a Web Page

Search engines help find the Web pages you are looking for, but when it comes down to locating your keywords on the actual page, your browser can help. Most browser programs use the Control-F (Command-F on the Mac) to open a search box for finding certain words within the page itself, and most highlight the instances of the word (and number of time it appears). Google Chrome also displays yellow markers...

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DealBook: Court Gives Investor an Edge in a Lawsuit Against Apple

7:47 p.m. | Updated In the battle between Apple and the hedge fund manager David Einhorn, score a point for the billionaire who is taking up the mantle of shareholder advocate.A federal judge said on Tuesday that he was leaning toward Mr. Einhorn’s contention that Apple had violated securities regulations by bundling several shareholder proposals into one matter.A lawsuit by Mr. Einhorn’s Greenlight...

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Bits Blog: Tech Predictions for 2013: It's All About Mobile

If there is one theme that will be the topic of digital business this year, it is mobile.ComScore, which tracks Web and mobile usage, published a report about what happened in 2012, and what to expect in 2013.It shows that the effects of a movement toward mobile are everywhere, from shopping to media to search. According to the report, “2013 could spell a very rocky economic transition,” and businesses...

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Disruptions: Disruptions: 3-D Printing Is on the Fast Track

Will the future be printed in 3-D?At first glance, looking at past predictions about the future of technology, prognosticators got a whole lot wrong. The Web is a garbage dump of inaccurate guesses about the year 2000, 2010 and beyond. Flying cars, robotic maids and jet packs still are nowhere near a reality.Yet the prediction that 3-D printers will become a part of our daily lives is happening much...

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Dismissed as Doomsayers, Advocates for Meteor Detection Feel Vindicated

For decades, scientists have been on the lookout for killer objects from outer space that could devastate the planet. But warnings that they lacked the tools to detect the most serious threats were largely ignored, even as skeptics mocked the worriers as Chicken Littles. Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDr. Edward Lu, a former NASA astronaut and Google executive, has warned...

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Gadgetwise Blog: App Smart Extra: Apps to Improve Your Singing

This week in my App Smart column, I talked about a few karaoke apps that can replicate many of the features of a full-fledged karaoke machine. I also mentioned one app that can help you train your singing voice.There are, of course, numerous apps that try to help you improve your singing or let you groove to your own rendition of a popular hit.One interesting app that can help teach you the subtleties...

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Gadgetwise Blog: Tip of the Week: Adjusting Facebook Photo Previews

Hate the way Facebook seems to arbitrarily crop photos you post on your Timeline to fit the square preview windows? On the desktop version, you can change which part of the picture shows in the preview when you’re using Facebook through your Web browser.To do so, pass the cursor over the image and then click the pencil icon that appears in the top right corner of the post. On the menu that appears,...

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DealBook Column: Relationship Science Plans Database of Names and Connections

It sounds like a Rolodex for the 1 percent: two million deal makers, power brokers and business executives — not only their names, but in many cases the names of their spouses and children and associates, their political donations, their charity work and more — all at a banker’s fingertips.Such is the promise of a new company called Relationship Science.Never heard of it? Until recently, neither had...

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DealBook: British Regulators to Investigate Accounting at Autonomy

LONDON – British accounting regulators said on Monday that they would investigate the financial reporting at the British software maker Autonomy before its $11.1 billion acquisition by Hewlett-Packard in 2011.The announcement comes after accusations from H.P. that Autonomy inflated its sales and carried out improper accounting practices that misled the American technology giant ahead of the multibillion-dollar...

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Reviewing Three Brands of Tax Preparation Software

TAX preparation is moving to the cloud. The makers of the better-known tax prep programs — TurboTax, H&R Block at Home and TaxAct — say that many customers, particularly younger ones, prefer Web-based programs to old-fashioned, desktop versions. Web-based programs — techies call this cloud computing — reside on remote servers that customers access via their browsers. They offer the convenience...

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DealBook: Helping Start-Ups With Local Support and National Networks

When Will Fuentes planned an extended business trip to Seattle last year, he tapped into the local chapter of a national networking group there. Within hours, Mr. Fuentes, who founded the Arlington, Va., software company Lemur Retail, had secured a work space, introductions and even restaurant recommendations via the group, the Startup America Partnership.“Before I flew out there, I already had five...

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