On Wednesday, Google announced that it will send out more than 100,000 invitations to preview Google Wave. Several enterprises and individuals have already used Wave to build applications or in their work. Wave enables this because it is, in essence, a real-time mashup tool. Google is sending out more than 100,000 invites to preview Google Wave. Recipients will be developers who participated in the developer preview the Internet search giant launched in June, as well as people who signed up at a Web site to use the product and volunteer their feedback.

After nearly two years of anticipation, Garmin and AT&T announced Tuesday that the long-awaited Garmin Nuvifone G60 will become available in the United States starting Oct. 4. Billed as “the navigation phone” for its integration of phone capabilities with GPS functionality, the Linux-based device will be sold online and in AT&T stores for $299, after a $100 mail-in rebate. A two-year service agreement with AT&T is required. The Nuvifone G60 offers the same core features as a high-end Garmin Nuvi device and comes preloaded with maps.

Regardless of the agreements or disagreements on how individuals, companies and governments are to combat cybercrime, one fact stands true: Doing nothing is the worst posture to assume. Cyberrisk is as limitless as human determination, ingenuity and ignorance. As such, it is crucial we take the right measures to protect ourselves online. In the final part of this four-part series, we’ll examine how you can best equip yourself with resources to a safer online existence.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski stirred up the Net neutrality pot last week with his
speech at the Brookings Institution where he pledged to create new rules for governing the Internet. The FCC boss implied that because the Internet is such a big part of the lives of Americans, its management cannot be left to the marketplace. He noted that “millions of us depend upon it every day: at home, at work, in school” and argued that “the FCC must be a smart cop on the beat preserving a free and open Internet.”

This is way out of the Dell dude’s league. Dell’s newest addition to the Latitude line, the Z600, is designed as a sleek envy item for high-ranking corporate executives, entrepreneurs and other style leaders, and bears the stats to prove it, beginning with its $1,999 starting price tag. Dell bills the 4.5-pound , 0.57-inch thick unit with a “black cherry” finish as the lightest, thinnest 16-inch unit on the market, as well as the world’s first laptop with wireless docking as an optional accessory.

Facebook now has some new “friends:” the United States Secret Service, thanks to a startling weekend poll appearing on the world’s largest social network that asked the question, “Should Obama be killed?” The poll provided four possible answers: “Yes,” “No,” “Maybe,” and “Yes if he cuts my healthcare.” Some 750 people had responded to the poll before Facebook members alerted the network and it removed the survey. Threatening the life of the president is a federal crime, so the Secret Service began its investigation Monday, and Facebook is cooperating with the agency.

Microsoft released version 1.0 of Microsoft Security Essentials, a free basic anti-malware service from Redmond, on Tuesday. This replaces Microsoft’s discontinued Live OneCare Security-as-a-Service offering. Live OneCare customers can move to Microsoft Security Essentials once their subscriptions expire. Microsoft Security Essentials is a lightweight application that runs in the background and takes up few CPU and memory resources, the vendor said. It is the first Microsoft security product to use the company’s new Dynamic Signature Service.

CNN is coming out with an iPhone application Tuesday that has a feature few other news apps have tried: a price tag. There’s been a lot of talk this year about finally charging readers for news, especially on mobile devices, where media executives see a chance to condition consumers to handing over a few dollars for a constant stream of updates to their pocket. CNN is among the first big news outlets to give it a shot. Its app costs $1.99 to download.

One question that often plagues me is whether it’s worth upgrading an existing Apple notebook with more RAM and a new hard drive — or whether it’s a better option to simply buy a whole new one altogether. I tend to buy a new PowerBook, iBook, or MacBook every two years or so, and usually around the 16-month point, I’m in a quandary — I’m usually running out hard drive space, I’m running more applications at the same time than ever before, and now the new MacBook Pro models are fantastic but don’t seem quite worth the cost just yet.

Google sent shock waves through the Android community late last week by launching a cease-and-desist order at well-regarded modder Cyanogen for bundling some of its closed-source applications with his CyanogenMod ROM. CyanogenMod is a free, heavily optimized build of Android 1.5r2 that focuses on performance and reliability. Its developer — Steve Kondik, also known as “Cyanogen” — claims some 30,000 users for the firmware product, which bundles closed-source Google apps such as Gmail, Market, Talk and YouTube.

Looking through the news, it’s not hard to find a story about someone driving into a river or onto railroad on the advice of an in-car navigation system. Last year, a Seattle bus driver blamed his GPS unit after he collided with a bridge embankment, injuring several of his passengers, according to the Seattle Times. The Mirror newspaper in Great Britain reported on a survey it had conducted estimating that navigation systems were behind some 300,000 accidents or near accidents in the UK.

The European Union has updated volume standards for portable devices that play music, such as MP3 players and mobile phones. Going forward, new products will be required to maintain their default setting at 80 decibels. The new rules upgrade EU directives CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, which require that warnings about the dangers of listening to music at high volumes be included in device instruction manuals. They will be adopted after a two-year consultation period with industry, consumers and the medical community.

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