You're standing on a street corner and remember that you need to pick up a video game for your sister's birthday. On your smartphone, you search Google and tap on the "in stock nearby" link next to the blue dots that show up for some of the search results. Google then shows you which local retailers have the game in stock.

That buying omniscience, where your mobile device can tell you whether what you want is nearby, was announced Thursday by the search giant.

iPhone, Palm, Android

The blue dots in the search results link to participating retailers, which currently include Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm. The "in stock nearby" link connects to the seller's page, where the retailer near you notes whether the given item is "in stock" or has "limited availability." The distance from your current location is also indicated if you have enabled My Location or manually specified your location.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Apple fans flocked online Friday to be among the first to order iPad tablet computers slated to begin shipping in the United States on April 3.

Apple was offering free shipping on pre-orders but limited buyers to no more than two iPads each in a sign that supplies will be tight when the iconic company's latest creation hits the market.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad in San Francisco on January 27, billing it as a "revolutionary" device that will carve out a home between smartphones and laptop computers.

On the opening night of SXSW Interactive, HDNet founder Mark Cuban and Boxee founder Avner Ronan traded verbal barbs and a few well-reasoned arguments trying to answer the simple question: will Internet TV take over?

Ronan sees Internet video services replacing the cable TV model and allowing users to purchase programming a la carte. Ever the businessman, Cuban just wants to see the money, or as he put it at one point, the "shekels." At times the debate seemed rehearsed, but that is because it started more than a year ago in a combative exchange of blog posts. (One of Cuban's was titled "Why Do Internet People Think Content People Are Stupid?") With the rhetorical groundwork laid, the two executives held nothing back in their face-to-face meeting.

NO SIGNS OF COMPROMISE: China, in a dispute with Google over censoring its China-based search engine, said the company must obey its laws or 'pay the consequences.'

THE SPEAKER: Li Yizhong, the minister of Industry and Information Technology, made the remarks on the sidelines of China's annual legislature.

GOOGLE'S POSITION: The company still hopes to resolve its standoff, but has threatened to leave China if necessary.

Source: Summary Box: Ch...

While it's great the Federal Communications Commission is offering free broadband speed tests, it would be greater if the commission would use the data to force carriers to more accurately describe the speeds they offer and then keep their promises.

There are lots of speed tests available on the Internet, but when the agency charged with regulating Internet carriers offers a speed test, it should be more than a curiosity or a toy.

The FCC's broadband.gov site should generate real information that leads to enforcement actions against carriers that don't deliver promised speeds. Of course, first the FCC must require carriers to make actual speed promises.

As with many new Google services, the ability to search for products at local stores is a little slow out of the gate, but the potential is there.

Google's local product search allows phones running Android or Palm WebOS and the iPhone to see whether nearby stores have the item you're looking for in stock. After searching for a product under the вњShoppingв tab on Google's mobile Web site, you can designate an address or use your current location to see which nearby retailers carry the product.

But after briefly playing around with the service on my iPhone, I can't say I'll use local product search on a regular basis unless a few things improve.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Talks with China over censorship have reached an apparent impasse and Google, the world's largest search engine, is now "99.9 percent" certain to shut its Chinese search engine, the Financial Times said on Saturday.

It said in a report on its website Google had drawn up detailed plans for closing its Chinese search engine.

The newspaper cited a person familiar with the company's thinking as saying that, while a decision could be made very soon, Google was likely to take some time to follow through with its plans.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Federal Communications Commission will submit a 10-year plan to Congress on Tuesday that would establish high-speed Internet as the country's dominant means of communication, The New York Times reported in Saturday editions.

The plan will likely spawn a lobbying battle between telecommunication firms and the broadcast television industry which already opposes turning over spectrum space to future mobile service use, the newspaper said.

FCC officials briefed on the plan said the commission's recommendations would include a subsidy for Internet providers to wire unserved rural areas, an auction of some broadcast spectrum to free up access for wireless devices, and development of a universal set-top box that connects to the Internet and cable service, the newspaper said.

MANKATO, Minn. – HickoryTech Corp., which provides Internet access and other digital services, said Friday its board declared a quarterly dividend of 13 cents a share.

The company said the dividend is payable June 5 to shareholders of record as of March 15.

Source: HickoryTech to ...

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission plans to release a national broadband plan next week that will lay out an ambitious set of goals for broadband deployment and adoption.

The official version of the plan will be released at a commission meeting Tuesday, but FCC followers have seen the agency unveil several major thrusts of the plan in a series of speeches and briefings in recent weeks. In a mid-February speech, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski kicked off the announcements by saying it was the agency's goal to bring 100M bps (bits per second) broadband service to 100 million U.S. homes by about 2020.

Many members of the U.S. tech community have called for a national broadband policy for years, and Congress, in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in early 2009, required the FCC to develop the plan.

Twitter users can now add their current location to their tweets. The micro-blogging service on Thursday activated an optional new feature that appends geographical information to your posts.

Once you opt-in, Twitter adds your location to your tweets. Note the region circled in red:

Why the new feature? "A recent burst of interest in location sharing applications, games, and services has many Twitter users excited about appending geographic data to some of their tweets," writes Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

He also provides a somewhat bizarre example of how location-sharing could help Twitter users. If you hear a loud boom outside, search Twitter for "boom," and find a tweet in your area mentioning a fireworks show, you can safely assume the noise is nothing to be concerned about.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The adult entertainment industry is going to have to wait a while longer to see whether it gets its .XXX domain name.

The board of ICANN, the international regulatory body for Web addresses, on Friday delayed a decision until June on whether to create the .XXX domain.

The decision was taken at a board meeting in Nairobi of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN said in a statement.

ICANN said the .XXX domain for adult websites would be considered at its next meeting, which is to be held June 20-25 in Brussels.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Reported losses from Internet fraud more than doubled in 2009, with scams that falsely used the FBI's name generating the most complaints, the law enforcement agency said on Friday.

The total dollar loss rose to $559.7 million last year from $264.6 million in 2008, based on amounts reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.

WASHINGTON – The cost of Internet fraud doubled in 2009 to about $560 million, the FBI said Friday. The most common type of frauds reported were scams from people falsely claiming to be from the FBI.

Individual complaints of Internet scams grew more than 20 percent last year, according to a report issued by the FBI in partnership with a private fraud-fighting group, the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

The amounts taken by individual frauds ranged from less than $30 to more than $100,000, officials said.

The most frequently reported scams were those that falsely used the FBI's name, accounting for 16 percent of the more than 300,000 complaints received last year. Some of those frauds have even featured e-mails purporting to be from FBI Director Robert Mueller, though the e-mail addresses of the senders often betray the con, authorities said.

WASHINGTON – The FBI says the amount of money swindled by Internet frauds doubled last year to about $560 million.

The FBI, in partnership with a private fraud-fighting group, reports that complaints of Internet scams rose 22 percent in 2009.

The most frequently reported scams were those that falsely used the FBI's name, accounting for 16 percent of the more than 300,000 complaints received last year. Authorities say another scam involved messages with a voice similar to President Barack Obama's, urging people to visit a Web site to claim a share of government stimulus cash. Visitors are charged a fee, and no money is ever received.