Brennon Slattery

The latest update to Xbox Live brings premium streaming video from Comcast Xfinity, MLB.tv and HBO Go right to your Xbox 360 console. The update, announced on Microsoft's Major Nelson's blog, isn’t a cable killer because users will still need a cable subscription to access the features.

If you're a subscriber of Comcast, HBO or MLB.tv, head to the Xbox's App Marketplace on your Xbox 360's dashboard and download your flavor of entertainment. In order to get all three, you'll need a Comcast Xfinity cable subscription with HBO (roughly $90 per month), an MLB.tv premium pass with all-device access ($25 per month), and an Xbox Live Gold membership ($60 per year) -- so you'll be spending roughly $1,440 for the added convenience of utilizing your game console as the ultimate media streaming machine.

Facebook introduced a new friend management feature Wednesday that may help you Spring clean your News Feed by banishing more people to the quiet corner of space where no one can hear them scream. This also is known as the Acquaintance List, a Google+ inspired cataloging option that Facebook added last September.

The Acquaintance List suggester is great if you don't want to unfriend by the dozens but your News Feed has become crammed with the inconsequential ramblings of half-remembered people … even if shrouding these people is, by definition, an antisocial thing to do, and slightly contradictory of Facebook's motto of helping you "connect and share with the people in your life."

For those who have always wondered why some e-mails arrive in Gmail’s spam folder, Google has updated the service to explain to what determines that spam is spam.

Ela Czajka, a software engineer with the Gmail team, blogged about the new feature and its various levels of detection. Starting now, when you click on a message in Gmail's spam folder, an explanatory note appears at the top, warning of suspicious hyperlinks, reminding you that you have previously marked a sender as a spammer, or denoting that a particular e-mail has been deemed shady by the filter itself.

Intel is next in the long line of companies dreaming of killing cable and launching a streaming Internet TV subscription service, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The Journal says the company has been meeting with content providers, hinted at building its own set-top box and hopes to launch the service by the end of 2012.

Though details are sparse, it sounds like Intel isn't simply making a Netflix or Hulu knockoff. Instead, Intel is attempting to bump the infrastructure of traditional cable TV subscriptions onto the Internet with a "virtual cable operator" that would "offer U.S. TV channels nationwide over the Internet in a bundle similar to subscriptions sold by cable- and satellite-TV operators."

The newest cavity-inducing Android operating system code name will be Key Lime Pie, according to The Verge. No details are available about Key Lime Pie aside from a possible 2013 release date, so it's unclear if the OS is intended for smartphones, tablets, or a sweet mash-up of both.

Source: roboppy on Flickr

That Google is working on future operating systems isn't a shocker, but even mentioning Key Lime Pie makes the Android release schedule seem glutted. After all, Ice Cream Sandwich isn't even available on most Android phones; and Jelly Bean, intended for tablets, still has only a rumored Spring 2012 release date. The good news is that the 2013 date suggests that Google is slowing down with the releases a little bit, which will give Android fans some breathing room.

Xbox 360 will expand its impressive collection of video apps with the induction of HBO Go on April 1, according to a report from Engadget's Michael Gorman. At an HBO event in San Francisco, Gorman said that HBO’s co-president, Eric Kessler confirmed what has been suspected as being on its way.

HBO Go is already available on desktops, Android and iOS devices, as well as Roku boxes and some models of Samsung Internet-connected TVs, and it would make fast friends with the game console's other cable-killing video apps, such as Crackle, YouTube, Hulu Plus, Verizon FiOS, and ESPN.

A series of escalating privacy complaints, and President Obama's Bill of Rights for consumer privacy on the Internet, has pushed the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), a coalition of Internet giants, to support a universal "do not track" feature to be built into future Web browsers.

The DAA represents over 400 media, marketing, and technology companies, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and IDG, PCWorld's parent company.

Today Google's homepage sports a mesmerizing animated GIF of rolling waves, dolled up in Google's colors, in celebration of the 155th birthday of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, the German physicist who proved the existence of electromagnetic waves.

Even if you aren’t fascinated by physics, Hertz's discovery was a vital one, and led to many others that make up the bleeping circuits of our everyday lives. This includes the TV broadcasts that lull you to sleep, the radio waves that wake you in the morning -- including the oscillating pressure that defines musical pitch; good vibrations, if you will -- the cellular transmissions keeping you pegged to your iPhone, the measurement units of smartphone processors that keep the Apple vs. Android argument alive, and the Wi-Fi frequencies you're connected to to read this article.

Android 5.0 Jelly Bean OSAre you digging Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich? Well, don't get too comfortable. Citing Taiwan-based supply chain makers, the rumor-mongers at DigiTimes report that Google is pushing out the tablet-friendlier Android 5.0 "Jelly Bean" version of its Android operating system in the second quarter of this year.

Even though Ice Cream Sandwich just came out of its wrapper, the looming release of Windows 8 has supposedly inspired Google to speed up its release schedule. DigiTimes also cites the less-than-stellar adoption of Android 4.0 as an impetus to update but, when you consider that most Android phones don't even have Ice Cream Sandwich yet and that big delays for the upgrade are expected from manufacturers like Motorola, does that come as a surprise? Give the releases some time to breathe, Google!

Google’s Valentine’s Day doodle, a sweet video co-animated by Michael Lipman of Happy Tree Friends fame, packs a small but powerful social message about marriage equality and how materialism -- even with the help of Google searches -- can't solve problems of the heart.

The doodle tells the story of a boy who has a crush on a jump-roping girl, and in an effort to woo her, uses Google to search for gift ideas. With Tony Bennett's cover of "Cold, Cold Heart" crooning in the background, the boy tries again and again, lavishing her with flowers, chocolates, a diver's helmet, and magic tricks, until he's almost defeated. Then he reappears one day with a common interest -- a jump rope -- and wins her affections.

Seven years after the launch of the PSP comes the PlayStation Vita, Sony's modern attempt at handheld gaming. Reviews of the PS Vita -- which hits North American shelves on February 22, 2012 at $250 for the Wi-Fi-only model and $300 for the Wi-Fi and 3G model -- are good so far, with a lot of praise being heaped on its excellent screen, controls, and launch titles.

For most Super Bowl XLVI was all about the game. For others it’s about the overhyped ads, beer, and the chicken wings. For me, it’s all about the ads.

This year’s ads were a special treat for geeks: Best Buy highlighted the innovators of mobile phone technology; Samsung took another swing at Apple fanboys; Ferris Bueller was resurrected in the lamest way possible; childhood cartoon favorites shilled life insurance; I learned that without a Chevy Silverado, I will die in the Mayan apocalypse; and GoDaddy.com tried to regain public favor with a smattering of Weird Science-esque "hot babes" after the virulent backlash it got for publicly supporting the SOPA.