Cameron Crouch, PC World, Peggy Watt

So Angry Birds Space is launching this week – where better than with a giant slingshot from the Space Needle in Seattle?

That’s why a 35-foot tall red Angry Bird is languishing in a 300-foot slingshot, which dangles from the 605-foot-tall Space Needle. Rovio Entertainment representatives spiffing the promotion call it a “supersized” slingshot, and it’s emblazoned with the name of sponsor T-Mobile.

LG introduced today today the Optimus Vu, a combo tablet-smartphone LTE device with a 5-inch display to support easier multimedia viewing and ebook reading.  

The Optimus Vu will be on display at the Mobile World Congress next week and will be introduced in Korea in March, LG representatives say; no global availability or pricing was disclosed.

Few tools of modern technology have become as prevalent as the cell phone, which allows you to be in touch (almost) all the time, (almost) anywhere. And you can do more than just talk--today's phones let you send and receive email and text messages, surf the Web, and play music and videos. Sifting through the sea of service plans and handsets can be difficult, but we'll walk you through what you need to know to get the phone and service plan that are right for you.

If you don't have to own the latest and greatest smartphone, there’s no time like the present to buy a new one. From the newest iPhone to an Android superphone to a business-friendly Windows Phone, you can find the right phone for you. Before you hit the stores, however, do a bit of research and read our guide so that you'll know exactly what to look for.

Here is the full text of Steve Jobs' resignation letter:

Wednesday August 24, 2011, 6:34 pm EDT

If it's not enough that Microsoft had to scramble when a reference to its apparently semi-secret social networking project, Tulalip, slipped out, the software giant then had to deal with trademark concerns by the neighboring Tulalip tribe.

The 22,000-acre Tulalip (Tuh’-lay-lup) reservation is north of Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. The Tulalip Tribes operate a casino and resort, amphitheater, and outlets shopping center adjacent to Interstate 5. Apparently its name -- and perhaps its success? -- inspired the members of the Microsoft team who needed a code designation for their project.

After years of covering Apple, I figured any play called "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" sounded like fun. And it is fun, with lots of laughs and anecdotes and insights about Apple’s history. But it is also an indictment of worker neglect by Apple’s Chinese manufacturing partners and Apple itself. It also fingers the complicit acceptance by buyers of consumer electronics (not only from Apple). So it was particularly striking that I saw Mike Daisey’s play the same weekend I edited a couple of stories about an explosion at the Foxconn facilities in Chengdu.

Daisey’s two-hour monologue is in turns funny, insightful and serious. He is a storyteller, and he relates the early creative marketing efforts of the two Steves – covering the infamous blue boxes that enabled free phone calls, the Scully years, and Apple’s ups and downs until its recent resounding iSuccesses. He mixes in the story of his trip to the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, where he talked with hundreds of employees about working conditions that would not be tolerated in the U.S. Daisey met employees as young as 12 and 13, whose small hands assemble iPhones and iPads. He charges that Foxconn forces workers to routinely log 12- and 14-hour and even longer shifts to meet demand. Daisey notes that Foxconn’s answer to worker suicides was to install nets near the top of its buildings (although PC World and others have also reported that the company cites some changes in conditions and resources as well).

The good news is, Sony shares are up off reports the PlayStation Network, Sony Online Entertainment, and media-streaming service Qriocity returned from the hereafter this weekend. The bad news is, it’s one of those part-zombie resurrections: the PlayStation Network’s only partly working, and even then, only for some.

Sony is still investigating the security breach that downed its PlayStation Network and Qriocity online services, but expects the gaming network will be back in operation this week, a company exec told media Sunday afternoon in Tokyo.

Full service on PlayStation Network to resume this week with online gaming, full service expected to be restored by mid-May, Executive Deputy President Kazuo Hirai told media at a briefing that ended just minutes ago.

It's a marriage of an online pioneer and a dot-com upstart with the Sunday night announcement that AOL is acquiring The Huffington Post and with it Arianna Huffington, who will serve as president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, a new subsidiary of America Online.

Huffington will oversee all Huffington Post and AOL content, including its (recently acquired) tech sites Engadget and TechCrunch, as well as a variety of entertainment and lifestyle sites. AOL has been beefing up its news operation of late, especially hiring local community reporters for its Patch.com site.

Sometimes simply deleting files isn't good enough. In this how-to video segment, PC World explains a number of simple techniques for permanently and securely removing sensitive data from old drives before recycling or disposing of them.

S. Craig Watson, author of The Young and the Digital. Photo: Lillian FurlongSocial media isn't isolating us as we tap on our laptops, smartphones and tablets; rather, we're becoming "hypersocial" in our virtual, avatar-populated environment, suggests researcher and author S. Craig Watkins. Rather than gathering in, say, the bowling alleys that were social hubs in the 1950s, we Wii-bowl with companions nearly anywhere on the globe.

The author of "The Young and The Digital," a book about today's so-called digital natives, visited that always-on generation Tuesday evening, speaking to students at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.