Network World, Network World Staff

Apple, AT&T, Microsoft, Google and others are givens for being among the top newsmakers of 2011. Others will no doubt surprise us as we go along.

While it's so much easier to look back at the end of the year and reflect on the newsworthiness of a technology industry event than to do so as the event is happening, Network World this year is daring to make our picks for the top technology stories of the year as we go along. We'll update this article regularly -- as news dictates.

Overall, the upcoming Royal Wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton doesn't seem to be igniting the same degree of creative frenzy among Android developers as with their Apple iOS brethren.

The Android Market seems laden with gussied-up countdown apps (The Wedding equivalent of a flashlight app) and apps that just link up with media websites filled with videos and news about Prince William's receding hairline, his "former flings" and the couple's portrait-in-a-pizza (by the Papa John's Pizza chain).

Would you trust your computer to interact on a deep personal touchy-feely level with you, reading, interpreting, reacting, or storing your emotions? Most of us at some point have had one of those days when we've tried sweet-talking or cussing a malfunctioning computer, but what if the computer apologized? What if computers could sense your emotions and respond appropriately?

Computers in touch with human feelings sent me on a quick flashback to 2001: A Space Odyssey when HAL 9000 had just killed the rest of the crew. HAL said, "Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."

A 17-year-old Australian who goes by the Twitter handle @zzap says he exposed the cross-site scripting flaw that led to Tuesday's widespread Twitter worm, dubbed onMouseOver.

A full account of Pearce Delphin's mea culpa is reported by the AFP news agency, which quotes the teen saying: "I did it merely to see if it could be done ... that JavaScript really could be executed within a tweet."

Social network tools have changed the way we interact in our personal lives and are in the process of transforming our professional lives. Increasingly, they play a significant role in how business gets done. But they're also high risk. With hundreds of millions of users, these tools have attracted attackers more than any other target in recent years.

Social network sites: Block or not?

Network security problems are part of daily IT life these days. There are myriad issues, from patching Windows machines to stopping worms and protecting your assets from nasty insider threats. Here's a round up of the hottest recent network security news.

More essentials: Network routers, desktop virtualization, IPv6, 4G

Keeping up with the smartphone world can be a difficult task, what with new phones and applications appearing weekly. Which one is best? Which one best fits the enterprise? Read on and find out.

More essentials: Network routers, desktop virtualization, IPv6, Windows Mobile, 4G

A day after Google revamped its search results page, the company has revealed similar changes to the search results available to Android and iPhone smartphone users.

The most obvious change is a button to the left of the search box that opens an options menu listing categories such as "News," "Products," "Past 24 hours" and more. Clicking on those category links can further refine a search.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is no longer the world's richest man according to the annual Forbes magazine list released Tuesday, but it's not like he's going to have to go crawling back for his old job either.

Mexican telecom tycoon Carlo Slim Helu beat out Gates, last year's top billionaire, with a fortune worth $53.5 billion. Slim's rise this past year was fueled by growth in mobile telecom giant America Movil, which saw a 35% share price increase over the past year. Slim owns a $23 billion stake in the company, according to Forbes.

Having trouble keeping track of who is suing whom among smartphone and mobile technology players over the past few months?

Here's a quick rundown:

Google has conceptual images for what a Chrome OS-based tablet computer user interface might look like at its open source Chromium Projects site.