Rachel Sadon

Bay Area Rapid Transit's August shutdown of wireless service to squelch a demonstration in San Francisco raised anew questions about the use of tech in the face of authority. In this first installment in a series of FAQs, we discuss your rights when photographing police.

Each semester, the same scenes play out at collegiate bookstores across the country: long lines, arcane return policies, exorbitantly priced sweatshirts, overeager freshman, and textbooks whose prices add up to more than a typical monthly car payment.

Shopping-savvy students increasingly are avoiding the traffic jam and lessening the sticker shock by choosing to rent or purchase used textbooks online. But as a generation heads to school armed with multiple mobile devices, publishers are beginning to offer digital alternatives to traditional course materials.

With advances in technology redefining the advertising market, small and medium-size businesses are benefiting from new opportunities to reach consumers--from reduced costs in traditional media to online, mobile, and social networking opportunities.

The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that mom-and-pop businesses are taking advantage of a depressed media market and increased access to technology to produce successful marketing campaigns. Once prohibitively expensive, spots on TV and billboards are seeing growth from small businesses that can now afford to produce and run advertisements.

It doesn't matter whether you're the proud owner of a redneck grill or of the $14,000 Fire Magic Echelon Gas Grill--you are the executive chef of your backyard. Boss of the barbecue. The charcoal chaperone. Possibly you even have a snazzy apron.

We salute you, meat master. And in honor of the summer season, we've ventured into the high-steaks world of grilling gizmos. Bad puns and unfortunate alliteration aside, we found some useful apps and intriguing tech for the barbecue enthusiast.

The jorts are out, and flip-flops are leaving strange tan lines on feet across the nation. Summer is here and we're celebrating with the tech we love best.

Revamp the Backyard

Since staycation seems to be the word of the year, why not turn your backyard into a miniresort?

As articles about the Facebook backlash, security concerns, and even a "good-bye to privacy" continue to stream in at a steady clip, tech companies are busy developing a potentially lucrative market--privacy protection. The Wall Street Journal reports that venture capitalists are actively investing in privacy-related start-ups that offer a range of services to manage online identity.

The investment windfalls include $15 million for ReputationDefender, a site that offers services to monitor and control your Internet presence. They range from a customized search to remove personal information from databases to managing what search engines reveal about you. Not everyone is running a political campaign, but job seekers, in particular, may want to make sure that the pictures of their last scantily-clad vacation stay locked safely away. Businesses can take it a step further and sign up for services that will promote their brand, reduce the impact of negative publicity, and manage their presence on the Web.

After approximately four years of lectures, exams, essays, and a thesis that never seemed to end, you've just received a diploma from someone in a robe and been ceremoniously kicked off campus.

The world of portfolio tracking got much simpler on Wednesday with the introduction of a new investment tracking tool from Wikinvest. The free service allows users to import information directly from existing brokerage and investment accounts, synchronizes the data, and then presents real-time information about the combined portfolio's performance.

Unlike most portfolio trackers, which require manual updates of changes to different accounts, the Wikinvest tool syncs users' information from any of the 25 brokerages that the site supports and tracks them all in one place. The supported brokerage include Charles Schwab, OptionsXpress, Wells Fargo Fidelity, and ETrade.

What if you hadn't thrown away the old and clunky--but beloved--technology that littered your youth? Would your first cell phone, computer, or early Pong system be worth anything today?

How about the pile of video games that you saved until your mother sent them to Goodwill because she didn't want to end up on an episode of Hoarders?