Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

via Engadget by Zach Honig on 4/25/11 There's little question that the last 50 years have represented the most innovative half-century in human history, and today marks the anniversary of the invention that started it all: the silicon-based integrated circuit. Robert Noyce received the landmark U.S. patent on April 25, 1961, going on to found Intel Corporation with Gordon E. Moore (of Moore's Law fame) in 1968. He wasn't the first to invent the integrated circuit -- the inventor of the pocket calculator Jack Kilby patented a similar technology on a germanium wafer for Texas Instruments a few months prior. Noyce's silicon version stuck, however, and is responsible for Moore's estimated $3.7 billion net worth, not to mention the success of the entire computing industry. Holding 16 other patents and credited as a mentor of Steve Jobs , Noyce was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1987, and continued to shape the computing industry until his death in 19...

Security researchers unveiled this week that Apple's iPhone was actively logging the whereabouts of users, storing location data into an easily assessable file on the device. But it's not just iPhones that are keeping track of their users. Apple's iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4, and iPad models are also keeping track of consumers whereabouts. Mac computers running Snow Leopard and even Windows computers running Safari 5 are being watched. The question is why? The company has remained silent after researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden revealed this Wednesday that the iPhone was storing logs of users' geographic coordinates in a hidden file. "We're not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it's clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations," the security experts wrote in their blogs. While Apple has since remained tight-lipped on the matter, not responding to any media-inquires, ...

By JULIA ANGWIN And JENNIFER VALENTINO-DEVRIES WSJ.com Senior Technology Editor Julia Angwin reports Apple's iPhone and Google's Android regularly transmit user location data back to those companies, based on data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal. Apple Inc.'s iPhones and Google Inc.'s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal-intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data. Google and Apple are gathering location information as part of their race to build massive databases capable of pinpointing people's locations via their cellphones. These databases could help them tap the $2.9 billion market for location-based services-expected to rise to $8.3 billion in 2014, according to research firm Gartner Inc. In the case of Google, according to new research by security analyst Samy Kamkar, an HTC Android phone collec...