Elise Hu

Apple, Google, Microsoft and a broad coalition of major tech companies are making a loud call for greater government disclosure of digital communications monitoring.

In a letter out today, an alliance of 63 companies and groups are calling for dramatically increased transparency around U.S. government surveillance efforts. This comes as ...

It's no secret that angry online ranters have become a real scourge of the Internet. The equation goes something like this: Normal person + anonymity + audience = terrible person.

If people hiding behind their angry rants with anonymous identities have ever made you feel bad, know this: Research shows ...

In a blog series we're calling "Weekly Innovation," we'll explore an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Last week we featured the sink-urinal. (Do you have an innovation to share? Use this quick form.)

You are wasting valuable time when you ...

Calm largely prevailed after a jury acquitted George Zimmerman Saturday night in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Law enforcement and community leaders had prepared for potential unrest, and riots had been feared for months. Slate's Dave Weigel sums up the fears:

" 'The public mind has been ...

Justin Carter, the 19-year-old who was arrested and jailed in February after making a Facebook comment about a school shooting, is out of jail. An anonymous donor posted the $500,000 bond to allow Carter to go home. Carter plans to stay near New Braunfels, Texas, to await his trial ...

As you might have read, media sharing app Instagram added a new feature this week. You can now embed Instagram photos and videos on your site.

The rollout of Instagram video didn't go smoothly, as an unknown number of users lost their inaugural videos to processing problems. So ...

Google Glass isn't even available to the public yet. But the wearable technology that packs a tiny computer into a lightweight frame has already faced mockery, condemnation, fear and threats of regulation. As NPR's Steve Henn reported in May:

"Right now, Google Glass might be the ...

The Fourth of July holiday brought about another first for Google Glass, the computing device that you can wear on your face.

Chris Barrett, a documentary filmmaker and founder of PRServe.com, was wearing Glass for a fireworks show in Wildwood, N.J., when he happened upon a boardwalk brawl and ...

We've been following the case of Justin Carter, the Texas teen who's been jailed near San Antonio since February. It started when he posted a Facebook message saying he would go "shoot up a kindergarten." Austin Police arrested him and seized his computer and a grand jury indicted him ...

The family of Justin Carter, the 19-year-old Texas gamer who made offensive Facebook comments that landed him in jail, is working with new urgency to get his $500,000 bail reduced because they say he's getting beat up behind bars.

"Without getting into the really nasty details, he's had concussions, ...

A Texas teen faces up to eight years in prison after making a comment on Facebook about shooting up "a school full of kids." Deputies in Comal County, Texas, charged then-18-year-old Justin Carter with making "terroristic threats" — a third-degree felony — in March. According to the Comal County Jail, ...

All this week, NPR is taking a look at the demographic changes that could reshape the political landscape in Texas over the next decade — and what that could mean for the rest of the country.

To see the speed of demographic change in Texas, look no further ...

You can't say they didn't warn you. On Monday, Google Reader will no longer be available. The search behemoth is putting its RSS reader to rest, leaving millions of dedicated users scrambling to find other platforms for organization of their news feeds and content exploration.

One of the

In case you missed it Monday, we're rebooting our technology blog to focus on the intersection of innovation and culture. The updated approach both widens our view of technology — for example, two-ply toilet paper was innovative at one point — and sharpens our gaze. You won't find ...

Overnight, Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis became a national political name and a hero to abortion-rights supporters around the country.

The Fort Worth Democrat stood and spoke for nearly 11 hours Tuesday to run out the clock on a sweeping bill that could have closed all but five abortion clinics ...

The official clock ran out on Texas lawmakers overnight, which effectively killed a bill that would have dramatically restricted abortion in the nation's second most populous state. Hours of chaos and confusion in Austin finally lifted as Texas Senate leaders decided that the vote on Senate Bill 5 did not ...

By midnight Texas time, it was all over but the parliamentary inquiries. After a nearly 11-hour filibuster attempt by state Sen. Wendy Davis to block sweeping restrictions on abortion, the Republican-dominated Texas Senate successfully shut down the filibuster on points of order. (See update at the bottom of this post.)

Perhaps it's fitting, in this time of information overload in the vaunted information age, that there's too much news about tech and it's wearing us down. The world needs another tech blog like it needs another Kardashian spinoff show. But in the flood of headlines about fresh funding for ...

UPDATE on Thursday at 1:44 p.m. ET: Instagram For Video Arrives

As expected, Facebook announced Thursday that its photo-sharing service, Instagram, will be adding a video feature. It's called Video on Instagram, and will let users create 15-second videos and choose from 13 filters for their creations. Instagram video is ...