WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is making it easier for small businesses to beef up defenses against cyber criminals through a free, online tool, the top U.S. communications regulator said on Monday. The Small Biz Cyber Planner will allow business owners to create customized cybersecurity plans by answering basic questions about their company and its online presence. "Forty percent of all targeted attacks today are directed at companies with less than 500 employees," said Cheri McGuire, vice president of global government affairs and cybersecurity policy at Symantec Corp. The Obama administration has pushed initiatives to protect businesses and consumers from data breaches as lawmakers remain at odds over comprehensive cybersecurity legislation. The administration's latest effort -- a collaboration of government experts and private information technology and security companies, including the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Homeland Security the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Symantec, Visa Inc, Automatic Data Processing Inc, Bank of America Corp and others -- will be available in November. "Small businesses that don't take protective measures are particularly vulnerable targets for cyber criminals," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said. A new survey by Symantec and the National Cyber Security Alliance released on Monday found that only 52 percent of small businesses had a basic cybersecurity strategy or plan. The survey revealed a false sense of security among small business owners. Eighty-five percent of owners said their companies were safe from cyber threats; yet 77 percent had no formal written Internet security policy, and of those, 49 percent...

(Reuters) - The new biography of deceased Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs may be Amazon.com Inc's top-selling book of 2011, a spokeswoman at the largest Internet retailer said on Monday. The biography "Steve Jobs," by Walter Isaacson, hit bookstores on Monday but was released earlier than expected on Apple's iBooks online store and Amazon's Kindle late Sunday. The book is the best-selling book on Amazon.com and is also listed as the top-selling electronic book on the company's Kindle eBook store. "The way things are trending, it could very likely be our top-selling book of the year," Amazon spokeswoman Brittany Turner said in a statement. Turner did not say whether eBook versions of the biography are out-selling physical versions. However, James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, said that on average 50 percent of best seller books are digital and in some cases that can go as high as 70 percent. "It's very likely for the next six months this book will outperform the physical version," he said. (Reporting by Alistair Barr and Jennifer Saba; Editing by Tim Dobbyn) Original link...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's digital media adviser will travel to Moscow this week to address Russia's concerns about the Internet's use in diplomacy, a US official said on Monday. Alec Ross, the State Department's senior adviser on innovation, will pay a brief visit to Moscow at the end of the week for talks with Russian officials, a US embassy spokeswoman said. The visit comes in apparent response to growing Russian unease at the US use of "digital diplomacy" -- a policy that promotes open Internet access in authoritarian states and that is tied closely to the Arab Spring revolts. The New York Times said the State Department has recently focused on providing instant messaging and antifiltering services that could help opposition groups in Iran talk to each other without state restriction. Russia now suspects the United States of secretly backing the creation of a shadow Internet that functions independently of official state regulators and could be used to stir discontent in former Soviet states. The Kremlin has also backed UN measures that would bar nations' security agencies from using the Internet to trawl the information networks and steal or corrupt computer files in other states. One Moscow proposal would see the United Nations ban attempts to "manipulate the information flows in other states for the purpose of distorting society's political and spiritual environment." Russia's proposal, which never mentions Washington's digital diplomacy policy by name, argues that some powers try to use the Internet to "destabilise society and the...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Want to reduce stress and improve mental focus? A new app that promotes slow breathing may help. Called MyCalmBeat, the app uses a heart rate monitor that attaches to the ear to detect a person's optimal breathing rate, or resonant frequency, which is unique to each person. At this breathing rate, the company says the user can increase the variability of their heart rate to lower stress levels. "People don't realize the profound impact that slow breathing can have until they actually sit down and do it for 10 minutes and then they feel completely different," said Savannah DeVarney, vice president of product marketing for MyBrainSolutions, the creators of the app. After finding their ideal breathing rate, animated exercises show users how to breathe at that rate, while the heart monitor provides feedback about the variability of their heart rate. "Normally people think of 65 beats per minute as a good resting heart rate. But we're not necessarily looking at heart rate -- we're looking at the degree to which the space between consecutive heart beats varies," DeVarney explained. When a person is stressed their heart rate becomes consistent and variability is minimized. But when relaxed, variability is maximized, slowing down as you breathe out and speeding up as you breathe in. "We know that for most people their resonant frequency is between 7.5 and 4.5 breaths per minute. The software maps your heart rate variability through each of those rates to find the breathing rate where...

There are plenty of videos on the Internet. YouTube users alone upload 8 years of video every day. What the web needs is a service that helps organize them. Shelby.tv hopes to provide that service. The startup is launching a web video player Monday, which collects content your friends share on your Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr into one stream. [More from Mashable: Can Web Video Views Predict Box Office Magic for Harry Potter?] Instead of watching video on a small square within a large YouTube page, which can be surrounded by less-than-tasteful comments from strangers, you watch it in full-screen mode and within the context of your friends' recommendations. You can watch the stream consistently -- like TV -- without searching or clicking, or you can reorder and delete videos. If you like a video, you can save it to a personal favorites feed. "I don't watch TV unless a friend says, 'You have to see this show,'" says cofounder Reece Pacheco. "...We're trying to bring the same strength as word of mouth to web video." [More from Mashable: Cutest Kids in the World Will Make You Smile [VIRAL VIDEO]] The startup, a graduate of TechStars' inaugural New York class, is also launching an iPhone and iPad app Monday. The app is similar to the browser version, but portable. Pacheco says that he, for instance, sometimes watches Shelby.tv on his iPad while he's brushing his teeth. Despite this habit, Pacheco says the goal of Shelby.tv is not to get people...

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was once the most followed person on rival social networking site Google+, but his stint at the top has been short-lived. Google CEO Larry Page has ousted Zuckerberg from the top spot on Google+. According to the Next Web-created Google+ statistics counter, Larry Page is now just a few hundred followers away from 600,000, while Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is sitting pretty with almost 599,000 followers. The social network’s top user list has changed significantly since Google+ was first launched in July; back then Zuckerberg had rounded up a total of more than 21,000 followers while Google's own Larry Page was sitting on close to 15,000 fans in second place.   Months later IT leaders such as Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Vic Gundotra and Tom Anderson still populate the top ten leader board but high-powered celebrities and musicians are climbing their way up the ranks of Google+’s most followed users. Britney Spears has gained third place on the list, accruing a total of 544,513 fans on the social networking site. Snoop Dogg ranks in fourth place with 483,029 fans, Paris Hilton is in sixth place with 410,387 fans, will.i.am ranks seventh with 402,089 fans and Tyra Banks is just behind him with 375,900 fans. Twitter’s most followed celebrities Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber are yet to officially join the blossoming social network. The top 10 most popular Google+ users according to socialstatistics.com: Larry Page - 599,395 followers Mark Zuckerberg - 598,750 Britney Spears - 544,513...

One of Italy’s top motorcycle racers, Marco Simoncelli, was killed in an accident during the 2011 Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix, report Twitter users....

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Group confirmed that it had named a group led by online shopping mall operator Interpark as preferred bidder for its procurement arm iMarketKorea Inc, in a deal to buy Samsung's up to $342 million stake in the firm....

(Reuters) - Netflix Inc said it will launch a subscription service in the United Kingdom and Ireland in early 2012, offering unlimited TV shows and movie streaming over the Internet....

[More from Mashable: The Impact of the iPod]...

BEIJING (Reuters) - A group of small-business owners in China has expanded a protest against higher fees to target Alipay, the country's leading online payment platform, after its corporate sibling, Taobao Mall, announced a tenfold fee hike for some businesses using its service, Chinese media reported on Monday....

DEAD SEA, Jordan (Reuters) - Saudi Telecom Co (STC) plans major acquisitions in the Middle East next year to take advantage of a buyer's market to expand it's regional presence, the chief executive of its international operations said on Sunday....

"With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go," said Steve Jobs as the first iPod launched in 2001. "With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again." Thanks to the iPod's far-reaching impact over the last decade, you could argue that the consumer electronics industry has never been the same again. [More from Mashable: Top 12 Mashable Infographics] On the tenth anniversary of the iPod's debut we take a look at just how influential Apple's portable digital music player has been. Take a look at our analysis, complete with comment from experts. Have your say in the comments below. 1. Transforming the Consumer Electronics Industry "The iPod truly ushered in the era of portable digital consumer electronics, much as the Walkman did for analog audio," states Jordan Selburn, principal analyst of consumer electronics at IHS-iSuppli. In just 10 years the iPod has been so influential that the word has come to represent a portable digital music player in the same way "Hoover" dominates the vacuum cleaner market. Apple wasn't the first to introduce such a device, so why has the iPod brand dominated all others? "The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player out there -- before it came out I'd used models from Rio for my runs -- but it took the shortcomings inherent in the existing products in the market and improved on them,"...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Long before there was an Internet or an iPad, before people were social networking and instant messaging, Americans had already gotten wired.Monday marks the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental telegraph. From sea to sea, it electronically knitted together a nation that was simultaneously tearing itself apart, North and South, in the Civil War.Americans soon saw that a breakthrough in the spread of technology could enhance national identity and, just as today, that it could vastly change lives."It was huge," says Amy Fischer, archivist for Western Union, which strung the line across mountains, canyons and tribal lands to make the final connection. "... With the Civil War just a few months old, the idea that California, the growing cities of California, could talk to Washington and the East Coast in real time was huge. It's hard to overstate the impact of that."On Oct. 24, 1861, with the push of a button, California's chief justice, Stephen J. Field, wired a message from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, congratulating him on the transcontinental telegraph's completion that day. He added the wish that it would be a "means of strengthening the attachment which binds both the East and the West to the Union."A rudimentary version of the Internet — not much more advanced than two tin cans and a string — had been born. But it worked, and it grew.Just a few years after the nation was wired, telegraph technology would be extended to the...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google can only hope that Steve Jobs' final vendetta doesn't haunt the Internet search leader from his grave.The depths of Jobs' antipathy toward Google leaps out of Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Apple's co-founder. The book goes on sale Monday, less than three weeks after Jobs' long battle with pancreatic cancer culminated in his Oct. 5 death. The Associated Press obtained a copy Thursday.The biography drips with Jobs' vitriol as he discusses his belief that Google stole from Apple's iPhone to build many of the features in Google's Android software for rival phones.It's clear that the perceived theft represented an unforgiveable act of betrayal to Jobs, who had been a mentor to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and had welcomed Google's CEO at the time, Eric Schmidt, to be on Apple's board.Jobs retaliated with a profane manifesto during a 2010 conversation with his chosen biographer. Isaacson wrote that he never saw Jobs angrier in any of their conversations, which covered a wide variety of emotional topics during a two-year period.After equating Android to "grand theft" of the iPhone, Jobs lobbed a series of grenades that may blow a hole in Google's image as an innovative company on a crusade to make the world a better place."I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs told Isaacson. "I'm going to destroy Android because it's a stolen...

Since its debut in 2001, the Apple iPod has evolved from the seminal white box with a mechanical scroll wheel to, ultimately, a sleek touchscreen multimedia device....

It was a busy week in the gadget world, and I've boiled it all down into the top 10 most unusual, groundbreaking, futuristic and just-plain-weird gadgets I could find for you, all wrapped up right here in a easily digested package. Pick your favorite, and let us know what you think in the comments....

(Reuters) - Groupon Inc plans to raise as much as $540 million in an initial public offering, less than previously planned, as the daily deals website grapples with a weak equities market, executive departures and questions about its accounting and business model. The company aims to sell 30 million shares, or less than 5 percent of the company, at between $16 and $18 each, according to a regulatory filing on Friday. The midpoint would value Groupon $10.8 billion, far less than the $20 billion initially expected but still above the $6 billion that Google Inc offered to pay for the business last year. Despite the lowered valuation, some analysts say Groupon's shares could still struggle when they come to market in November. They point to questions over the long-term viability of a company that faces fierce competition in a business that has low barriers to entry. The fact that Groupon has changed its accounting twice under pressure from regulators, and lost two chief operating officers this year, also has not instilled confidence. "This offer strikes me as very, very unattractive," said Josef Schuster, founder of Chicago-based IPO research and investment house IPOX Schuster. "I think it's over-valued." He said the scaling back of the IPO and the small float suggested more shares could be offloaded later. Depending on demand, the IPO will raise between $480 million and $540 million, compared with a previous target of up to $750 million. The online daily deal industry has exploded into a multibillion-dollar business...

Here are highlights of recent quarterly earnings reports from selected Internet and media companies and what they say about the state of spending on advertising:...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Little-known online games company Trion Worlds, after raising $100 million in venture capital since 2007, is looking at becoming the newest debutante at the digital media IPO ball. Not unlike larger and better-known games company Zynga, which filed for an IPO of up to $1 billion in July, Trion is considering an initial public offering as an option. "As we build scale and become more profitable, (an IPO) is clearly on our horizon at some point," Chief Executive Lars Buttler said in an interview with Reuters, declining to provide details on a time frame. "We've had a lot of bankers coming to us recently. We keep all of our options open at this point. We definitely have enough substance and enough skill to be a public company at the right time." However, Buttler was quick to note that Trion, which scored a hit with its first game, "Rift," has not yet hired investment bankers. He added that challenging market conditions have made it difficult for companies to go public at the moment. While Trion may not be a household name, its backers are include two of the best-known companies in media: Time Warner Inc and Comcast Corp. Other investors in the company include Fidelity Investments and ACT II Capital, a hedge fund that invests in media companies. Trion, which is only about five years old, is growing fast. The company doubled its staff to 500 people this year and Buttler said that hiring pace will continue....