What it means. "Augmented reality" sounds very "Star Trek," but what is it, exactly? In short, AR is defined as "an artificial environment created through the combination of real-world and computer-generated data." It's not the same thing as virtual reality, which is probably a more familiar term to many of us: VR is a completely computer-generated environment that stands in for reality, whereas AR takes real-world, real-time environments and adds digital enhancements, to enable interactivity and convey extra information.

Are you in love with a techie? Forget the flowers and candy. Here are five suggestions for sharing your love in a way they'll really appreciate.

Amazon is rumored to be planning a physical store to be located in Seattle, the online giant's home base, according to the website Good Ereader. And "Amazon sources close to the situation" have reported that we can expect this move to occur within the next few months.

A new study from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project surveyed Facebook subscribers who actually gave the organization access to their Facebook data, so their responses could be matched with their Facebook activities—specifically their social and civic lives. Pew found that "the average Facebook user gets more from their friends on Facebook than they give to their friends."

Just days before Super Bowl XLVI, the federal government has shut down 16 websites authorities say have been illegally streaming live sports games and pay-per-view events online, including NFL, NBA, and NHL events among others.

Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich (or ICS), is the long-awaited version of Google's Android operating system that's designed for both smart phones and tablets, allowing software to be easily developed for both types of devices. The first tablet running the new OS is the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime. We took a look at the quad-core Transformer with Ice Cream Sandwich to see what new features it brings to the tablet world. The changes aren't earth-shattering, but there are some noticeable improvements.

If you own a smart phone or tablet, you've no doubt explored the enormous world of mobile apps, both free and paid. And if you're unhappy with a free app, nothing's easier than uninstalling it. But if you paid for an app that doesn't live up to its description, or has performance issues, or that you just don't like, you don't have a whole lot of recourse.

Data on the file-hosting site Megaupload will not be erased for another two weeks, according to news reports citing the company's lawyer, after previous reports said that legitimate and legally acquired content would be deleted along with all pirated material on the site as soon as this Thursday.

Several e-mail providers and financial-service providers have come together to create DMARC, a working group of 15 companies that will promote a standard set of technologies to reduce phishing e-mails and better secure your e-mail.

For fans of the free Firefox Web browser from Mozilla, there's good news. A new version—and a security patch for an older version—are set to be released to the online world on Tuesday Jan. 31.

User reviews are an established part of the online shopping landscape. And so it comes as no surprise that companies have tried to "game" the system to their advantage. It also means reviews from actual consumers can be up for sale, undermining the entire process.

Shipments of ultrabooks—the lightweight cousins to laptops, and one of the hottest new product categories in electronics— are expected to grow three times faster than shipments of tablet computers, according to a new report from U.K. analyst firm Juniper Research.

Under Google's new privacy policy, which the company says will take effect on March 1, all of your personal data across Google's services, including Gmail, Picasa and YouTube, will be merged into a single database, which the company says will allow it to provide you with more relevant search results. Computer users who don't want to share their search or other data with the company can log out of their Google accounts—or even cancel them to remain totally anonymous. But the situation is more complicated for owners of smart phones powered by Google's Android operating system.

Plans to continuously monitor the global output of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks by the Federal Bureau of Investigation came to light when the agency released a document detailing the plan.

Good news for Netflix subscribers who may have come to rely on the service's video offerings: The company is not about to shrivel up and die. Despite competition and a rocky end to 2011, Netflix added more than 600,000 new subscribers in the fourth quarter, according to news reports.