By Chloe Albanesius PCMAG.com

Google’s revamped privacy policy was in the news again Thursday, this time with members of Congress demanding answers and Google taking to its blog todefend the changes.

Privacy was a big issue throughout the day, with news that the FBI was looking for apps that would make it easy to snoop on social networks, and Twitter announcing that it was now able to censor tweets.

Thursday was also a big day for earnings reports, fromNokia to Motorola to Ninendo. But it was AT&T that made the most headlines, thanks to a rant from CEO Randall Stephenson about the way the FCC handled the now-defunct carrier’s efforts to acquire T-Mobile. Read more »

By Tony BurmanSpecial to the Star

There will be a war in the Middle East within the next several months, triggered by an Israeli attack on Iran, and this is how it will happen. Like the Iraq war, it will be a fatal blend of political arrogance and near criminal risk-taking, and this should come as no surprise to us because we know the political players. But we should also know that the time to prevent it is running out.

In Iran, the government is reeling from colossal economic and political pressures. There are signs of desperation. Western sanctions over its nuclear program are biting and there is an open power struggle among key government leaders. The murders since 2010 of four nuclear scientists — most certainly masterminded by agents of Israel’s Mossad — are deeply humiliating. With parliamentary elections in March regarded by many as the most important in the history of the Islamic republic, the pressure within Iran to hit back at Israel in some damaging way is inevitable — and this will happen soon. Read more »

By Brian VastagThe Washington Post

Fast on the heels of a solar storm that delivered a glancing blow over the weekend — triggering bright auroras in Canada and Scandinavia — the sun released an even more energetic blast of radiation and charged plasma overnight that could disrupt GPS signals and the electrical grid Tuesday, especially at high latitudes, space weather experts warned Monday.

Already, the storm could be affecting satellite communications as streams of radiation from the sun bounce across the Earth’s magnetic field, which extends above the surface into space. Read more »