CEO Marissa Mayer has reiterated Yahoo’s plans to spin off its 15 percent stake in Alibaba as quickly as possible. Britta Pedersen/dpa/Corbis Here’s something to plug into Yahoo’s search field: How do you make the Internet giant exciting again? That’s the question CEO Marissa Mayer has been wrestling with after spending the past three years …

Google Maps’ latest update for Android lets you search for gas stations, restaurants and other points of interest along your route without leaving navigation mode. Prior to this update, you would need to leave your turn-by-turn directions to search the map for a gas station, for example, and then jump back into navigation mode. Now, you can search along the …

A San Francisco judge has ordered five employees of wearable-device maker Fitbit to return confidential information they took before leaving rival Jawbone, a legal victory in a series of lawsuits that claim Fitbit stole its trade secrets by poaching employees. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn issued a preliminary injunction Thursday, ruling that Jawbone would likely win its claim …

AT&T may soon introduce a sequel to the LG G Vista. Josh Miller/CNET Just a day after announcing the upcoming Kyocera DuraForce XD, AT&T has inadvertently confirmed it will soon offer the LG G Vista 2, a new Android-powered jumbo phone. A video posted to AT&T’s YouTube account prematurely tipped the Vista 2’s impending arrival. Although the video has since …

Just out of frame is a TV. History Channel If you’re paying for Amazon Prime for shipping purposes, don’t forget you get access to a whole bunch of movies and TV shows. In November, Amazon’s original series “The Man in the High Castle” arrives. Based on the 1962 novel by Philip K. Dick, it looks into an alternate history of …

Customers who signed up for unlimited data are going to get it, Verizon says. That means no throttling. Verizon Verizon Wireless’ unlimited-data customers finally have something to celebrate. Subscribers to the carrier’s grandfathered unlimited plans won’t suffer slowdowns, even if they run wild with their data usage, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said in an interview Tuesday. The nation’s …

If your Gmail inbox has turned into a daily chore of deleting messages from people or companies, then it might be time to start using the Block or Unsubscribe features. The Block feature became available back in September on both the Web and Android versions of Gmail, and Unsubscribe (which was already available on the Web) has finally started rolling …

Verizon faces increasing competition from its rivals. Verizon Do you want reliable wireless service or do you want cheap service? That’s long been Verizon’s justification to customers for why it charges a premium over its rivals. It’s also a question being asked more often as rivals drop their prices and promise better service. Well, coverage continues to win out for …

For car enthusiasts, online configurators are a great way to kill some time — you get to build your perfect idea of a car from scratch. Bentley’s taking the whole process to a new extreme with its Inspirator app, which uses facial recognition to assemble your perfect car without asking you to make a single conscious choice. Inspirator is a …

It may feel like you are screaming into the void the next time you attempt to initiate a voice search on your computer by uttering “OK Google.” With the latest iteration of its desktop browser, Chrome 46, Google has removed the ability to trigger a search with your voice on Windows, Mac and Linux systems. Voice search is no longer …

Enlarge ImageThe winning doodle for the 2014 Doodle 4 Google contest. Audrey Zhang/Screenshot by CNET Google flavors its home page with doodles that commemorate significant people and events. The vast majority of the doodles are created in-house, but the search giant also hosts an annual contest for children. The Doodle 4 Google contest challenges students in kindergarten through 12th grade …

Whenever you write an email or IM to someone you don’t know very well, you want to be as polite as possible. This will help keep the lines of communication open while you get to know their etiquette preferences and sense of humor. To help you out, the Politeness Web tool from FoxType Labs can be used to check the …

The male peacock spider doesn’t have an extensive showreel. When you’re the size of a fingernail, it’s hard to command the attention of wildlife filmmakers — if camera crews haven’t spent years stepping over you in the undergrowth, then they haven’t had the gear required to capture your colours in glorious detail. Compared to lightning-fast cheetahs or a pride of …

iOgrapher GoPro cameras are great for mounting on people and things in ways you can’t with traditional cameras. However, the design also makes them tricky to use as more than a point-of-view camera. The iOgrapher Go solves this by giving you a way to mount a GoPro onto a frame between two large handgrips made out of strong, lightweight polycarbonate …

Enlarge Image Sprint Sprint prepaid brand Boost Mobile is adding a few new smartphones to its contract-free lineup. And you won’t have to pay very much to get your hands on them: they’re both available for less than $150. First up is the HTC Desire 626s, available for $130. It’s running Android 5.1 Lollipop on a 5-inch, 720p display, and …