United States

Germany recently announced a program which gives money to citizens to scrap old polluting cars and buy newer, more fuel efficient ones. The program pays 2,500 euros ($3,500 USD) for each car scrapped.

German police worked with U.S. authorities Friday to determine if they had fallen victim to an Internet hoax as they investigate a school shooting in southern Germany that killed 15 people.

Tim Kretschmer, 17, gunned down students at his former high school in Winnenden Wednesday before fleeing on foot and by car, killing three more people, and eventually turning a 9-millimeter Beretta pistol on himself.

Krzysztof Kotarski
 

Michael
Blim

Google's new telephone service, Google Voice, is receiving generally positive reviews from industry analysts. Some of the features, however, are raising potentially troubling legal issues.

Nearly two years ago, Google bought Grand Central, an Internet-based phone service, and opened it up to a limited number of beta testers. Over the following months, users got increasingly impatient with the lack of new features or upgrades to the service.

Technology helped fuel the economic boom of the 1990s. Then the dot-com bust caught some of the blame for the recession of the early 2000s. If technology is so tied to the national economy, and the current recession started on Wall Street, not in Silicon Valley, can technology lift the tide this time?

Technology boosters argue that their sector certainly can help. And the stimulus bill is packed with funding for high-tech projects. But technology's influence on the U.S. economy is not as big as you might expect.