Facebook is enhancing its music listening options by launching Listening With Friends, a feature that will let Facebook friends listen to music together via chat. As the feature rolls out to all of Facebook's 800 million users over the next few weeks, a music note will appear next to a user's name in the chat list if he or she is listening to a song.

After a difficult year spent at the lower depths of the global smartphone market, Microsoft's Windows Phone devices roared out of oblivion at CES 2012. Analysts and the media outlets are raving about the Nokia Lumia 900 and the HTC Titan II, which are displayed at the event."Once people get over the fact that these are not iPhones or Androids, they'll be pleased,"said IDC's Ramon Llamas.

Apple, in its typical cryptic way, announced Wednesday that it was holding a press event next week on"education."It's anyone's guess what Apple will be announcing at the event scheduled for Jan. 19 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. But if a recent report is accurate, Apple will be pulling the wraps off a new initiative into digital textbooks.

Many Android devices ship with stripped-down office suite apps that offer limited functionality loosely based on the kind you'd get with Microsoft Office on your desktop. Having had a discussion recently with someone who now regularly travels without a laptop, depending solely on his Apple iPad for office functions, I was keen to see just how far these Office-like tools could go.

Too many hours of Internet use might actually change your brain. Researchers in China have concluded that those who are addicted to the Internet may experience changes in the brain that are similar to those seen in individuals hooked on drugs or alcohol.A research team lead by Hao Lei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences used magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of 35 male and female adolescents.

Lenovo unveiled its IdeaPad Yoga recently at CES, showing off a notebook with a 360-degree hinge designed to be used in a variety of ways in addition to the conventional laptop style. The Ultrabook, which will run on Windows 8, can be opened and folded back on itself to be used as a tablet or e-reader with touchscreen capabilities.

Remember this: The phone or tablet you purchased is yours. It does not belong to the carrier that you bought it from despite the fact that the device is emblazoned with its corporate identity, logo or splash screen. This outright ownership you have in the device means that you can do pretty much whatever you like with it once you've walked out of the store.

Well CES is nearing its conclusion for another year, winding down an event that may well have brought Linux more mainstream attention than any other in the show's four-decades-long history. Ubuntu had its share of the limelight, but it's another Linux distro entirely that's captured many bloggers' attention. Linux Mint, that is -- and its tantalizing new desktop environment, Cinnamon.

As Android smartphones sell like hot cakes -- 3.7 million were reportedly activated on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day -- concerns about the fragmentation of the operating system are increasing, and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt sought to allay those fears while speaking at a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show Tuesday.

Gaming equipment maker Razer has shown a prototype hybrid PC/tablet gaming device design at the Consumer Electronics Show. The device, presently dubbed"Project Fiona,"will be a way to combine control and touch elements to create a unique gaming experience, according to the company.