Facebook employees have millions. Now what?

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rang the Nasdaq opening bell on Friday to mark Facebook's public debut, he also rang in a crop of new millionaires and billionaires.

It's a rite of passage for Silicon Valley's most successful entrepreneurs and the employees who joined their ventures early -- and so is learning how to handle that fortune. Those who have been there before are full of advice.

"Buy one thing you've always wanted," suggests Karl Jacobs, a serial entrepreneur and early Facebook (FB) advisor. "A lot of people don't celebrate the fact that they've worked really hard."

Color CEO Bill Nguyen -- who sold his last company, Lala, to Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) in 2009 -- has a quirky suggestion: don't buy a house. Build one.

"It slows you down," he says. "All these things happen to you so quickly, you don't get the time to think about it."

Nguyen took his own advice. He used part of his fortune to build athoroughly customized tropical compound on the shores of Maui's Mokuleia Bay.

Click here to continue reading: http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/21/technology/facebook-ipo-millionaires/index.htm

Own an iPod? Then you're suing Apple

If you're one of the millions who purchased an iPod between September 12, 2006, and March 31, 2009, you might be in for a surprising email from RealNetworks.

The company, which developed Real Player and the service Harmony, has officially enlisted iPod owners in a class-action lawsuitagainst Apple -- though you do have the right to recuse yourself.

Why RealNetworks? Back in 2004, the company created the music service Harmony, a digital rights management (DRM) translation service. It allowed users to play songs downloaded from the RealPlayer music store on Apple's iPod.

But as any iPod user knows, songs must be loaded onto iTunes to be played on Apple's devices. That's because Apple created an iPod firmware update not too long after the announcement of Harmony, which blocked it and other music services from uploading songs to the iPod.

Several iPod users filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of unfairly blocking competition. Now -- eight years later -- it's gaining steam.

Click here to continue reading:http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/10/tech/gaming-gadgets/apple-ipod-lawsuit/index.html

AT&T expands into wireless home security, automation

 AT&T is joining the expanding field of home security and automation, introducing a wireless service that will let homeowners use their mobile devices to remotely set alarms, turn on lights or even shut off water.

Called AT&T Digital Life, the service will connect users with a vast array of domestic devices and appliances, including cameras, door locks, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and thermostats.

It will run on AT&T's IP-based wireless platform and can be accessed via smartphones, tablets or PCs. And despite being from AT&T, it will work regardless of the user's wireless carrier.

The company plans to begin trials of the service in Atlanta and Dallas this summer.

"AT&T Digital Life will change the way people live, work and play -- and meets a clear need in the market," said Kevin Petersen, senior vice president of Digital Life for AT&T Mobility. "The service is smart, simple and customer-centric -- freeing homeowners to do the things they want to do without compromising on the things they need to do to care for family and home."

Digital Life joins other existing products and wireless companies that are taking advantage of people's increasing reliance on mobile devices.

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/07/tech/mobile/att-home-security/index.html

The Internet, corporations and the upside of a zombie apocalypse

For someone who likes to talk about the virtues of disconnecting, the media critic Douglas Rushkoff seems surprisingly always on. When I visited him at his storefront office near his home in Hastings on Hudson, New York, he was preparing to teach a new class, getting ready for a BBC interview, writing an essay, staring down a pile of articles to read, trying to figure out his new iPhone, and hurrying to finish his third book in three years -- a graphic novel called ADD, which revolves around gaming culture, celebrity and the pharmaceutical industry. "It also asks the question," he says, "what if attention deficit disorder weren't a bug, but a feature?"

The hyper-speed hyperlinked life is familiar ground for Rushkoff, whose first book "Cyberia" made him a popular tour guide to the Internet in the early 1990s, and an early prognosticator of its radical potential. But much has changed between the awkward days of "the 'Net" -- then a non-commercial collection of public networks accessed by local ISPs -- and the overloaded era of Facebook, YouTube and iPhones. If Rushkoff is well-versed in the language underneath the "digital revolution," he's also become one of its most outspoken critics.

"A society that looked at the Internet as a path toward highly articulated connections and new methods of creating meaning is instead finding itself disconnected, denied deep thinking, and drained of enduring values," Rushkoff writes in his recent "Program or Be Programmed." His remedy is simple, if ambitious: once people begin to understand how software works, "they start to recognize the programs at play everywhere else. From the economy andeducation to politics and government, all systems have embedded purposes. The less we recognize them, the more we mistake them for given circumstances."

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/03/tech/web/vice-douglas-rushkoff/index.html

Wireless carriers alerting users about data-overage charges

If you like streaming lots of audio or video to your cell phone and you don't have an unlimited data plan, you might end up with a bad case of "bill shock" when your wireless carrier hits you with overage charges.

In October, under pressure from the Federal Communications Commission, U.S. carriers agreed to start alerting customers by text message when they're getting close to hitting their plan caps on data, phone minutes and text messages. This would allow users to either curb their use for the rest of the month or switch to a higher (and pricier) tier before they incur overage charges.

The carriers also agreed to fully implement these alerts within a year.

So, it's been six months. How are they doing?

Last week, the FCC started publishing updates on carriers' progress toward implementing these alerts.

Among the four major carriers, T-Mobile has gotten the most done: It's set up overage alerts for voice, data and international roaming plans. Verizon has implemented them only for data and international roaming. AT&T has alerts only for data plan overages and Sprint only for international roaming.

None of the minor U.S. wireless carriers has implemented any alerts, according to the FCC.

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/30/tech/mobile/wireless-data-alerts-gahran/index.html