In response to the federal government's largest anti-piracy crackdown and subsequent arrests of seven Megaupload. com leaders, "hacktivist" group Anonymous said on Thursday that it had taken down a number of websites, including those of the US Department of Justice (DoJ), the FBI, the Recording Industry of America, Universal Music, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and BMI.

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Technology will apparently make a more noticeable appearance in the classrooms in the near future, with Apple having announced on Thursday that it will introduce new iPad textbook experience as well as a new tool for authoring iBooks.

Teachers are being presented a first-time opportunity of compiling their own content, with Cupertino-based Apple selling textbooks from a few publishers - including McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin, and Pearson - at prices which are almost at par with those of the books' print versions.

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On Thursday, the Megaupload. com website - one of the popular so-called locker services on the Web - was seized by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and seven people were charged in connection with running the Internet piracy-based global enterprise.

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In its relentless attempts to encourage Facebook users to share more information with their friends, the popular social network has worked out partnerships with over 60 companies to roll out new apps.

At a news conference held in San Francisco on Wednesday, Facebook launched 60 new apps - most of them being fresh versions of already-available online services or mobile apps - which will enable the more than 800 million users of the social network to automatically publish details that they wish to share on their Facebook pages about what they are doing.

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The recent announcement by retail giant Wal-Mart, that it will be offering the new Nokia Lumia 710 for free, with a two-year T-Mobile contract, has triggered apprehensions among tech writers and industry observers that Nokia's embryonic Windows Phone attempts are apparently in some kind of trouble.

The implications of Wal-Mart's Lumia 710 price-reduction move are being discussed by the industry watchers, even though T-Mobile and Best Buy have stuck to their `$49.99 with two-year contract' price-tag of the handset.

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Microsoft's recent announcement pertaining to the availability of its System Center 2012 as a Release Candidate (RC) marks the last landmark for the suite prior to its final release, which will likely come some time in the first half of this year.

The availability of the System Center 2012 as RC implies that all the eight components of the suite are now free for download by anyone. The upgraded suite boasts Hyper-V and Windows Server and essentially lays the crucial foundation for Microsoft's strategy related to private cloud.

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On Tuesday, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang - who launched the Internet giant along with fellow Stanford student David Filo in 1995 - stepped down from the board of the company, stating that he desires to pursue other interests.

Along with resigning from the Yahoo board, Yang, 43, also relinquished the other posts which he held at the company, almost 18 years after he founded the ground-breaking, though presently beleaguered, Internet giant.

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On Tuesday, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)'s lead sponsor and Judiciary Committee's chairman Representative Lamar Smith said that in spite of the fresh opposition to SOPA, a markup hearing to amend and debate the controversial copyright enforcement bill will be resumed in February.

A markup hearing often has a committee voting on amendments to a proposed bill as well as on the decision whether or not the bill should be approved and sent to the full House for further action.

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In response to octogenarian magnate Rupert Murdoch’s Twitter tirade against Google, accusing the Internet search giant of being a “piracy leader,” the company has hit back by dismissing Murdoch’s remarks as “just nonsense.”

Murdoch’s Twitter rant against Google, as well as President Barack Obama, coincided with the White House recently raising concerns about anti-piracy legislation – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – which is being debated in Congress.

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With Microsoft having decided to pull out of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) from next year, after kicking off the proceedings at the massive trade show for years, it is being widely speculated that the 2013 CES would largely be a Google show!

Speculations about the likelihood of Google dominating the CES next year are apparently an upshot of the fact that even though Windows-powered “ultrabooks” made a mark at the show, the event was largely dominated by Google’s Android operating system, which was virtually everywhere --- in handsets, on tablets, and in TVs as well.

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