TechBytes: Free McDonald's WiFi

Jan.15, 2010— -- Beginning today, McDonald's is offering free wireless internet service at most of its U.S. restaurants. 11,500 of McDonald's roughly 14,000 locations will offer the free service. Many McDonald's restaurants have had WiFi for years, but it was not free.

Microsoft says a security flaw in Internet Explorer is partially responsible for the recent cyberattack against Google and several other companies. Hackers exploited a hole in the web browser to get at Gmail users and others. Microsoft says the security hole can be closed by setting the Internet security zone to "high." The company may also issue a software update to fix the problem.

Touch screens are the must-have feature on gadgets these days, but in a few years we may do more talking than tapping. Speech recognition software is becoming popular on devices like the Google phone and iPhone. USA Today's Ed Baig tested out one popular program called Dragon Dictation. "You can just speak out commands and with any luck, it gets captured with accuracy on the iPhone," Baig describes. He says the free app works relatively well. "In my tests in fact, it was pretty fast and it was pretty accurate in most situations, at least when there wasn't a lot of background noise." You can read Baig's column on USAToday.com

December was a record month for the video game industry. Americans spent more than $5.5 billion on games and consoles, the most ever in a single month. More Nintendo Wiis were sold than PlayStations and Xboxes combined. And Modern Warfare 2 for the Xbox was the best selling game of the year.