TechTalk: Exploring the Latest Technology News, Updates, Reviews, and Gossip

Iranians’ access to Google Search and Gmail has been cut, as announced by the state television. Although coming through as unconfirmed at the moment, Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) said that the ban on the popular Google services “was connected to the anti-Islamic film posted on the company's YouTube site which has caused outrage throughout the Muslim world”.  Reports confirm that the country is in the process of shifting its citizens to a domestic Internet network, in what it claims to be an attempt at improving cyber security. Without disclosing any further, an official identified only by his last name, Khoramabadi, said ,  “Google and Gmail will be filtered throughout the country until further notice.”

Muslim clerics are seeking ways to regulate online behavior in Indonesia, saying the exploding popularity of social networking sites like Facebook could encourage illicit sex. Around 700 clerics, or imams, gathering in the world's most populous Muslim nation on Thursday were considering guidelines forbidding their followers from going online to flirt or engage in practices they believe could encourage extramarital affairs. Inside Facebook, an independent Palo Alto, Calif.-based blog dedicated to tracking the site, says Indonesia, a nation of 235 million, was the fastest-growing country in Southeast Asia for the site in 2008, with a 645 percent increase to 831,000 users. It is already the most visited site in Indonesia, and with less than 0.5 percent of Indonesia's citizens wired, there is a huge potential for growth. "The clerics think it is necessary to set an edict on virtual networking, because this online relationship could lead to lust, which is forbidden in Islam,...

Yahoo is looking to buy companies that will allow it to become a bigger player in social networking and revamp its family of products, Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh said on Wednesday. Yahoo has had conversations with companies about partnerships and "more interesting" possibilities, said Balogh, who is executive vice president of products at Yahoo. "I can guarantee you there will be some acquisitions, and we will do some stuff in house," said Balogh, speaking by videolink to the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York. Yahoo will introduce new products this fall that will make its network of websites easier to use and showcase the company's strategy to grow again, he said. The company is striving to revive its fortunes as sales decline because of the recession and competition from other Internet heavyweights, including Google Inc. In January, Carol Bartz took the reins as Yahoo CEO, succeeding co-founder Jerry Yang.

LOS ANGELES - A tough little blob must splash color over a town wallowing in gray. Bug-eyed rabbits do a dance routine. And then there's the "perfect equine farm" of wild horses for little girls to tame and train. These video games don't sound like anything that would grab a teenage boy's attention, and that's the point. They are part of an important expansion of the video game industry as it works to pull in women, girls and other demographics and cement its place as mainstream entertainment. A year ago at the E3 Media and Business Summit here in Los Angeles, Nintendo Co. declared that anyone can be a gamer, and that the company would break down the divide between hardcore players and those just beginning to dabble in interactive entertainment. While the divide still exists, games for people who don't fit into the stalwart category of 18-to-34-year-old men are a fast-growing segment of the $18 billion U.S. video game market. Analyst Michael Pachter of Wed...