Silicon Beach Fest, aimed at boosting the growing Los Angeles technology scene, is back for its second year.

The four-day tech entertainment festival officially kicks off Wednesday with an opening party and a start-up demo day.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday will feature panels on topics including ad tech, digital content, branding and marketing, e-commerce, gaming and design. There will also be events such as a start-up showcase, food truck lunch and meet-and-greets with local venture capitalists.

The majority of events will take place at tech co-working spaces Cross Campus and ROC in downtown Santa Monica.

Festival director Kevin Winston came up with the idea for Silicon Beach Fest last year after returning from South by Southwest Interactive in Austin.

With L.A. home to scores of new start-ups, "I got back and was like, 'Why don't we have anything in L.A. that celebrates the tech scene here?'" he said. "This isn't meant to duplicate South by Southwest; it is a tech fest that...

Google is petitioning the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval to reveal detailed information about the amount of national security requests it receives.

The company filed a motion Tuesday seeking permission to share the information as it and other large tech companies attempt to shield themselves from the growing backlash over damaging revelations that they turned over user data to the National Security Agency's clandestine PRISM program.

Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple have all shared information on government requests they've received in recent months, but Google said that information lumps together national security requests with criminal requests and doesn't help users gain a better understanding of the situation.

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Google, which already issues an annual transparency report detailing law enforcement requests, is seeking "declaratory judgment" that it has rights, under the 1st Amendment, to detail the exact amount of national...

FiftyThree, the developer of the app that won Apple's iPad app of the year award, has raised $15 million in funding, led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The developer, with offices in Seattle and New York, rose to fame late last year when Apple selected its app, Paper, for the award. Paper is a free app that turns iPads into digital sketchbooks. Within the app, users can buy different types of tools so they can make more detailed sketches and draw in different colors.

Paper has been downloaded more than 8 million times, but with the newly raised round of funding, FiftyThree will now focus on creating more tools for mobile productivity.

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In a blog post, Andreessen Horowitz's Chris Dixon said Paper is just the tip of the iceberg for FiftyThree.

"They’ll be expanding their engineering teams in New York and Seattle, and will broaden their offerings across software, services, and hardware," Dixon said.

FiftyThree draws many of its...

Huawei rolled out a smartphone Tuesday that it claims is the thinnest smartphone in the world.

The Ascend P6 smartphone is 0.24 inches thick, which is slightly slimmer than the 0.29-inch iPhone 5.

But that's not the only appealing feature of the phone. The device also comes with a 5-megapixel front camera, which is much better than most other smartphones on the market, which usually have 1- or 2-megapixel front cameras.

The high-resolution front camera makes the Ascend P6 "perfect for ‘selfies,’ " Huawei said in a statement. 

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The rest of the device is also top-of-the-line. The Ascend P6 features a 4.7-inch HD screen, a metal body and an 8-megapixel rear camera.

The Ascend P6 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and it uses a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor.

Huawei said the device would be available in black, white and pink and will launch in China in June, followed by Western Europe in July. No word on when or if it will come to the U.S.

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Yahoo became the fourth major tech company to disclose how much government data requests it gets, following a report that alleged the tech companies are involved in a government surveillance program known as PRISM.

Chief Executive Marissa Mayer said Yahoo received between 12,000 and 13,000 government requests between December 2012 and the end of May. The bulk of these requests were for criminal investigations, including homicides and kidnappings.

"Like all companies, Yahoo! cannot lawfully break out FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) request numbers at this time because those numbers are classified; however, we strongly urge the federal government to reconsider its stance on this issue," Mayer said in a blog post. 

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The Sunnyvale tech company is following in the footsteps of Facebook, Microsoft and Apple in sharing data on the amount of government requests they receive.

The companies are trying to shield themselves from a growing public...

Five months after unveiling the Xperia Z smartphone, Sony has finally announced that T-Mobile will be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the device.

The Xperia Z features a large 5-inch 1080p HD screen and a high-resolution 13-megapixel rear camera. The device is capable of connecting to T-Mobile's new LTE network where it is available and it runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

One of the more distinctive qualities of the device is its water resistance. The Xperia Z can be submerged under three feet of water for up to 30 minutes.

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The new device is Sony's first major phone release since last year's Sony Xperia Ion, which received poor marks primarily for launching with an outdated version of the Android software. The Xperia Z is also lacking the most recent version of Android (4.2.2), but its software is not as outdated as the Xperia Ion's.

T-Mobile said the device will be available in Sony's signature deep black finish as well as a special purple version for a...

The complicated battle for Clearwire is growing more contentious. 

Four days after Clearwire's board backed a takeover by Dish Network Corp., original bidder Sprint Nextel announced that it had filed a complaint in a Delaware court against Dish and Clearwire seeking to stop a deal from happening.

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"Sprint believes the transaction violates Delaware law and the rights of both Sprint and Clearwire’s other strategic investors under Clearwire’s charter and under the Equity Holders Agreement," Sprint said in a statement. "In addition to seeking to enjoin the tender offer, Sprint’s lawsuit seeks to rescind certain parts of the tender offer agreement and seeks declaratory, injunctive, compensatory and other relief."

The news marks the latest in the back-and-forth fight over wireless network operator Clearwire that has dragged on for months.

In December, Overland Park, Kan.-based Sprint -- which owned about 51% of Clearwire -- said it had struck...

Google has teamed up with Wal-Mart and several other major retail partners to sell the company's Chromebook laptops at their stores.

The Mountain View, Calif., tech giant said Chromebook laptops will now be sold at more than 6,600 stores, or three times as many stores as before.

Wal-Mart began selling the Acer C7 $199 Chromebook at 2,800 of its stores Monday.

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This weekend, Google will also add Staples into the mix. The office supply retailer will sell Chromebook laptops from Samsung, Acer and HP at all of its more than 1,500 stores and through its website.

Google also said that later this year that select Office Depot, Office Max, Fry's and TigerDirect stores will also carry Chromebook computers. New retail partners for other countries where Chromebooks are sold were also announced Monday.

Previously, Chromebooks could only be purchased from Best Buy stores or on the Web from online retailers such as Amazon.com.

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Digg is keeping true to its promise by launching an RSS news aggregator before the shutdown of Google Reader on July 1.

The social news aggregating website said its RSS reader will be available to all users by June 26.

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The first version of the Digg Reader, however, will be in beta mode and has been designed for frequent RSS users, the website said.

Digg said users will be able to easily migrate their information and RSS feeds from Google Reader to Digg Reader. They'll also be able to subscribe to new feeds, share and save stories and organize their reader.

Additionally, there will be an iPhone app for Digg Reader that will launch the same day as the website, and an Android version in the next two months.

The company said Digg Reader and all of the features coming next week will be available for free, but later on some enhanced features will be available for a fee.

The Digg Reader may not be the only new RSS platform on its way. Facebook is set to make...

In the latest sign that social media is changing the way we speak and behave, the Oxford English Dictionary announced the inclusion of the definition of the word "tweet" in its latest update.

John Simpson, the dictionary's chief editor, said "tweet" was added despite not having yet been used for 10 years, which is one rule the dictionary considers before adding a new word. But as Simpson says, the word "seems to be catching on."

The Oxford English Dictionary officially defines "tweet" as "a posting made on the social networking service Twitter" and as a verb, it is defined as "to post on Twitter."

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But "tweet" wasn't the only tech word included in the dictionary's June update.

The Oxford English Dictionary also added definitions for "big data," meaning "computing data of a very large size"; "crowdsourcing," which is defined as "the practice of obtaining information or services by soliciting input from a large number of people"; and "e-reader," which is a...

Two years after the release of the hardcover version of "Steve Jobs," the authorized biography of the Apple co-founder written by Walter Isaacson, a paperback version will go on sale Sept. 10.

The paperback will come with a new cover photo of a younger Jobs. The picture, which was taken in 1984 by Norman Seef, shows Jobs in almost the same pose as the one in the photo used for the hardcover version of the biography.

Simon & Schuster, the publisher, said the paperback version will also come with a new afterward, according to a report by All Things D.

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The original version of the biography came out in late 2011, just weeks after Jobs passed away. Jobs, who dealt with cancer for years leading up to his death, said he authorized the biography so that his kids could better understand him after he passed away.

After the biography was released, it quickly became a bestseller, and last year, it was announced that  Academy-Award winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin...