Google Glass isn't likely to be released to the general public until next year, but eager users can start practicing how to control it with Apple's Siri voice assistant. 

When users want to control Google Glass, they have to first tap on the device and then say "OK Glass" before instructing the high-tech eyewear to do something, such as take a photo or send someone a message.

That command will also surprisingly work with Apple's Siri voice assistant, a feature on the latest versions of the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Users can simply say, "OK Glass," and Siri will respond as though it is Google Glass.

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I tried the command on Siri in a variety of ways -- telling her to play a song, look up restaurants, and asking it how far we are from Neptune -- and the Apple voice assistant responded perfectly each time.

About the only time the command didn't work was when I quietly said "OK Glass, tweet my location." Siri misinterpreted what I said as "Okay...

You could be forgiven for thinking that the big hearing before the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations this week was a chance for lawmakers to grill Apple about some of its controversial tax practices. And yes, there was some of that.

But as Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook testified, lawmakers were eager for him, and really, all of us, to know that they love Apple. They really do! Just like regular folks.

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"I love Apple," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). "I harassed my husband until he converted to a Macbook. I'm very proud of Apple as an American company."

Ho-kay. Can anyone top that?

Here's Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), noting: 

"We love the iPhone and the iPad. People in Mexico and Canada love the iPhone and the iPad. I've got one right here!" Levin said, whipping out an iPhone with a yellow bumper. "My granddaughter even knows how to use it. It's a terrific instrument."

And now, over to you, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.):

"I'm...

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook disclosed during a Senate hearing Tuesday that the tech giant will invest more than $100 million to build a factory in the Lone Star State, where it will assemble a line of Mac computers.

“The product will be assembled in Texas, include components made in Illinois and Florida, and rely on equipment produced in Kentucky and Michigan,” Cook said during a Senate subcommittee hearing in which he was grilled for Apple's controversial tax practices, according to tech blog AllthingsD.

Texas might make sense considering Foxconn, one of Apple's top manufacturing partners, has a plant set up in the state.

Apple announced late last year that it would start building one line of its computers within the U.S. in 2013, but the company had not yet said where it would assemble the computers. Now we know where they'll be built, but we still don't know when the production will begin or what type of Macs will be "Made in USA."

If you were among the group of people who said a GIF, the popular animated images file, is pronounced like the word "Jif," then give yourself a pat on the back -- you were right.

The creator of the image file format, Steve Wilhite, settled the long-running debate Tuesday, telling the New York Times he gets frustrated by those who pronounce the name of the file like the word "gift."

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” Wilhite told the New York Times. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

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Wilhite was honored Tuesday with a lifetime achievement award at the Webby Awards for his creation of the file format. He invented the Graphics Interface Format back in 1987, but in the last few years -- thanks to the likes of Tumblr and Buzzfeed -- the format has enjoyed a renaissance.

However, many have gone on pronouncing the name of the GIF format...

Mobile advertising is about to become a lot more personal.

Pasadena technology company UberMedia has launched a mobile advertising platform that tracks publicly available information provided by smartphone users on their social media channels and then offers them ads based on their interests and habits.

UberAds scours sites such as Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram for clues about mobile device users. For example, the platform can send movie trailers to users who have tweeted frequently from a movie theater, indicating they’re probably film buffs. People who pin lots of photos of food and tweet about dining out are more likely to receive restaurant-related ads.

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Users will also be targeted by GPS location tracking: Those who were tracked as being at a car dealership, for example, could receive advertisements for new cars and accessories. Someone who is in an area where it’s heavily snowing could see ads for snow tires.

Time of day also becomes...

The next version of Apple's iOS will reportedly include Flickr and Vimeo integration, making it easier for users to share content they create with the two social networks.

Apple news website 9to5Mac reported Tuesday that iOS 7, which the Cupertino tech company is expected to announce next month, will come with more third-party social network integration, meaning users will be able to quickly post onto more social network accounts from any part of the operating system.

Currently, Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users can easily post content onto their Twitter and Facebook accounts. That's because those two services were integrated onto the mobile operating system in the last few years, but they are the only ones.

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Besides Flickr and Vimeo, the report does not say what, if any, other services will be included. The report says Apple may change its mind about Flickr and Vimeo before the official iOS 7 announcement, but if the two services are...

Nearly a quarter of teens now use Twitter to catch up with friends and keep track of celebrities, a big jump in usage as teens flock to different social media sites and spend less time on Facebook to avoid their parents and other adults as well as rampant "oversharing."

One in four online teens use Twitter, up from 16% in 2011, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. That's higher than the 16% of online adults who now use Twitter.

Teens are increasingly turning to Twitter, mobile photo-sharing service Instagram and social blogging service Tumblr, which was acquired by Yahoo on Monday for $1.1 billion, as they express “waning enthusiasm” for Facebook, the survey found.

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But Facebook remains the go-to social network for teens, with 94% of online teens saying they have a profile on Facebook and 81% saying it is the...

WASHINGTON -- Apple CEO Tim Cook defended the company's tax avoidance strategies in an appearance Tuesday before the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. 

Wearing a business suit, white shirt and powder blue tie, Cook read an opening statement. He was followed by Apple's chief financial officer, Peter Oppenheimer. A third Apple exec, Peter Bullock, head of tax operations, was also on hand to answer questions but did not read an opening statement. 

Cook, as expected, began by extolling Apple's growth and its contributions to the U.S. economy. 

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"You can tell the story of Apple's success in just one word: innovation," Cook said.

He added: "To our knowledge Apple is the largest corporate taxpayer in America. We paid $6 billion in cash to the U.S. Treasury -- that's $16 million each day. And we expect to pay even more this year."

He stressed that despite a report from the subcommittee that Apple used its Irish subsidiaries to avoid...

Is David Karp, who just sold his startup for $1.1 billion to Yahoo, another Steve Jobs?

That's what Tumblr's first employee believes.

Marco Arment says the 26-year-old Karp is very much like the late Apple co-founder.

Arment is no longer with Tumblr but was there through its early years, and on Monday he blogged about his experience. He said working for Karp felt the same as how many people have described what working for Jobs was like — both demanding an incredible amount of focus and dedication that inevitably creates high stress but also high-quality results.

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"David has a lot of Steve Jobs-like qualities, and like many people who worked for Steve, I look back on Tumblr’s crunch times with mixed feelings: I don’t want to return to that stress level, but David pushed me to do amazing work that I didn’t think was possible," Arment wrote.

Arment said Karp demanded so much out of others because that's how hard he worked and how...

A music publisher is suing Facebook and its ad agency for using an Eminem song without permission in an ad for Facebook Home.

Eight Mile Style, which oversees Eminem’s portfolio, said in the copyright infringement lawsuit that ad agency Wieden + Kennedy included an Eminem song in the commercial “to curry favor with Facebook by catering to [founder Mark] Zuckerberg’s personal likes and interests."

The lawsuit alleges that days before the ad premiered at the April 4th Facebook event the agency noticed an old website allegedly belonging to Zuckerberg. On the site, "Mark" refers to himself as Slim Shady, Eminem's nickname.

The song in question — "Under the Influence" — comes from Eminem and D12 on the 2000 album "Marshall Mathers LP." The lawsuit claims that the music in the advertisement was altered slightly after the premiere. The suit alleges the alteration amounted to an admission by Facebook that the music was used without permission. In that later...

Google and Samsung both made gains on rival Apple in two separate rankings released Tuesday, signaling the Cupertino, Calif., tech giant's grip on the electronics industry is loosening.

Apple still held on to the top spots in both rankings but saw its ratings drop or barely grow while both Google and Samsung made significant gains.

In Millward Brown Optimor's annual BrandZ list, which ranks the top 100 company brands in the world, Google saw its value grow by 5% and jumped up two spots to take second place behind Apple. That increased Google's brand value — or how much the company's name recognition added to its worth — from nearly $108 billion last year to nearly $114 billion in 2013.

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Samsung ranked No. 30, but that's 25 spots higher than a year ago as its brand value increase by about 50%. That resulted in the South Korean tech giant's brand value increasing from a little more than $14 billion to more than $21 billion.

Apple, on the...