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This is one of those moments where you just want to know what a person was thinking. But until someone develops a mind-reading machine, we won't know for sure. As an epitome of United States corruption, ignorance, and waste, the Berkeley, California chief of police sent out ten of his officers to track down his son's stolen iPhone.

Guess what! They didn't manage to find the device even though it had tracking software installed on it. The officers sent to find the device weren't just regular officers, although some were. Michael Meehan, the chief, also sent officers from the drug task force to aid in the search. All of this was over a replaceable iPhone that couldn't cost more than $500.

The hunt most likely cost taxpayers a few thousand dollars. It could have potentially cost even more as only some of the officers received overtime pay for their participation in the search. This truly is an epitome of selfishness. Meehan used his position to do his personal bidding while wasting my taxpayer dollars. As a California resident, I'm not exactly happy with this story. Did Meehan cross a line or was this an acceptable use of money? You be the judge and let us know in the comments.

If you're Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, there isn't much you can't afford. It appears like Microsoft has created a device that is meant for CEOs only, at least for now: "Steve Ballmer has an 80-inch Windows 8 tablet in his office. He's got rid of his phone, he's got rid of his note paper. It's touch-enabled and it's hung on his wall."

The description above was given by Microsoft VP Frank Shaw to Wired. This isn't just a Microsoft play-thing like Microsoft Surface is as they actually plan to offer this to the public. While it's probably not going to end up in many households at launch, Microsoft believes that in 2 years it very well could. As far as calling it a tablet, well, I have to disagree. 80 inches is not a tablet.

"It's not a consumer thing now, but we know historically that that's how all things start," he said. "The idea that there should be a screen that's not a computer, we'll laugh at that in two years." The device is powered by Windows 8 and does appear to be slightly stunt-ish, but I can see the benefits of having a device like that in my office. "It's his whiteboard, his email machine," Shaw said, "and it's a device we're going to sell."

Blizzard community manager 'Nethaera' has posted on the official Diablo III forums, talking about some of the problems and concerns from the Diablo III community, and how the company plan to handle some of the post-launch issues so that players can continue slaying demons and more in Diablo III.

Blizzard have applied various hotfixes to Diablo III since the launch of the game that address gameplay issues, as well as tweaks to improve service stability, and performed occasionally server maintenance when necessary to ensure that in the long-term, players have the best gameplay experience possible. But, the fixes won't stop there, Nethaera has said that sometime next week we should expect a game update in the form of a patch that will address client issues, as well as additional bug fixes.

One of the big shockers from this post is the delay of the real-money auction house. It was previous delayed from May 22 to May 29, but has now been delayed beyond this date. Blizzard want to ensure that everyone has the "smoothest experience possible when the real-money auction house launches", citing that they need more time to iron out the existing general stability and gameplay issues before a feature like that goes live. Blizzard haven't given a date for this yet.

Just when you thought tape was dead, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications is getting ready to build a new storage infrastructure that will include 380 petabytes (PB) of magnetic tape capacity which will be backed up by 25 petabytes of online disk storage made up from 17,000 SATA drives.

The new storage infrastructure is said to be built to support one of the world's most powerful supercomputers, Blue Waters. Blue Waters was commissioned by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and is expected to have a peak performance of 11.5 petaflops. The NCSA says that they're building the system to:

Reuters is reporting that Intel are launching research in Israel into technology that will mimic the human brain, with devices that will hopefully "learn" about their user. Intel's Chief Technology Officer, Justin Rattner told reporters in Tel Aviv:

Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Computational Intelligence, as well as specialists from the Technion in Haifa and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem will carry out the research, and is aimed at enabling new applications, as well as small, wearable computers that can enhance, or help with daily life. One example cited is if you were to leave your keys in the house, the wearable system would remember where you left them, and learn this. By the second week it will remind the user to pick up the keys before you leave the house.

The power of Facebook has allowed a disgruntled Apple fan to start a petition for the company to pay more focus to its Mac Pro line of systems. The maker of the page, Lou Borella, wants Apple to refresh its professional-level desktops, or at least be vocal with Mac Pro fans to let them know something is at least coming soon.

The maker of the page is said to be a professional editor and graphic animator in the New York City area, and initially posted a lengthy plea to Apple to update everyone on their Mac Pro plans, claiming that he didn't want to go to "the Dark side" by buying a Windows-based machine, and that hacked models combining more modern equipment with Apple's OS X operating system were insufficient to meet professional needs.

The page has more than 4,200 likes, and over 2,270 people talking about it. You know what, I love this idea. I have to hand it to Lou, this is one of the best ways to get attention from a usually secretive company. Apple has been concentrating more on slightly updating their iOS-based devices, than they have on their Mac Pro line. But, we can see the changes within OS X, and the upcoming Mountain Lion, where it's going more toward iOS. Maybe this is why Apple are being hush-hush when it comes to refreshing their Mac Pro.

Ah, Bungie. Fresh from the Halo titles, their next game 'Destiny' is, er, destined, to launch next year initially on the Xbox 360, and the next-gen Xbox, according to the developer's contract with new publisher, Activision. The contract was made public as part of the lawsuit between Activision and Call of Duty creators, Jason West and Vince Zampella.

The contract unveils that Bungie are signed to make up to four "sci-fantasy, action shooter games" in the Destiny universe, every other year from autumn 2013 to 2019. Bungie won't stop there, they will also make four downloadable expansions packs codenamed Comet every other year from autumn 2014 up to 2020.

The document does reveal some very interesting information about, not only do we know how many Destiny titles are coming, but it states the next Xbox as "Xbox 720". This should be considered unofficial confirmation of Microsoft's next-generation console, and if I had to predict, it should be here next year. Destiny will be sold in shops, be boosted with DLC, subscriptions, and micro-transactions. Activision and Bungie are considering a PlayStation 3 port for 2014.

News on Google's augmented reality Glasses hasn't been strong since they were teased a few weeks ago, but CEO Larry Page was spotted rocking the Glasses in London. The pictures you see below are thanks to a Google employee, where they posted them on Google+.

The employee wrote alongside his pictures "My life is now complete - met Larry Page today! Thank you for visiting EMEA". Google's Glasses project is quite big, as its the company's first jump into cutting-edge hardware.

On top of this, thanks to the acquisition of Motorola yesterday, we should see Google's hardware division strengthened considerably. The best picture is the one above, where I think Page is laughing at the Facebook share prices tanking, as a layer in front of his eyes thanks to the Glasses, but that's just my guess.

"Industry sources" are reporting that the next-generation AMD architecture code-named "Piledriver" will commence production in Q3 2012. Bulldozer, Piledriver's predecessor, was only released in October of 2011, so this could match Intel's one year release cycle. Trinity, an APU based upon Piledriver was released just last week.

The upcoming CPU will continue to be based upon the AM3+ platform. This simple fact should keep enthusiasts happy and will allow for current Bulldozer users to upgrade for only the cost of a CPU. AMD has always had a history of retaining sockets and providing upgrade paths whereas Intel often kills off sockets with each new processor.

Piledriver will be very similar to Bulldozer in that it will be made on a 32nm process and feature the same compute module design. Piledriver will also retain the same dual-channel 1866MHz DDR3 memory controllers. Piledriver will continue to feature AMD's Turbo Core at version 3.0. The new CPU will deliver more performance, thanks to an improved IPC, at lower power usage, thanks to AMD's new energy-recycling technology called resonant clock mesh.

As part of PayPal's effort to move out of the digital world into the real world, PayPal has been courting big retail stores to add the option to pay with PayPal at the point-of-sales terminals. Home Depot was the first to jump on board and has been offering the option of paying with PayPal when checking out since at least March of this year.

PayPal wants to compete with the credit card companies along with other emerging payment systems such as Google Wallet. The announcement was made at a press event today to show the progress PayPal is making with its real world payment system. PayPal still has to convince consumers that maintaining another payment method is worth the hassle.

But, if PayPal makes it simple enough and available at enough locations, it is a viable alternative to credit cards and cash. It would be especially nice if someone were to forget their wallet or not have enough cash with them. Currently, users just have to type in their phone number and a pin to pay which is pretty simple. If they add in the features they are looking to, it will be quite the competitor.

Google has given us a bit more insight into the links that are removed from search results as a result of copyright and piracy complaints. The details include which organizations make the request, who actually owns the content, and the top targeted domains. The numbers are actually pretty shocking, so let's just start with one. 250,000. That's the average number of links taken down per week.

That 250,000 number is more than the total number of links removed for all of 2009. Even more incredible is the fact that Google's senior copyright counsel Fred von Lohmann says that the majority of requests are legitimate. Most of the requests are for sites that are offering unauthorized copies of software, entertainment or pornography.

Now, another number: 22,923. That's the number of sites that were targeted last month. Those sites generated over 1.1 million take-down requests. The illicit content was owned by just 1,190 people. This means, on average, each copyright owner had roughly 1,000 links removed over the past month. But, the numbers show that the average is extremely skewed.

Facebook Camera is a new app which is designed to let users see just pictures from all of your Facebook friends. Designed and released by Facebook, I can't help but feel the Instagram acquisition is partly to blame for this. With the new app comes the ability to share multiple photos at once, instead of having to upload them one at a time.

The new app makes viewing photos easier as you can swipe through the pictures in an album. In Facebook's words: "When you launch the app, you'll see a feed of just great photos from the people you care about. You can swipe to see more of any album or tap to enlarge an individual photo." Cool. But isn't that what you already do on the regular Facebook app?

The reason to believe it is due in part to the Instagram acquisition? This feature right here: "It's also easy to edit photos with new tools like the ability to crop, rotate and add filters to any picture in your camera roll." Specifically, the add filters function. The new app will be available on iPhones later today and Facebook is offering the option to have a link texted to your iPhone.

Yahoo is working hard to turn themselves around from the brink of ruin, and this new Axis search that they have released could just manage to do that. Axis is a new way of searching the web and focuses on getting rid of the search results page. Interested yet? I certainly was, so I investigated the story a bit further.

TechCrunch spoke with Yahoo's Director of Product Management Ethan Batraski: "No one's innovated on 'How do I get rid of the search results page altogether'", Batraski said. "That is what we want to do." And so that's what they did. The new way to search is via a plug in to Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox. There is also an iOS app for this new search.

Once you type in your Yahoo credentials, a small black bar gets added to the bottom left of your browser window. Click inside the search bar and it expands to about 1/3 of your page. No longer do you have to leave the page you are on to do a search. It will probably take a bit of getting used to as I know I am in the habit of quickly Ctrl + T'ing a new window and punching in my query.

Mini-ITX cases often lack the physical size required to build a gaming rig with any sort of muscle behind it. The new BitFenix Prodigy, exclusively at Overclockers UK, looks to be a game changer in this regard. The press release is claiming room for nine drives, 120/140mm fans, the possibility of a 240mm radiator and "ample room for even the longest graphic cards."

The case uses a beautiful combination of materials and really stands out from the crowd. While the case is a rounded cube shape, it has large round arch protrusions which act as feet and carrying handles. The handles are made from "FyberFlex" material which is designed not to break or bend permanently. The case itself is constructed from solid steel and is painted in either all black or all white.

The case even features room for a full ATX power supply which is a great addition. When the top hard drive bay is removed, users can fit graphics cards up to 31cm in length inside. Even with the drive bay installed, users can still manage cards up to 16.5cm in length. The price for the new case? A reasonable £59.99 exclusively offered at www.overclockers.co.uk.

Corsair has announced the availability of its new SSD notebook upgrade kits which aid a user in transitioning to a solid state drive. The purpose of changing over to a solid state drive is the better performance and battery life offered by one. They are quite a bit better than their mechanical alternatives, so having an easy upgrade path should help more users transition.

The kits are available in both a 120GB version and a 240GB version and have an MSRP of $139.99 and $259.99 respectively. The kit includes an easy-to-use USB-to-SATA cable and software which help with the data migration. The software is capable of transferring the operating system, program files, and data files to the new drive.

"Laptop owners have become more aware of the performance, power efficiency, and reliability of SSDs but many have been put off by the complexity of moving their existing data," said Thi La, Vice President of Memory Products at Corsair. "The new Force Series 3 SSD Notebook Upgrade Kits simplify the data migration process, making upgrading to an SSD easier than ever."

President Obama is embracing technology. On Wednesday, he ordered major governmental agencies to create mobile-optimized websites. The agencies have to provide two key services to mobile users within a year. The directive also ordered agencies to create websites to report on their mobile websites progress. These sites have to be completed in just 90 days.

I've had to go onto government sites from my phone before and it's near impossible to gather anything as the site is designed for desktops, and not even designed that well for those. Obama has recognized this fact and realized the importance of mobile phones and data access. By 2015, it's likely more web traffic will come from mobile devices than desktops.

"Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device," Obama said in a statement. "By making important services accessible from your phone and sharing government data with entrepreneurs, we are giving hard-working families and businesses tools that will help them succeed."

ASUS and ZOTAC have already been here, whizzing by with triple-slot, triple-fan GPU cooled cards. PowerColor are the next ones out of the gate, showing off a triple-slot, triple-fan GPU cooling solution in the form of Vortex III.

Vortex III will be slapped onto the company's upcoming Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. The teaser picture gives us an idea of what to expect, where we can see the black and red color scheme, black-colored PCB, it takes up three slots, sports three fans, and a large aluminum fin heatsink below them.

PowerColor will most likely show off Vortex III-powered GPUs at Computex in just over a weeks time, we will be on-hand with our new competition winner, Roshan.

The Facebook IPO may now be part of a Securities Fraud Lawsuit, but there's some more interesting news building at the moment. Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg is not around to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Zuckerberg's last public appearance was the day he rang the Nasdaq opening bell, the same day the shares went public and this problem became an issue for thousands across the world.

The only other appearance from the social networking guru is the wedding picture he posted over the weekend. It's been five days since then, and there has been nothing on his Facebook page either. The shares are steady on $32 a piece, and this just adds to the hysteria that is the Facebook IPO.

Zuckerberg and co have a large hole to dig out of, and while Facebook is a seemingly invincible brand, nothing is ever indestructible. I have seen on my ventures through the jungle that is the Internet, other sources claiming that "Facebook could destroy the U.S. economy", which may sound ridiculous, but it's not a random blog saying this, it's Market Watch, which gives it some credibility.

Sick of your current multi-HDD, RAID, NAS or other storage method you're using? Well, according to the latest IHS iSuppli storage space market report, we could be looking at maximum areal densities of hard disk drives to double by 2016.

Seagate has also predicted a doubling in drive density, which can only lead to great things for the storage industry. What technology would be required to head toward 60TB 3.5-inch drives? Well, we're looking at heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), which Seagate patented back in 2006. Seagate have previously stated they could produce a 60TB 3.5-inch HDD by 2016.

What of laptop drives? Well, we could be looking at 10-20TB by 2016, according to IHS iSuppli. According to IHS iSuppli, areal densities are looking to climb up to a maximum of 1,800 Gbits per square inch per platter by 2016, up from 744 Gbits per square inch from 2011. This year, hard drive areal densities are looking to hit 780 Gbits per square inch per platter, with next year reaching 900 Gbits.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick had some interesting comments during his speech on the company's fourth quarter earnings call yesterday, where he said that transitions to new a hardware cycle can create challenges for some publishers and opportunities for others. Zelnick expects to fall into the opportunity category.

Zelnick also said that those with strong technology, strong owned intellectual property and top talent thrive in a new console cycle, and he believes that is what Take-Two is made up of, but not many of its competitors, he says "we expect to be at the front of the line". Now, let's talk numbers, this was an earnings call after all.

The company saw a net revenue of $148.1 million this quarter, compared to $182.3 million to the same time last year, a drop of close to $34 million. For the entire year, Take-Two's net loss was $108.8 million, when compared to 2011, where they made a profit of $48 million. Zelnick says: