The winner, to be announced at a ceremony in Helsinki on June 9, will be awarded euro800,000 ($1.1 million).
The two runners-up will each receive euro150,000 ($204,000).
The Technology Academy of Finland, which announced the finalists on Wednesday, chose them from 55 people and 39 innovations.
Richard Friend from Britain was selected for inventions in optoelectronics that have [...]

The startup is trying to make money without alienating the tens of millions of people who have gotten used to tweeting and following friends, celebrities and others without commercial interruptions. Just as it has through most of its four-year existence, Twitter is treading cautiously.
The new ads, called “promoted tweets,” will pop up only on searches [...]

Facebooks “Safety Center,” which features new tools for parents, teachers, teens and law enforcement, is the first major endeavor from the social networking site and its four-month-old global safety advisory board.
The company unveiled its Safety Center a day after meeting with child advocacy officials in the U.K., who had been pushing the company [...]

Microsoft said its new touch-screen phones – a short, square-shaped handset called Kin One and a longer, more rectangular one called Kin Two – will be sold exclusively in the U.S. by Verizon Wireless. They are being made by Sharp Corp., which has produced Sidekick cell phones, whose software comes from Microsoft-owned Danger Inc.
In the [...]

Palm Inc. has been struggling to compete as consumers flock to such devices as Apple Inc.s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd.s BlackBerry, so the price cut and addition of some free service could help the company snag bargain-hunting shoppers.
Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney said Thursday that Verizon is selling Palms Pre Plus for $50, down [...]

At the very least, the vulnerabilities open the door for attackers to jack up strangers power bills. These flaws also could get hackers a key step closer to exploiting one of the most dangerous capabilities of the new technology, which is the ability to remotely turn someone elses power on and off.
The attacks could be [...]

He died at a Pontiac, Mich., hospital after being taken there on Tuesday night.
York, who led an investigation of Apples stock option practices, was a pillar of financial and business expertise, Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs said. Jobs said York joined Apples board in 1997 when most people doubted the companys future; since then, the [...]

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia leaves in place the Federal Communications Commission “program access” rules, which are intended to ensure that cable companies cannot withhold highly desirable programming that they own from competitors.
The rules require Comcast Corp., for instance, to make channels that it owns – including [...]

But the victory was short-lived. Less than a day after a service known as “AS Troyak” was unplugged from the Internet, security researchers said Wednesday it apparently had found a way to get back online, and criminals were reconnecting with their unmoored machines.
The drama initially raised hopes of a sharp drop-off in fraud, because criminals [...]

Parents would be able to use the system to help block access to porn sites, though because its use would be voluntary, the “.xxx” suffix wouldnt keep such content entirely away from minors. Religious and other anti-porn groups worry that “.xxx” would legitimize porn sites, and the proposal has already been rejected three times since [...]