Computer prodigy Aaron Swartz remembered Video

Computer prodigy Aaron Swartz remembered Video Transcript

-I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET update. Sad news to report today. On Friday, internet activities Aaron Swartz committed suicide. The 26-year-old computer programer had helped build the website, Reddit. He faced charges for his alleged role in stealing 4 million academic documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from JSTOR, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. He faced the possibility of $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison. A friend of Swartz noted on the blog post that he had battled depression for several years. Swartz was a champion of open access to documents on the internet and founded a non-profit group that fought the battle against SOPA legislation. MIT is currently conducting an investigation of the school's role in the events that led up to him taking his life. Some critics have said that the feds were unfairly trying to make an example out of him and researchers online have begun paying tribute to Swartz by posting pdfs of copyright protected research documents on Twitter to honor his campaign for open access to documents on the internet. Hundreds have been participating on Twitter using the #pdftribute. Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones have crossed the 100 million sales mark since the first model launch back in May 2010. Samsung announced that the Galaxy S3 is selling at a much faster rate. 1 million units were sold after 50 days. Its biggest rival, Apple, reportedly is cutting back on screen orders for the iPhone 5 possibly due to weak demand. That's according to a story from the Wall Street Journal, but it could be because the iPhone just isn't as cool to kids anymore. Marketing agencies are saying that teenagers are telling them that Apple just isn't as cool as it was years ago. Forbes reported that Apple has remained flat or has fallen in some team brand opinon polls. When asked what phone they'll upgrade to, iPhone is still on top, but Samsung is pulling at a strong second. Audiobooks.com has canceled its unlimited all you can hear plan of $25 a month. Instead, the AudioBooks website has a new cheaper subscription price of $15 to listen to 1 audiobook each month or you can pay $23 for 2 audiobooks a month. The company says offering just 1 or 2 book options at a lower cost makes it more appealing to casual readers who may only have time for 1 book a month. The site offers more than 25,000 different titles and it syncs with multiple devices through its Apple and android apps. The competing service, audible.com, offers the same prices. That's your tech news update. You can get links to all of the stories I mentioned on our blog, cnet.com/update. From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.