TV Makers Sign On to Google TV; Symantec Source Code Exposed

Every week, Mountain View makes news with technology developments, discoveries and sometimes controversies.

In the weekly “Bits and Bytes” column we’ll relay the past week’s news highlights from our backyard giants, start-ups and small businesses alike.

The world’s three largest TV makers (Samsung, LG and Sony) have signed on to Google TV, which now has over 80,000 movie titles and episodes available. Google is likely entering the market at the right time: the worldwide market for Internet connected TVs is expected to jump from $68 billion in 2011 to $122 billion in 2016.

Hackers exposed a source code for Symantec, a top maker of security software. Yet the company said that its own network hadn't been breached, and that no customer information was affected. One of the codes hacked into is outdated, and another has been discontinued, according to the company.

On Tuesday, after 21 months of public consultation, Mozilla released version 2.0 of the Mozilla Public Licence. Since it provides compatibility with Apache and GPL licenses, there is now a wider body of code available for reuse by the Mozilla project.

Several media outlets are fawning over the Lytro camera, which takes unfocused pictures and then concentrates on specific objects afterward. Billed as the world’s first "light-field camera," it will be available to consumers before the spring of 2012, with no set date yet.

Intuit’s Small Business Index had some good news for December: small businesses added 55,000 new jobs in December. Surveying 72,000 employers with fewer than 20 employees, it found that employment grew by 0.3 percent.

23andMe, local genetic screening company, aptly acquired the domain name GeneticScreening.com for $2,200. Now anybody who types in the domain will be directed to the company’s main website.