CNNMoney

Verizon just announced a new program called "Smart Rewards" that offers customers credit card-style perks like discounts for shopping, travel and dining.

You accrue points through the program by doing things like signing onto the Verizon website, paying your bill online and participating in the company's trade-in program.

The catch? Smart Rewards participants have to sign up for Verizon Selects, a program through which Verizon collects data on your location, Web browsing and mobile app usage for marketing purposes. That data is used in Verizon's "Precision Market Insights" business, which combines information on phone activity with demographic data to generate reports for marketers.

[Commentary] If you type the phrase "Facebook is evil" into Google, you get about 249 million results. Interestingly, "the devil is evil" only yields 58.7 million results. And you only wind up with 17.9 million hits for "Justin Bieber is evil."

But do you know what? Wall Street doesn't care that Facebook toys with its users. In fact, a big reason why investors may love Facebook's stock so much is because it has so much information about you, me and everyone else that's using the social network. As long as a billion plus individuals are updating their status and checking their News Feeds frequently, Wall Street won't care, either.

That's because investors only care about two emotions: Fear and greed. The $15.6 billion sales estimate for Facebook in 2015 is higher than what analysts think media titans CBS and Viacom will report in annual revenue in 2015. Facebook is also obscenely profitable. Wall Street is forecasting annual earnings growth of about 35 percent per year for the next few years.

Ray Kurzweil has made a name for himself in the past few decades as an inventor, futurist and best-selling author. Now, he's heading Google's artificial intelligence efforts. He's currently leading a team that's trying to develop artificial intelligence by modeling the functioning of the human brain.

Kurzweil ended up at Google in late 2012 after meeting with CEO Larry Page to give him an advance copy of his book, "How To Create A Mind." He was looking for an investment in a company he was planning to launch that would focus on reverse-engineering the brain.

Kurzweil is known for provocative statements about how technology will shape our future, and critics have accused him of being long on hype and short on substance.

Seeking to speed up government rule-making about the use of drones in newsgathering, CNN and the Georgia Institute of Technology said that they would jointly study how to operate unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) safely and effectively.

The partners called it a "research initiative" and said they will share data with the Federal Aviation Authority "as it considers regulations that will allow for the safe and effective operation of UAVs by media outlets."

The announcement comes amid widespread interest in newsrooms across the country in what's been dubbed "drone journalism," and equally widespread uncertainty about the legality of it. The FAA has severely limited the use of drones for commercial purposes, including newsgathering. It is due to develop new drone rules by September 2015.

The Supreme Court has limited patent protection for "computer-implemented" inventions, including a range of software and data-processing systems, in a closely watched business case that attracted the attention of dozens of tech giants.

The justices ruled unanimously against an Australian company that sought exclusive intellectual property rights for INVENTCO, a computerized system for creating and exchanging financial instruments such as derivatives. The court concluded the idea would "add nothing of substance to the underlying abstract idea," since that idea had been longstanding, and merely programmed for use on a computer.

"Merely requiring generic computer implementation fails to transform that abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention," said Justice Clarence Thomas. Federal law says, "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent." But there are exceptions, including, "laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas."

Google and Microsoft will include a so-called kill switch in the next version of their smartphone operating systems, authorities announced. The technology allows for a stolen Google Android and Microsoft Windows Phone-powered Nokia device to be disabled, making it useless to the thief.

With Google and Microsoft on board, kill switches will be available for 97% of the smartphone market, said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who made the announcement.

Over 60 participants, 17 teams and two days of marathon computer programing -- and they're all girls of color under the age of 18.

Recently, Black Girls CODE, a nonprofit that teaches coding to girls from underserved communities, hosted its first ever hackathon.

Even if you power off your cell phone, the US government can turn it back on. That's what ex-spy Edward Snowden revealed in a recent interview with NBC's Brian Williams.

It sounds like sorcery. Can someone truly bring your phone back to life without touching it? No. But government spies can get your phone to play dead.

It's a crafty hack. You press the button. The device buzzes. You see the usual power-off animation. The screen goes black. But it'll secretly stay on -- microphone listening and camera recording.

How did they get into your phone in the first place? Here's an explanation by former members of the CIA, Navy SEALs and consultants to the US military's cyber warfare team. They've seen it firsthand.

Government spies can set up their own miniature cell network tower. Your phone automatically connects to it. Now, that tower's radio waves send a command to your phone's antennae: the baseband chip. That tells your phone to fake any shutdown and stay on. A smart hack won't keep your phone running at 100%, though. Spies could keep your phone on standby and just use the microphone -- or send pings announcing your location.

John Pirc, who did cybersecurity research at the CIA, said these methods -- and others, like physically bugging devices -- let the US hijack and reawaken terrorists' phones. "The only way you can tell is if your phone feels warm when it's turned off. That means the baseband processor is still running," said Pirc, now chief technology officer of the NSS Labs security research firm.

Chattanooga (TN) may not be the first place that springs to mind when it comes to cutting-edge technology. But thanks to its ultra-high-speed Internet, the city has established itself as a center for innovation -- and an encouraging example for those frustrated with slow speeds and high costs from private broadband providers.

Chattanooga rolled out a fiber-optic network a few years ago that now offers speeds of up to 1000 Megabits per second, or 1 gigabit, for just $70 a month. A cheaper 100 Megabit plan costs $58 per month. Even the slower plan is still light-years ahead of the average US connection speed, which stood at 9.8 megabits per second as of late 2013, according to Akamai Technologies.

As federal officials find themselves at the center of controversy over net neutrality and the regulation of private Internet service providers like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, Chattanooga offers an alternative model for keeping people connected. A city-owned agency, the Electric Power Board, runs its own network, offering higher-speed service than any of its private-sector competitors can manage.

The Federal Communications Commission recognizes the potential of municipality-run broadband, saying in early 2014 that it will push for the repeal of state and local laws supported by the cable industry that make it harder for cities to set up their own networks.

Chattanooga officials say the network has helped spark a burgeoning local tech scene and the relocation of a number of businesses, drawn by both the fast Internet and the reliability offered by the smart grid.

When you look at the history of AT&T, you wonder why federal regulators ever bothered to break up the telecom giant.

To tear down a nationwide monopoly, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was forcibly split into "Baby Bells" in 1984. But most of those have since joined forces once again, forming the AT&T we know today. Not all the parts made it back into "Ma Bell," though. Several Baby Bells later merged to form Verizon. One part eventually gave birth to CenturyLink. But the vast majority melted back together to form the new AT&T.

Now, AT&T is trying to buy DirecTV for $49 billion, which would be the fourth-biggest telecommunications merger in history. AT&T already rules over an empire of wireless, landline telephone and fiber optic cables. If regulators approve the deal, it will get a satellite TV network too -- and control over the content flowing to nearly every screen in our lives.