Here are a few of CNET Reviews' favorite items from the past week, including the 2010 Mini Cooper S, Falcon Northwest Mach V, and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7.

At the 2010 Game Developers Conference, artists, programmers, and designers are sharing their best ideas on the future of gaming.

Toshiba shows off a two-wheeled autonomous robot than can roll over ramps and balance a tray of food. Wheelie might make a decent waiter.

Hunch, a buzzy start-up that answers questions using crowdsourced recommendations, has lined up at least $10 million in funding, according to sources.

We might never know if a Twitter feed purporting to be by a woman left behind on her anniversary weekend by her SXSW-bound husband is real. But it's very funny stuff.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski lays out a plan for 21st century digital access, citizenship, literacy, and safety.

VoxOx's claim on a robust feature set makes it a powerful, if slightly unstable, multi-protocol chat and VoIP client--now with free universal translation for all IMs and tweets.

The case of a "runaway" Prius in San Diego demonstrates how claims about electronic flaws requires investigators to look carefully at the human element too.

A court decides to fine a man for offensive messages sent to his former lover on Facebook. What kind of precedent might this set?

Software giant's patch process speeds up after researcher releases code on Net that can be used to target the vulnerability and take over PCs.

Was it a glitch or a mischievous prankster who pulled the fire alarm during the South by Southwest Interactive Festival? Or maybe a sign that it's happy hour?

It's been four years since laptop computers passed desktops in U.S. unit sales. But laptop vendors can't rest, with the Netbook phenomenon sweeping the world and the iPad coming.

The annual interactive festival has only been under way for hours, but already the scene is full of energy--and lots of people.

Tim Cook will get $5 million plus some extra stock options as a reward for filling in for Steve Jobs last year.

In the search for cloud-based music storage, Microsoft has all the pieces to offer an unparalleled experience on Windows Phone 7.

Game developer and guru tells developers that if they want to create the next best seller, they need to get inside the player's head.

Marketers are everywhere at the annual digital-culture fest. It sort of makes your face start to melt a little bit.

Indexed DB isn't a sure thing, but it's got most of the right allies in the browser world to become an enabler of the cloud-computing vision.

A new FCC tool tests whether consumers are actually getting the broadband speeds they're paying for.

Site, which offers a breathtaking view of Paris, enables you to pan around, see monuments, and get a high-def feel for what the City of Light is all about.

EMC has unveiled a vision for globally federating data, essentially a cache for storage across wide area communication links.

Netlix says privacy concerns have prompted the company to cancel a contest that rewards technology that best predicts a user's movie-viewing preferences.

Open source and cloud-computing start-ups have one thing in common: a tendency to wear their industry trend on their sleeves.

Advocates for a .xxx designation for adult sites will have to wait until at least June after the ICANN board postponed a decision on the matter at its meeting Friday.

Sony joins the motion controller wars, and broadband gets ready for a big leap. Also: SXSWi goes geolocation.

As the Web generation descends on the South by Southwest Interactive show in Austin, several location-based start-ups try to put themselves on the map.

There will be no News podcast today.

Who is responsible for malware in ads, Web site owners or ad networks and delivery firms?

Plastic Logic's Que proReader was supposed to come out in April. Now it's been pushed back till summer. With the iPad's arrival next month, that may spell doom for this once highly anticipated e-reader.

Google appears close to deciding its future in China and might be eyeing a resolution that lets it stay in the country in some fashion even if it shuts down its search engine.

The president says intellectual property is country's "single greatest asset" and must be protected from piracy and counterfeiting.

But the source of the Zeus banking Trojan is back in action after unidentified agents cut off upstream connectivity to an ISP in Kazakhstan.

At the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association's BuildingEnergy conference, the focus is on deep cuts in energy through efficiency and on-site power.

Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong cautions that the search giant must adhere to China's laws on censorship.

The talk at an annual building conference in Boston is about how to reduce energy use in houses by more than 50 percent. Early pilot tests show it can be done, but with steep costs.

Video game developers, artists, and producers gather to share ideas on the future of gaming at the Game Developers Conference, the world's largest professionals-only video game convention.

Maybe it's a sign of SXSW excess or perhaps it's a prank, but RSVP While You Sleep is advertising a $37 service that tasks overseas virtual assistants with responding to your party invites.

At the annual Las Vegas event, Microsoft plans to show its latest browser and give developers the tools they need to write software for the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 series devices.

A backlash to the Google Buzz backlash indicates that people have grown comfortable relinquishing their privacy. Call it Generation X-hibitionist, developing on Web sites like Loopt, FriendFeed, Flickr, and Blippy.

Don't like Buzz spamming your Gmail in-box? Google is adding some knobs to let users dial down the notifications.

Company confirms that anyone who wants to order an iPad online can begin the quest early Friday--5:30 a.m PST, to be exact. You don't even have to get out of bed.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Palm surprises everyone (including Epic Games) by having a working demo of the Unreal Engine running on the company's Web OS.

Company announces Thursday that it will offer mobile device users inventory checks on local stores, allowing them to see if products are available.

Mozilla Messaging updates the Lanikai build of Thunderbird to beta status. Notably, Thunderbird 3.1 beta 1 shares the same Gecko engine as Firefox 3.6.

Verizon Wireless exec tells The Wall Street Journal it will have a 4G wireless phone on the market within three to six months of launching its 4G LTE network.

CNET Reviews has overhauled its Blu-ray testing for 2010 by adding inline charts, more systematic image quality tests and a detailed spreadsheet for easy comparison.

Sanyo's new eneloop hybrid bicycle recharges while it's being pedaled; Iwatani showed off a fuel cell bike that runs on a hydrogen fuel cell stack.

Brain scans identify which short film clip volunteers were remembering, which could help researchers better understand memory recording patterns and, ultimately, dementia.

Most Firefox users have upgraded to Firefox 3.6. The stragglers who haven't may have their reasons, but Mozilla is starting to pressure them.

Sony's PlayStation 3 motion controller finally gets a name. We also talk Bill Gates' drop into being merely the world's second-richest man, and the results of Pink Floyd's court battles with EMI.