Stories by: Mike Elgan

An insurance expert told the Britain's Telegraph newspaper that using location-centric mobile social services like Google Buzz, Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare could raise your home insurance premiums, or even result in the denial of insurance claims.

Everybody's talking about Google Buzz. Most of that chatter is centered on how to use it, and whether it's better or worse than Twitter or Facebook. Almost all the talk is about using Buzz from a PC.

Google may have threatened to leave China to keep us all from concluding that "the cloud" cannot be secured. If that's true, isn't that precisely what we should conclude?

Do you remember where you were the day they unveiled Facebook? No? How about Twitter? Amazon.com? Google Search?

I used to own a copy of National Geographic magazine from 1911. It was packed with black-and-white photographs of "natives" and village ethnic minorities in various countries posing awkwardly in ceremonial costumes. The issue was part of a larger collection that included most copies of National Geographic published in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, and several dozen copies from the 1920s through the 1950s. It took up two rows on my bookshelf.

James Cameron's hotly anticipated 3D movie, "Avatar," hits theaters across the U.S. today. Besides stunning computer generated imagery and a predictable-but-appealing storyline, the movie will become well known for high-quality 3D.

Look, I know you like the netbook idea -- and you love netbook prices. If you're like most people, you think tablets are expensive, slow, heavy and a pain to use. But if you've bought one, you know that netbooks aren't as great as they sound. And next year's tablets will be way better than you think.

Everything gets better, right? Cheaper. Faster. Smaller. This is especially true for the smallest devices -- cell phones, netbooks and e-book readers.

Two years ago, the best holiday gift was an Amazon Kindle -- if you could get your hands on one. They were hot, new and sold out hours after going on sale. Last year, the Kindle made an awesome gift as well.

I'm a lazy cheapskate. And I'm often on the move. But as a columnist, I'm also interested in exposing as many readers as possible to my brilliant insights - which means I should engage in social media and online publishing.