Amazon has a free smartphone app called Price Check and they’re offering an interesting deal with it starting Saturday. You go into a store — an actual physical bricks-and-mortar store — find an item, scan it and the app will show you the price on Amazon.com. Then, Amazon will knock an additional 5 percent off that price if you buy it using the app. So the idea, from Amazon’s perspective, is to have you go into a store somewhere else, but buy from Amazon.

Sen. Al Franken is looking into the Carrier IQ scandal. The Minnesota Democrat is giving several wireless carriers and phone manufacturers until next Wednesday to answer questions about exactly how they’re using software from Carrier IQ and what they’re doing with the information it collects.

TV is at the heart of the latest update to the Xbox Live. Under the program, which begins rolling out today, subscribers will be able to watch a variety of streaming cable channels and enjoy a library of TV content. Sounds pretty neat, but it isn’t quite a game changer yet. Plus, we also talk about the possible comeback of mammoths.

Video game music has come a long way since the days of Pac Man’s 8-bit boppy opening screen tune. Today’s games feature top composers creating ambitious scores that are built into the creative process of producing the game. We talk to Emily Reese, host of the Top Score podcast, which is dedicated to video game composition.

It’s possible that hidden software on your phone may be spying on you. The software, made by a company called Carrier IQ, is supposed to provide wireless carriers with diagnostic information on the ways that consumers are using their phones. But it also may be recording your keystrokes and thus obtaining information like passwords, emails and texts — all while most people never even knew such software existed.

Some medical offices are having patients sign “privacy agreements,” which supposedly give doctors copyrights over what’s said about him or her online. Certain patients and The Center for Democracy and Technology are challenging the legality of such agreements, while a company that is providing them say that untruthful comments online can pose certain risks.

New research indicates common peripherals are highly hackable.

Recent maneuvers point to a dim future for the wireless acquisition.

Amazon.com is offering a screaming deal on phones. It might be perfect for you. It might not be.