Wikipedia has always been somewhat idyllic in its business model: an enormous treasury of knowledge accumulated and edited by the whole world. We all collaborate to build the world’s greatest encyclopedia. Still, the number of editors for the site has fallen flat recently, so Wikipedia is changing its editing software in hopes of becoming more user-friendly.

When it comes to technology, courts and legal scholars can run into some thorny issues. For instance, when does someone have a right to film you and put those images online? And what can you do about it once those images are up there? Jeffrey Rosen is with George Washington University Law School and has been thinking about how the Constitution addresses modern technology. Also in the show, bad grammar found in spam folders.

A recent deal between Verizon and several cable companies now has the Department of Justice investigating to see if the arrangement is anti-competitive. Verizon paid billions of dollars to a coalition of cable companies for a portion of the broadcast spectrum currently controlled by the cable operators. If the deal gets approved, the cable operators will be selling off their own ability to ever launch wireless services.

As computer chips and network connections make their way into more and more common household items, gadgets and appliances, the risk of someone hacking into those systems is on the rise, as well. In this episode, we talk with Yoshi Kohno, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington, about the growing threat of hackers in this new networked world. But it's not just someone taking over your toy robot that you need to worry about.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he won’t go along with the National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendation that states ban all use of cell phones while driving. The NTSB says phones, even hands-free models, are too risky, too distracting, could lead to accidents, and are just a bad idea. LaHood says he doesn’t think hands-free is all that big a problem for the moment. The problem: There isn’t any conclusive evidence either way. Also, four of the most-searched terms online in 2011 involve looking for Facebook.

Let’s face it: We don’t have a whole lot of options for wireless carriers right at the moment. You could sign up with Verizon, AT&T or Sprint. You could also sign up for T-Mobile and hope for the best. All those companies will provide fairly similar rate plans, especially the big red company and the big blue company.

There’s a war going on all around the world right now. It’s not being fought in the air or on the battlefield. It’s in courtrooms all over the planet and it all has to do with the type of phone you might have in your pocket right now. Also, society is getting less happy, and YouTube tallies a trillion views for 2011.

The news of the death of the proposed wireless mega-deal should not have surprised anyone. But now what? AT&T will have to write a $4 billion check to T-Mobile, a lot less than the $39 billion the deal was expected to net T-Mobile USA and its parent company Deutsche Telekom. And it’s not positive T-Mobile can survive beyond this. Also on the show, a team of British researchers have developed an algorithm for determining which songs are likely to be chart-toppers.

The photo editing software Photoshop is used by millions of people around the world, and has become a major tool for fashion magazines. Now, though, legislators both here in the U.S. and in Europe are trying to police its use, in cases of publishing false or misleading ads. And researchers at Dartmouth have created a program that can detect how much editing has been done on a photo. Also in the show, the Louvre is replacing it old fashion audio tours and some of its docents with a portable 3D gaming consul made by Nintendo.