Tech
AP - Rupert Murdoch's dream of controlling a British broadcasting behemoth turned to ashes Wednesday as he withdrew his bid for BSkyB — the latest, biggest casualty of what Prime Minister David Cameron called the hacking "firestorm" sweeping through British politics, media and police.
Tech
Murdoch drops bid for British Sky Broadcasting (AP)
Police forces equipped with facial recognition devices cause privacy outrage (Yahoo! News)
Yahoo! News - Police in Massachusetts will be one of the first civilian law enforcement agencies to be equipped with a controversial new facial recognition technology called MORIS. MORIS is an iPhone add-on that allows officers to scan a person's features and determine …
Federal case will decide if the government can make you decrypt your laptop (Digital Trends)
Digital Trends - Ramona Fricosu is a Colorado woman being taken to court on 22 counts of bank fraud, four counts of wire fraud, five counts of false statements to a financial institution, and seven counts of money laundering charges after being accused of trying to take title to foreclosed homes. While the verdict in this mortgage scam won’t set any precedents, the means to that end might. Fricosu is being asked by the federal court to decrypt her laptop and offer up the information found there.
Disney Publishing joins Android Market as Google improves interface (Appolicious)
Appolicious - It seems more and more developers are realizing that the popularity of Google’s Android platform can’t, and shouldn’t, be ignored.
Google+ Learns a Gender Lesson (The Atlantic Wire)
The Atlantic Wire - Like any social network on the rise, Google+ is experiencing some growing pains. As users signed up for accounts, some didn't find the mandatory gender options so welcoming: "male," "female," and the nebulous "other." Google hasn't expanded its options, but it does have a fix: you still have to put yourself in one of those three boxes (even if none fit), but a new privacy option lets you hide any ill-fitting label from the outside world.
BlackBerry App World hits 1 billion downloads (Digital Trends)
Digital Trends - Canada’s Research in Motion might be shedding executives, laying off employees, and responding to anonymous letters purportedly from members of its own management, but the company nonetheless is trumpeting all the positive news it can. One example: the company’s BlackBerry App World has topped 1 billion app downloads since it was launched just over two years ago.
Sync-able Notefile app worth its price for Mac OS X users (Appolicious)
Appolicious - Junecloud is one of my favorite developers of apps for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, and perhaps my favorite. So there's no confusion, I have no affiliation with the company or its employees and don’t think I’ve even communicated with them in the past, sans maybe a tweet or two espousing my love of package tracker Delivery Status Touch. Despite its high price tag of $4.99, I desperately wanted a look at the latest product from Junecloud: universal app Notefile.
Report: One in three iPhone owners think they have 4G already (Appolicious)
Appolicious - Confused about all this 4G nonsense? You're not alone: A new survey full of eye-opening information suggests plenty of people don’t have all (or any of) the facts on the upcoming switch to the fourth generation of cellular network service.
Exclusive: China Telecom plans iPhone launch near year-end (Reuters)
Reuters - China Telecom Corp Ltd plans to offer its 106 million subscribers the Apple Inc iPhone by the end of 2011, sources said on Wednesday, which would make it the second operator to do so in the world's largest mobile phone market.
Swarmbot invasion: How small robots will solve major problems (Digital Trends)
Digital Trends - They’ve been among us for a while now. Tiny microbots that work together to fight disease, find a lost soldier, or even build a new structure have appeared in science fiction movies like Minority Report in the past. And, several companies, including IBM and HP, have shown how a few small robots can communicate with each other to complete a task.
34% of iPhone owners believe the device is 4G capable (it isn’t) (Yahoo! News)
Yahoo! News - According to a new survey from gadget shopping site Retrevo, some smartphone owners are a bit confused as to what their shiny handsets are capable of. When asked if they plan on picking up a 4G-equipped smartphone this year, 34% …
Samsung, HTC, Apple to show Q2 cellphone gains (Reuters)
Reuters - Samsung Electronics and HTC are predicted to be the big winners in the global cellphone market in the second quarter, benefiting from booming demand for their smartphones running Google's software.
How Mobile Tech Is Being Used to Fight Carmageddon (Mashable)
Mashable - Carmageddon is poised to bring Los Angeles to a standstill this weekend, but several mobile tech companies are helping commuters handle the chaos.
Carmageddon is the term many Los Angeles residents are using to describe the planned closure of the 405 Freeway, a road that carries more than 280,000 cars per day across LA. The city of Los Angeles plans to close a ten-mile section of Interstate 405, starting at 7 PM on July 15 and reopening at 6 AM on Monday.
Sony PS3 hacker George 'GeoHot' Hotz 'works for Facebook' (Digital Trends)
Digital Trends - Just when you thought the massive hacker stories were over for the evening, another twist comes in: Hacker George ‘GeoHot’ Hotz, who recently settled a lawsuit with Sony for publishing a PlayStation 3 crack online, now works for Facebook, according to various sources. His exact position with the company is unclear, but he may be on a the development team tasked wit building the social network’s rumored new iPad app.
Social gaming a big winner in smartphone boom (AFP)
AFP - More virtual livestock looks set to be traded and petulant fowl hurled at targets as social gaming takes hold in the booming mobile phone market, industry experts say.
Hackers school next generation at DEFCON Kids (AFP)
AFP - DEFCON hackers will share their skills with the next generation at a first-ever children's version of the infamous gathering of software renegades, lock pickers and social engineers.
LulzSec Shuts Down, Ends Hacking Campaign (Mashable)
Mashable - LulzSec, the hacker group that has hacked the CIA, U.S. Senate, Nintendo, Sony and others, has surprisingly announced that it is disbanding.
LulzSec, short for Lulz Security, claims that it intended to only operate for 50 days as an attempt to revive the AntiSec movement, which is opposed to the computer security industry.
Appolicious Meet the Members: Eric Swayne (@eswayne) (Appolicious)
Appolicious - Eric Swayne (@eswayne), from Denton, TX, is Director of Social Analytics at M/A/R/C Research. He loves social media, great coffee and original recipe Dr Pepper. Check out his lists of apps that do amazing things with the iPhone’s mic and apps guaranteed to keep a preschooler distracted, or his top apps.
Archos Unveils $349 10-Inch Tablet with 250 GB Hard Drive (ContributorNetwork)
ContributorNetwork - Faster, better, cheaper: Pick any two. Archos seems to have chosen better and cheaper for its upcoming "G9" Android tablets, where "better" means "more powerful" and "more storage space." But will that make either of them a better choice than the iPad 2?
AP Enterprise: Pharmacy robberies sweeping US (AP)
AP - A wave of pharmacy robberies is sweeping the United States as desperate addicts and ruthless dealers turn to violence to feed the nation's growing hunger for narcotic painkillers.
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