On The Future of iOS and Android  —  We've entered the age of iOS and Android penetrating beyond mobile, and there's a lot happening with respect to how the entire ecosystem is developing.  Mobile advancements / investments are now driving the progression of all converged hardware / software.

How BlackBerry Fell  —  Shares in the Canadian maker of BlackBerry smartphones peaked in August of 2007, at two hundred and thirty-six dollars.  In retrospect, the company was facing an inflection point and was completely unaware.  Seven months earlier, in January, Apple had introduced the iPhone at San Francisco's Moscone Center.

Facebook Testing VIP App With Some Celebs  —  The VIP app, which sources say Facebook is currently testing with a small group of famous people, essentially lets celebs (or their handlers) easily monitor Facebook fan chatter about themselves from a mobile device.

FitBit raises $43 million in new funding  —  Activity tracker bulks up ahead of possible competition from Apple.  —  FORTUNE — FitBit, maker of a wearable device that measures physical activity, has raised $43 million in new venture capital funding.  Fortune has learned that Softbank Capital led …

Carl Icahn Makes a Large Investment in Apple  —  Shares of Apple are rising by more than four percent on word that Carl Icahn, the billionaire activist investor trying to take over Dell, has made a large investment in the company behind the iPhone and the Mac.

Amazon's AWS Now Offers A Push Notification Service For iOS, Android And Kindle Apps, Widening Its Toolkit For Mobile Developers  —  Amazon continues to “push” further into the space of becoming a one-stop shop for mobile developers looking to make, host and distribute apps …

Some 2013 Nexus 7 users report buggy multitouch, Google is investigating  —  A muddled sense of direction isn't the only problem affecting the new generation of Nexus 7 slates, it seems, as some users are also reporting issues with multitouch on the 1,920 x 1,200 display.

Norway blocks Apple map flights  —  Oslo (left) is visible in 2D on Apple's map but Danish capital Copenhagen (right) is in 3D  —  Norway's government is refusing to let Apple take aerial photography of the capital city Oslo to create 3D images for its Maps app, reports local media.

To Square Up To Foursquare, Yelp Now Lets Users Post Reviews Directly From Its Mobile App  —  It's been a long time coming, but user-generated local reviews site Yelp is finally getting with the program: today it is rolling out the ability for users to write reviews directly in its mobile app …

Microsoft unveils wrist-friendly Sculpt Ergonomic and Sculpt Comfort Desktops  —  Microsoft has pursued ever more exotic shapes in the name of comfort.  Its new Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop might just take the cake, however.  The all-wireless bundle's centerpiece, the Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard …

Twitter Buys Open Source Training Company Marakana To Power New “Twitter University” For Engineers  —  Twitter today announced its latest acquisition, along with a move into offering richer resources to attract better engineering talent to the company.  It has bought Marakana …

Telefonica pens deal with Evernote, gives global customers one year's free premium access  —  You've got to hand it to Evernote, it's taking the initiative when it comes to getting its popular productivity tools into as many hands as possible.  We've already seen Deutsche Telekom customers getting access …

Larry Ellison: Some government surveillance is ‘essential’ to fight terror  —  Ellison also weighed in on his friendship with Steve Jobs and Oracle's litigation against Google in a televised interview  —  Some level of government surveillance is “essential” if the nation is to minimize …

Stop Thinking That Tech Hacks Are the Solution to Our Surveillance Woes  —  That's it, I'm calling it early: this is officially the “summer of surveillance.”  Especially with the latest news that due to this surveillance, not one, but two, separate companies announced they were shutting …