Windows 8.1 to be made available in October  —  Microsoft is currently testing near-final versions of Windows 8.1, but the company won't release the final update publicly until October.  According to sources familiar with Microsoft's plans, the software maker will finalize, or Release to Manufacturing …

First 100 Pages of Aaron Swartz's Secret Service File Released  —  After half-a-year of delays and roadblocks, the U.S Secret Service today released the first 104 pages of agency documents about the late coder and activist Aaron Swartz, including a brief report on Swartz's suicide less than three months before his scheduled trial.

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.

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.

Google Fiber Continues Awful ISP Tradition of Banning “Servers”  —  In a Wired piece published recently, Ryan Singel assails Google's newfound hypocrisy when it comes to net neutrality.  And he's right.  Having spent many years fighting to stop Internet Service Providers (ISPs) …

Microsoft's bet on touch PCs fails to pay off  —  Buyers reject touchscreen notebooks, spooked by higher prices and concerns about value of Windows 8's touch UI  —  Microsoft's bet that touch would propel Windows 8 has run into a major snag, an industry analyst said Friday …

Apple to support third-party USB power plug trade-ins beyond U.S. & China  —  Last week, we reported that Apple, will soon kickoff a trade-in-program for third-party or counterfeit USB power adapters in its retail stores and select authorized resellers.  The program will allow anyone …

Android is better  —  It was just meant to be a quick experiment.  I started using a Nexus 4.  I was going to go right back to my iPhone after a week.  I was designing more and more Android interfaces at Twitter and realized I needed to more intimately grok Android UI paradigms.

Microsoft Bing-bang-bungles local search  —  Talk about having things both ways!  A few months ago in its “Scroogled” ad campaign, Microsoft was complaining about how Google uses your search terms and Gmail contents to deliver targeted ads.  Now, Microsoft is touting how Windows 8.1 uses …

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 …

Three years in, Google has paid researchers over $2 million in security rewards and fixed more than 2,000 bugs  —  Less than two weeks after Facebook announced its Bug Bounty program has paid out over $1 million in two years, Google has announced it has crossed the $2 million mark in three.

Bloomberg: Thinner iPad 5, Retina iPad mini this year & Sept. 10 iPhone event  —  Bloomberg has corroborated multiple reports regarding Apple's next iPad and iPhone models.  — Thinner full-sized iPad planned.  We first reported that the next full-sized iPad would be thinner, lighter and similar in design to the iPad mini.

Facebook Acquires “Mobile Technologies”, Developer Of Speech Translation App Jibbigo  —  Facebook's latest acquisition could help it connect users across language barriers.  It has just announced that it's acquired the team and technology of Pittsburgh's Mobile Technologies …

Windows Azure Adds New Features, Including SQL Server Support General Availability And New Push Features  —  Microsoft introduced a laundry list of new features today for Windows Azure, including general availability of SQL Server AlwaysOn support, notification hubs and autoscale improvements.

Kinect No Longer Mandatory For Xbox One (But Will Still Come With It) [UPDATE]  —  Another backflip?  Back in May, Microsoft said that you'll need have the motion-sensing Kinect plugged in at all times in order for your Xbox One to function, but now they're reversing course once again.

Google Play Revenue Up 67% Over Past 6 Months, Fueled By Japan & S. Korea  —  Google's Android app marketplace, Google Play, has seen significant revenue growth this year, fueled in large part by Japan and South Korea.  In a new report released today by app store analytics firm Distimo …

Tegile Doubles Sales, Raises a Massive $35M for Hybrid Storage  —  Demand for hybrid storage solutions is skyrocketing.  Tegile, one of the fastest growing players in this space, revealed that it has improved its sales from doubling every two quarters to doubling every quarter before opening …

The iPhone's ‘tri-tone’ text message alert was made for a 90s MP3 player  —  Ah, Apple origin stories.  We've heard about the Swiss railway company behind Apple's Clock app, the inspiration for the iOS Calculator, the voice of Siri, and now, we know about the unlikely inventor of the omnipresent …

Confessed Liar To Congress, James Clapper, Gets To Set Up The ‘Independent’ Review Over NSA Surveillance  —  Well, this is rather incredible.  Remember on Friday how one of President Obama's efforts to get people to trust the government more concerning the NSA's surveillance efforts was to create an …