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.

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.

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 …

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 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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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 …

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 …

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.

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.