Feds Take Down Online Fraud Bazaar ‘Silk Road’, Arrest Alleged Mastermind  —  Defendant Charged With Drug Trafficking, Hacking, Money Laundering  —  Prosecutors in New York today said that federal agencies have taken over the Silk Road, a sprawling underground Web site that has earned infamy as the “eBay of drugs.”

Edward Snowden's E-Mail Provider Defied FBI Demands to Turn Over Crypto Keys, Documents Show  —  The U.S. government obtained a secret court order demanding that Edward Snowden's e-mail provider, Lavabit, turn over its private SSL key, which would have allowed the FBI to wiretap the service's users.

They're (Almost) All Dirty: The State of Cheating in Android Benchmarks  —  Thanks to AndreiF7's excellent work on discovering it, we kicked off our investigations into Samsung's CPU/GPU optimizations around the international Galaxy S 4 in July and came away with a couple of conclusions:

Google Acquires YC-Backed Flutter, A Gesture Recognition Technology Startup  —  Google's Glass, Android and other products may soon be picking up more Kinect-style gesture features: the company has bought Flutter, a Y Combinator-backed startup that focuses on gesture recognition technology.

Supply constraints to delay or limit rollout of a Retina iPad Mini this year, say sources  —  Apple iPad Mini with sharper display faces delay  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc will be unable to widely roll out a new version of the iPad Mini with a high-resolution “retina” display this month …

Amazon's Smartphones Detailed: ‘Project Smith’ 3D Flagship Model And A Value Handset With FireOS  —  Amazon is in the process of developing two smartphones, one inexpensive model and one with a 3D eye-tracking interface, TechCrunch has learned.  The details are somewhat sparse …

The complete history of Twitter as told through tortured descriptions of it in the New York Times  —  Twitter needs no introduction.  But it wasn't always so for the “blogging-like tool for quick updates” (2006), which grew into “another leading social network” (2013).

In a Big Mobile Move, Pivotal Buys Xtreme Labs for $65 Million in Cash  —  In a bid to up its mobile development expertise, the Web-focused software company Pivotal has made its first acquisition: Xtreme Labs.  —  San Mateo, Calif.-based Pivotal, which started its life as a joint venture of EMC and VMware …

Apple to fix iMessage delivery glitch on iOS 7 in upcoming software update  —  iMessages to Nowhere?  —  Apple Inc. said it's aware of a glitch in iOS7 that is disrupting some iMessage texts and is working on a fix to quell mounting complaints after the company released the biggest overhaul of its iPhone operating system in years.

Dell unveils first four Venue tablets, including a Microsoft Surface competitor  —  HP isn't the only beleaguered PC manufacturer unleashing a tablet blitz.  Today, Dell is revealing a full product lineup of new tablets under the recently resurrected Venue brand.

N.S.A. Experiment Traced U.S. Cellphone Locations  —  WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency in 2010 and 2011 conducted a secret pilot project to test the collection of bulk data about the location of Americans' cellphones, but the agency ultimately decided against putting such a program …

Hulu Plus now works with Chromecast  —  Hulu has added Chromecast support to their Hulu Plus app—just in time for the fall television season.  Now you can easily enjoy your favorite shows, such as “Modern Family,” “New Girl” and “Parks and Recreation,” on your big-screen TV by casting from Hulu Plus on your mobile phone or tablet.

Target is Launching a T-Mobile Prepaid Service Called “Brightspot” on October 6  —  This weekend, Target will introduce a new prepaid wireless service called Brightspot.  The prepaid service will use T-Mobile's nationwide 4G network (LTE as well), provides customers with 3 different affordable plans …

Iranian cyber warfare commander shot dead in suspected assassination  —  The head of Iran's cyber warfare programme has been shot dead, triggering further accusations that outside powers are carrying out targeted assassinations of key figures in the country's security apparatus.

This is the Fitbit Force, a smarter fitness tracking watch  —  Fitbit is set to release a new fitness tracking band called the Force.  The new device will be positioned above the company's current fitness band, the Flex, and will feature a built-in altimeter that measures your present altitude.