"The U.S. government has attempted to obtain the master encryption keys that Internet companies use to shield millions of users' private Web communications from eavesdropping. These demands for master encryption keys, which have not been disclosed previously, represent a technological escalation in the clandestine methods that the FBI and the National Security Agency employ when conducting electronic surveillance against Internet users." Well. "And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission." When quoting a work of fiction befits the state of reality better than reality itself, shit has officially hit the fan.

Microsoft will allow self-publishing on the Xbox One - Every Xbox One will be a development unit. "Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development. That every game and experience can take advantage of all of the features of Xbox One and Xbox LIVE. This means self-publishing. This means Kinect, the cloud, achievements. This means great discoverability on Xbox LIVE. We'll have more details on the program and the timeline at gamescom in August." No matter how much Microsoft screwed up the initial PR around the new Xbox, this is just awesome news.

As expected, Google has just unveiled Android 4.3. It's not a huge release, but its got some nice optimisations, bug fixes, and a small number of new features. Nexus 4, 7, 10 and the Galaxy Nexus will receive the update today, and the new Nexus 7, also unveiled today, ships it by default. Speaking of the new Nexus 7 - it's got a 1200x1920 display, and is pretty much better in every possible way compared to the outgoing model. Still as cheap, too. Most of all: I hope they improved the horrible NAND flash Asus used which is the Achilles heel of the outgoing model.

If you're in the market for a smartphone, odds are you're looking at an Android phone. If you're looking at an Android phone, odds are you're looking at Samsung, and if you're exotic, you may be looking at a Nexus, HTC, LG, or maybe even Sony. Few of you will be considering Oppo. I, however, did.

"Every household in Britain connected to the internet will be obliged to declare whether they want to maintain access to online pornography, David Cameron will announce on Monday." And so, the UK nanny state turns to straight up censorship. Let's look at some of the authoritarian policies that David Cameron wishes to enact.

"Apple revealed Sunday that its Developer Center suffered a lengthy outage this week following a security breach that may have compromised data, but a security researcher has provided evidence to suggest the shutdown was in response to his identification of a vulnerability." It's no secret that Apple's developer portals are a mix of outdated, crappy technologies, and it seems that this security researcher did good work by making that fact very, very clear for everyone. Would be nice of Apple to acknowledge his work, although as we all know, that's about as unlikely as Pluto blocking the sun, no matter how Apple claims it wants to be "open" about this disaster in its public statement.

So, the CyanogenMod team is teasing something new. My guess is that we're either looking at the CM team getting early access to new Android versions, or - and this is something I really hope - an OEM, preferably a large one, has decided to ship a device with CyanogenMod preinstalled. A boy or girl can dream.

"Alan Turing, the Enigma codebreaker who took his own life after being convicted of gross indecency under anti-homosexuality legislation, is to be given a posthumous pardon. The government signalled on Friday that it is prepared to support a backbench bill that would pardon Turing, who died from cyanide poisoning at the age of 41 in 1954 after he was subjected to 'chemical castration'." Justice.

"Named General Distribution Release 2 (GDR2), the latest update enables Data Sense, a way to track how data is being used, alongside FM radio, and the ability to set other applications as the default camera. GDR2 also includes support for Gmail's CalrdDAV and CalDAV implementation, allowing Windows Phone users to continue syncing calendar and contacts after Google announced its intention to pull its Exchange ActiveSync service earlier this year." There's something wrong with your operating system's update/improvement rate when such a minute, insignificant release is news.

"The biggest mobile developer study in history with 6,000 respondents from 115 countries says that while iOS developers make an average of $5,200 per month in app revenue and Android developers pull in $4,700, more developers plan to start developing for Windows Phone than any other platform. That's aided, of course, by the fact that 71 percent of mobile developers are already developing for Android, and 56 percent are already developing for iOS." I'm surprised there's so little difference between income for iOS and Android developers. Reading the web, it often seems as if all iOS developers are millionaires and Android developers are poor unwashed peasants. Reality is, clearly, different.

"The worst thing about Android phones isn't the crapware, though. It's the 'skins' - the modifications that phone companies make to Android's most basic features, including the dialing app, contacts, email, the calendar, the notification system, and the layout of the home screen. If you get the Play edition of these phones, you'll see Google's version of each of these apps, and you'll come away impressed by Google's tasteful, restrained, utilitarian design sense. But if, like most people, you get your phone for $199 from a carrier, you'll find everything in it is a frightful mess." Android's biggest problem (lack of updates is part of this). I got my Oppo Find 5 yesterday, and after only a few hours with the official, skinned firmware, I ran crying to the officially supported CyanogenMod 10.1 (Android 4.2.2). Stock (CM is mostly stock) is such a beautiful and elegant operating system - OEM skins are like screaming kids eating popcicles in front of you on a line to a theme park ride. Whenever someone hands me a stock Samsung or HTC, I die a little inside. Those guys simply have zero clue about software.

The decline continues for Nokia. While Lumia sales volume increased by 32% to 7.2 million during Q2, this was well short of the 8.1 million analysts expected would be sold. Meanwhile, smartphone sales are down 10.2 million units from Q2 2012, based solely on the death of Symbian. Did Nokia jump from a burning platform to a sinking ship? Or will the next Windows Phone update finally bring feature parity with Symbian? Note from Thom: Loads of new models, yet still not the turning point we are promised every time Nokia releases quarterly figures. I'm sure the next quarter, with the next new flagship, will turn it all around.

"All three major Russian cellcos have stopped selling the iPhone, the most dramatic instance so far in a rising tide of operator backlash against Apple's tough contractual requirements. VimpelCom has severed its ties with the handset provider, following in the footsteps of MTS and MegaFon. VimpelCom says it has put Samsung at the top of its list of smartphones to promote under its BeeLine brand. According to PhoneArena, VimpelCom blamed 'draconian contracts' and 'harsh conditions especially in the marketing department' for its decision to dump the iPhone and sign a new deal with Samsung." Apple's treatment of carriers has long been a sore point, however, carriers didn't have much choice. Now that the iPhone is by far no longer the only big money maker, carriers have more leverage.

Serdar Yegalulp offers a long view of the current evolution of Linux, one that sees the open source OS firmly entrenched as a cornerstone of IT, evolving in almost every direction at once - including most demonstrably toward the mobile and embedded markets. "If Linux acceptance and development are peaking, where does Linux go from up? Because Linux is such a mutable phenomenon and appears in so many incarnations, there may not be any single answer to that question. More important, perhaps, is how Linux - the perennial upstart - will embrace the challenges of being a mature and, in many areas, market-leading project. Here's a look at the future of Linux: as raw material, as the product of community and corporate contributions, and as the target of any number of challenges to its ethos, technical prowess, and growth."