"Computer networks proved their organizing power during the recent uprisings in the Middle East, in which Facebook pages amplified street protests that toppled dictators. But those same networks showed their weaknesses as well, such as when the Egyptian government walled off most of its citizens from the Internet in an attempt to silence protesters. That has led scholars and activists increasingly to consider the Internet's wiring as a disputed political frontier."

If you are running a HTC Android smartphone with the latest updates applied, chances are your personal data is freely accessible to any app you have given network access to in the form of full Internet permissions. This vulnerability isn't a backdoor or some inherent flaw in Android, it is instead HTC failing to lock down its data sharing policies used in the Tell HTC software users have to allow or disallow on their phone. The problem being, not only is your data vulnerable when Tell HTC is turned on, it's just as vulnerable when it is turned off.

The idea is for the Urban OS to gather data from sensors buried in buildings and many other places to keep an eye on what is happening in an urban area. The sensors monitor everything from large scale events such as traffic flows across the entire city down to more local phenomena such as temperature sensors inside individual rooms. The OS completely bypasses humans to manage communication between sensors and devices such as traffic lights, air conditioning or water pumps that influence the quality of city life.

InfoWorld's Dan Tynan takes us on a tour of the nine circles of IT hell, a place 'not unlike the underworld described by Dante in his Divine Comedy.' 'But here, in the data centers, conference rooms, and cubicles, the IT version of this inferno is no allegory. It is a very real test of every IT pro's sanity and soul,' Tynan writes. From IT limbo, to tech lust, to stakeholder gluttony, to tech-pro treachery, the IT inferno is not buried deep within the earth, it's just down the hall. 'Thankfully, as in Dante's poetic universe, there are ways to escape the nine circles of IT hell. But IT pro beware: You may have to face your own devils to do it. Shall we descend?'

Looking to write your own operating system? MikeOS, an open source teaching project with detailed documentation, has just reached a new release. Version 4.2 includes new programs (a memory editor, calculator, and ASCII art designer), file management in the CLI, and improvements to the text editor. If you want to start completely from scratch, try this guide first.

"In developer forums worldwide, there is a huge activity and engagement in the open Android ecosystem. And we also know there are a lot of independent developers out there who are creating their own custom ROMs or modifying the kernel. The Sony Ericsson Developer program is following this community with great interest, and even though Sony Ericsson is not supporting all the activities by independent developers, we recognize that custom ROMs are a part of the Android ecosystem. We therefore decided to assist a group of developers called 'FreeXperia'. The overall open developer community is important to Sony Ericsson, and we hope to learn from it, and share knowledge ourselves." On top of that, as far as I know, Soney Ericsson has not yet caved to Microsoft's extortion campaign, and they haven't been sued by either Microsoft or Apple either. All this combined makes them an excellent choice for those of us who don't want support slime ball practices of Microsoft and Apple. Then again - Sony.

Collins Stewart analyst John Vinh made the claims in a note to investors Thursday morning, citing anonymous sources at RIM’s manufacturing partner Quanta. . . A RIM spokesperson dismissed Vinh's report and supplied BGR with an official statement.

Other than the low price (only $199?!) and the fact that Google is getting absolutely nothing out of Amazon's use of Android, I couldn't really bring myself to caring too much about the Kindle Fire (Apple and/or Microsoft patent lawsuit in 3... 2... 1), but there is one aspect that intrigued me - Amazon's beefing up of what at its core is Opera Mini.

GNOME 3.2 has been released. It's basically a collection of relatively small updates, improvements, and bug fixes. As whole, it's a pretty big upgrade, but there's nothing really that stands out to me - probably because I don't use GNOME3 myself so I really have no idea where it's lacking (if at all). Any GNOME3 users care to shine a light on this one?

Despite early successes on the Web, the latter years of Flash have been a tale of missed opportunities, writes Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister. 'The bigger picture is that major platform vendors are increasingly encouraging developers to create rich applications not to be delivered via the browser, but as native, platform-based apps. That's long been the case on iOS and other smartphone platforms, and now it's starting to be the norm on Windows. Each step of the way, Adobe is getting left behind,' McAllister writes. 'Perhaps Adobe's biggest problem, however, is that it's something of a relic as developer-oriented vendors go. How many people have access to the Flash runtime is almost a moot point, because Adobe doesn't make any money from the runtime directly; it gives it away for free. Adobe makes its money from selling developer tools. Given the rich supply of free, open source developer tools available today, vendors like that are few and far between. Remember Borland? Or Watcom?'

Starting today, Microsoft is pushing out the first major update to its Windows Phone operating system, to 98% of Windows Phone users (the other two will just have to wait). It's loaded with changes and improvement, and this time around, the rollout process appears to be pretty smooth. Another nice touch: Mango beta users (right here) will get the update to the final version like everybody else - you won't have to downgrade to NoDo as previously stated.

Mozilla has released Firefox 7. Unlike releases of Firefox 5 and Firefox 6 which were relatively minor upgrades to the browser, Firefox 7 includes a number of significant improvements, most important of which is probably the drastically reduced memory usage.

The latest version of GTk+, version 3.2, has been released. While this new release contains many smaller, less invasive changes, it also has experimental support for two very important new features. First, the ability to run Gtk+ applications inside a browser using HTML5. Second, initial support for the Wayland display server.

So, the hearing about the supposed FRAND status of the three 3G patents Samsung is asserting against Apple in The Netherlands is under way. Samsung is currently pleading, and they claim that Apple has wilfully and systematically infringed these patents. They further state that Apple has refused to license the patents since the introduction of the iPhone 3G, even though Samsung offered licenses. As usual, WebWereld's Andreas Udo de Haes is covering the proceeding live on Twitter (in English). Update: Samsung offered two FRAND license options (per-patent and as a package deal). Apple declined. Apple also refused to sign an NDA, delaying negotiations (all according to Samsung, of course). Update II: Apple retort: we only buy chips from Intel, and they have a license. Second, Apple claims Samsung didn't demand a license until 2010. Update III: Massive Apple fail: lawyer reveals the percentage Samsung is demanding for its patents - this is highly confidential information. Update IV: If Apple can convince the judge of this one... Ouch!