TechNews World

Wireless carriers have begun to realize that when you offer flat-rate, all-you-can-eat deals, it tends to bring out the pig in people. Whether it's food or beer or cellular data, customers will gorge themselves on it, and the buffet arrangement can quickly turn into a money-losing proposition if you don't plan it out just right. That's especially true when your customers have constant access to the resource you have on offer -- like mobile data through those cellphones they carry with them 24/7.

The UK government has proposed plans to monitor the electronic communications of everyone in that country. It claims it's not seeking to read the content of the communications, according to reports, but instead wants to know who the senders and recipients of messages are, the places from which messages are sent, and other details such as the length of messages and their formats. The proposed legislation "is about granting law enforcement authorities and government agencies access to current and historical Internet data ..." said Gus Hosein, director of Privacy International.

Iran has threatened to sue Google over Google Maps' labeling -- or non-labeling, rather -- of the Persian Gulf, according to CNN. Iran raised the issue earlier this month and heightened the rhetoric this week. From CNN: "On state-run Press TV, the Iranian regime warns it may take legal action against Google for not labeling the Persian Gulf." Iran went so far as to accuse Google of carrying out the objectives of Iranian enemies, according to CNN.

Have you ever found yourself scrolling endlessly around your phone's chronologically arranged photograph album -- called "Gallery" in Android -- looking for a photograph you've captured? If you can remember the specific place but not the date, then Scalado Album may be for you. I say "may be" because there are some downsides to using it over the stock "Gallery" app, which I'll get to. Scalado organizes images based on geographic tags in addition to a classic chronological arrangement using folders. This Android app simply takes advantage of the image geo-tagging functionality prevalent in Android hardware.

Should Apple decide to increase the display size of the next version of its bestselling iPhone, it could present developers with new sets of both challenges and opportunities. Speculation about Apple boosting the screen found on the next edition of its smartphone isn't new, but it was renewed this week with The Wall Street Journal predicting the new iPhone would have a display of at least four inches. Reuters, with a little more precision, pegged it at 4.6 inches.

When the SpaceX Dragon capsule blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop the company's Falcon rocket Saturday morning, it will be doing more than just setting off on another cargo-laden trip to the International Space Station. Rather, as the very first commercial attempt ever to fly to the ISS, this test launch will be making history. "It's almost like the lead-up to Apollo, in my mind," said Mike Horkachuck, NASA's project executive for SpaceX. "You had Mercury, then you had Gemini, and eventually you had Apollo. "This would be similar in the sense that ... we are in the beginnings of commercializing space."

Researchers have developed a robotic arm that has enabled a paralyzed woman to drink a cup of coffee -- by directly controlling it with her mind. The development has raised the question of whether this approach could perhaps restore some mobility to similarly affected people in the future. The 58-year-old woman was one of two participants in the BrainGate 2 project who controlled a robotic arm with their thoughts. Implants the size of baby aspirin tablets in the subjects' brains let them control the robotic arms.

There are nearly 4,000 different types of devices running Android, OpenSignalMaps has found. More than 1,300 of them have custom ROMs that tweak the android.build model. Android brands are almost as diverse as the models, OpenSignalMaps discovered. Further, the application programming interface level, meaning the Android version, has also become more fragmented over time. These facts bear out the general impression that Android is a fragmented operating system. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Google is extensively updating its search function with the rollout of a new Knowledge Graph. The heart of the Knowledge Graph is a database Google has compiled, via its own research and through its acquisition of MetaWeb Technologies, of 500 million people, places, things and points of history. That, coupled with a refined approach to search, will yield an experience aimed at better determining the searcher's intent and then providing a more-targeted, detail-rich list of responses.

Last week, file-sharing site The Pirate Bay condemned a DDoS attack launched against British ISP Virgin Media. This week, The Pirate Bay got hit with a DDoS attack. The DDoS attack -- which stands for distributed denial of service -- severely limited accessibility to The Pirate Bay, according to the BBC. From BBC: "A provider of DDoS defense systems said that it was unlikely that the attack came from hacking group Anonymous."

Would a rose by any other name still smell as sweet? Or would it, perhaps, end up sweeter? That, essentially, is the question at the heart of the forking process, which in turn is at the heart of a key situation today. Namely: Now that we have LibreOffice, do we still need OpenOffice as well? In the wake of Apache OpenOffice's new update, that's been the question du jour down at the Linux blogosphere's Punchy Penguin Cafe. "LibreOffice has demonstrated that it's the right way to do IT/office suites," offered blogger Robert Pogson.

There are a lot of photographs out there. Photo sharing and album network Flickr alone reckons it hit the 6 billion image upload mark last year. If you consider Picasa, Facebook, and the current darling known as Instagram, we're talking gazillions of images floating around -- all freely downloadable. Couple this relatively new phenomenon with an entire generation's apparent total lack of comprehension of copyright law, and it may be time to start protecting your work. If you're spending time honing your craft, you're making an investment. Protect this investment by restricting the use of your images.

Scientists in China have transmitted quantum bits, or qubits, over a record distance of 97 km, or roughly 60 miles. This is more than six times the distance of the previous record of 16 km, set by another team of Chinese researchers in May of 2010, as reported in Nature.com. The results represent a step toward the establishment of a global quantum network, and the methods used in the experiment could be utilized for satellite-based quantum communications, the scientists said.

Flickr announced a redesign recently, introducing larger onscreen displays for high-res images. The photo sharing site launched what it calls its "liquid layout," stating that "Large sizes + Low compression = Beautiful photos." Since Flickr uses less compression than many other image sharing sites, it claimed, the detail and color of Flickr photos is richer. Flickr's new look more prominently displays users' images on the page, which is a good move for a site centered around high-quality photos, Roy Morejon, president of Command Partners, told TechNewsWorld.

With the expected unveiling of new MacBook Pros just weeks away, rumor mongers have begun to solidify their predictions about the new notebooks. Most Apple prognosticators seem to agree that the MacBook Pros will be thinner, run Intel's new Ivy Bridge chip, and sport an eye-popping Retina Display. Of course, the public won't know for sure what the new MacBook Pros will look like until Apple wants it to know -- which could be as soon as the company's Worldwide Developers Conference June 11 in San Francisco.

The British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, plans to stream the entire Summer Olympics, according to PaidContent.org. The streams will create what the BBC is calling "the first proper digital Olympics." Some of the features, according to Paid Content: "A new video player built for the recently upgraded BBC Sport website will offer rewindable live action, alerts to key alternate live moments and participant information. Web pages will include data-driven profiles and Twitter feeds of competing athletes and viewers' Twitter sentiment."

The Internet is a hub for acquiring music, video and a just about any other form of content. Miro is one of the most capable player apps that I have seen for all of this media. Keeping up with the various forms of content the Web has to offer can be a daunting task. The process is similar to what people do in the non-Internet world. For instance, we have TVs for watching broadcasts, radios for listening to local stations, VCRs for stored playback, DVD players for movies.

Ever since the advent of the first radios and TVs, home entertainment has been a relatively high-tech enterprise, but in the past few years, there has been a revolution in the quality of sights and sounds available. This arena continues to be an experimental space for new and improved technologies that enhance viewing and listening experiences. These days, going to the theater can sometimes mean staying home, where advanced home theater systems come complete with large-screen TVs, professional-quality sound systems, and seating that can rival or top that of "real" theaters.

A group of researchers from several universities led by MIT have shown that robots controlled mentally by suitably equipped humans who are multitasking can take over some of the workload when needed. The Brainput project had researchers use a technique called "functional near-infrared" imaging to measure the activity of brains in test subjects while the subjects were keeping track of two robots and trying to prevent them from crashing into walls.

Lenovo on Tuesday announced new Ultrabook ThinkPad laptops based on Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processor. Heading the procession is the upcoming X1 Carbon, which will use premium carbon fiber material and is aimed head-on at the Apple MacBook Air. The lineup also includes new models in the ThinkPad T, X, L and W series aimed at small businesses, government agencies, educational institutions and large corporations. All of them are based on Intel's third-generation Core Ivy Bridge microarchitecture.