Omg! Positive tone boosts Yahoo celeb site to top (AP)
AP - Think of the most popular brands in celebrity news, and you'll probably come up with a small list that includes Entertainment Tonight, US Weekly and People.
AP - The Obama administration is moving cautiously on a new pilot program that would both detect and stop cyber attacks against government computers, while trying to ensure citizen privacy protections.
Web retailers, states tussle over tax rules (AP)
AP - In a big break for online shoppers, Web retailers generally don't have to charge sales taxes in states where they lack a store or some other physical presence.
Companies pledge more openness about Web tracking (AP)
AP - Companies that track consumer behavior online for advertising purposes are vowing to make their practices more transparent and to give people a way to decline being shadowed.
AP - Several PC makers were including controversial Internet-filtering software with computers shipped in China on Thursday despite a government decision to postpone its plan to make such a step mandatory.
AP - In dueling holiday addresses, President Barack Obama appealed for public support of his domestic programs and Sen. John McCain said Americans should side with Iranian election protesters.
AFP - Swedish mobile phone network supplier Ericsson won contracts to supply broadband Internet to millions of users in China by a deal with three operators there, it said Friday.
Bluetooth "Big Brother" tracks festival-goers (Reuters)
Reuters - Researchers are using Bluetooth technology to observe the meanderings of tens of thousands of festival-goers at a top European rock festival, hoping their findings will launch a new generation of tracking devices.
Michael Jackson sales surge expected to last months (Reuters)
Reuters - In the days following Michael Jackson's June 25 death, fans flocked to record stores and digital music outlets to purchase one last memory. And merchants say they expect the Jackson sales surge to last for weeks -- maybe even months.
"Asteroids" lands at Universal (Reuters)
Reuters - Universal Pictures has won a four-studio bidding war to pick up the film rights to the classic Atari video game "Asteroids."
IPhone 3GS Heats Up, DOJ Takes Aim at Google (PC World)
PC World - The iPhone scored quite a few headlines related to overheating problems with the 3GS this week. Depending on whom you believe, those issues are either real, exaggerated, the fault of users or some combination of the three. Otherwise, as warm weather takes hold above the equator and Bostonians contemplate whether it's time to brush up on our ark-building skills (rain, rain go away), we find this week's IT news offerings cover a broad range.
China Testing Mac Version of Green Dam Web Filter (NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - Despite the delay in China's requirement to install Green Dam Web-filtering software on all new PCs, the controversy is not dead. PC makers are including the software with new PCs even though the July 1 deadline has been postponed indefinitely.
You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz (InfoWorld)
InfoWorld - You win some; you lose some. This week China decided its Web censorship filtering software was not quite ready for prime time, while U.S. courts sentenced phone hackers and file swappers to some crime time.
Firefox 3.5 Can Still Learn From Its Competition (PC World)
PC World - While Mozilla lights a fire under competing browsers with support of emerging Web standards with Firefox 3.5, it can still improve its performance, reliability, and usability.
Teen Releases First Jailbreak App for iPhone 3GS (NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - The first jailbreak application for Apple's new iPhone 3GS has been made available just two weeks after the iPhone debuted. George Hotz, a 19-year-old Google employee originally from New Jersey, created the application.