The amount of stuff we trust to fly in and out of our smartphones is astounding. Just look at what happened when a couple of reporters got access to an unwitting (and rather unlucky) Apple employee’s iMessages alone — within days, they learned more about him than most people know about their closest friends.

Now, imagine all the stuff that could fly in and out of a government official’s phone, or that of a highly-ranked member of the military. Forget saucy texts and booty pictures — we’re talking about state secrets, here.

Looking to keep their secrets underwraps while on the go, the U.S government is working on a build of Android custom-tailored to meet their security requirements.

Word of the project comes from CNN, who notes that U.S. officials/soldiers aren’t currently allowed to send any classified data over their smartphones. If they need to transmit anything that might sink ships (so to speak), they currently need to find a secured (generally meaning hardwired) line hooked to an approved device.

Here’s the gist of the project:

• A limited number of soldiers will get the phones first, then federal agencies, then possibly contractors
• The U.S. won’t be building their own hardware — that’d be too expensive. Instead, they’ll be buying commercially available devices and reflashing them.
• They hoped to be able to offer iOS devices, but it’s not going to happen. CNN notes that federal officials met with Apple to request that they share their source — as you’d probably guess, Apple wasn’t too cool with that idea.
• Surprisingly, users of the handsets will be able to install new applications, though the handsets will put a specific emphasis on exactly what information the application can access and what it’s currently sending. Seems unlikely that they’d give these things full Android Market access, though — that’d be rather silly.
• The project is being funded by DARPA, with the NSA evaluating it as they go (while working on a version of their own, curiously.)

Most of the project’s details are still underwraps, but this is all still rather interesting. What hardware might they use? If DARPA makes any substantial security improvements to Android’s kernel, might that work make it back to the official branch? Might this work eventually be monetized (remember, Siri was born as a DARPA project) and offered to enterprises looking for a locked-down version of Android — and what does that mean for RIM/BlackBerry?

The tale of Google Wallet’s life thus far is a bit of a weird one, but here’s the gist: Google launched it back in September, initially as an exclusive feature on Sprint’s Nexus S. We reviewed it here. Then came Google/Samsung’s new flagship Android phone, the Galaxy Nexus — and, for one reason or another, none of the Galaxy Nexuses on any of the US carriers supported Wallet. Android fans roared, and everyone involved pointed fingers everywhere else until everyone just kind of forgot about it.

Flash forward to day: without much fanfare, AT&T Galaxy Nexus owners are reporting that Google Wallet now appears to support their devices.

Word of the newfound support came from Droid-Life, who noticed that it could be downloaded to their device following a rather ambiguous “Small changes for device compatibility” update.

Meanwhile, they’ve also figured out a somewhat hit-or-miss trick for getting the same package installed onto the Verizon Galaxy Nexus right through the market (as opposed to manually hacking the APK onto the device), though it’s still pretty unclear as to what’s enabling it for some and not for others.

Anyway: if you’ve got a Galaxy Nexus on AT&T, go hop into the Android Market and see if you can nab Google Wallet. What do you have to lose? At worst, you’ll be back where you were before. At best, you’ll be paying for your Jack In The Box like a time traveler by the end of the evening.

Man, it feels like it’s been forever since the last time we’ve seen a seemingly legit Apple leak. Maybe they’ve tightened the security around the factory lines; maybe it’s because the last two major hardware releases were mostly indistinguishable from their predecessors at a distance, and were thus rather hard to photograph properly.

Whatever the case, Chinese Apple blog Apple.pro has shots of what might be the next generation iPod Nano. It looks just like the current itty-bitty 6th generation nano, with one notable twist: it’s got a camera.

As a bit of a recap, this was the 5th gen Nano. It had a camera:

Then the 6th-gen came along, cutting the product’s size in half (at the expense of the camera, plus things like a built-in speaker):

According to micgadget (who backs Apple.Pro’s pictures with their “factory sources”), the new Nano’s camera resolution comes in at 1.3 megapixels (or 1280×1024). A bit paltry by modern standards — but if you’ve ever held one of the latest Nanos, you know how little space there is for things like lenses and light sensors. That they (reportedly) even fit such things in there at all is kind of ridiculous.

But what about the Nano’s clip? Wouldn’t that block the camera? If you look closely, the camera lens actually extends through the clip. Clever. Still, I can’t imagine taking pictures on such a tiny device would be a comfortable experience.

Interestingly, micgadget’s sources mention that the prototype photographed is actually around 2 months old, at which point the unreleased Nano was reportedly having some troubles with overexposed photos (a 2-megapixel alternative was also tested, with photos supposedly looking too “washed out”). Apple would obviously fix such problems prior to release, but it’s curious that a detail like that would leak out of the vacuum chamber that is today’s Apple.

“Who Wants A Stylus?”

- Steve Jobs, MacWorld 2007

As it turns out, plenty of people do. Not for navigating around the user interface, mind you — Steve (et al.) was absolutely right about that. But for the artists of the world looking to use the iPhone or iPad as their newfangled portable glass canvas, the stylus wins over the finger any day.

And yet, the myriad iPad styluses floating about generally lack something that artists have come to expect of their digital pens: pressure sensitivity. Dubbing itself “the world’s first pressure sensitive stylus for iPad”, a successfully Kickstarted project called “jaja” looks to change that.

And for that last bit of bonus flare: they’re trying to do it all without using WiFi or Bluetooth for wireless connectivity. So how does it communicate with the iPad? Sound.

As you probably know, the world is just full of sounds that we can’t hear. Generally speaking, the human ear can hear sounds between 20 and 20,000 Hz. According to the guys behind jaja, the iPad’s mic can pick up frequencies well beyond that, giving them a bit of space on the high-end to pass signals as sound without driving everyone around you crazy. (But what about the dogs? Won’t someone think of the dogs?!)

In addition to pressure sensitivity, the jaja will also have two built-in buttons meant to be used as hotkeys (for switching brushes, for example, or one-click undo/redo functionality.)

Of course, any iPad app you’re hoping to use this with (beyond the basic, non-pressure-sensitive stylus functionality) will need to pack support for jaja’s in-progress SDK. Your favorite drawing apps probably aren’t currently using the microphone for anything right now, much less for parsing out high-pitched whining.

One thing I’m left curious about: what about ambient sound? Take airplanes, for example. Without reliance on WiFi/Bluetooth, it’s noted that the jaja can be used safely on a plane. But plane engines generate an absurd amount of sound — much of that in the higher ranges. Might that cause interference?

Whatever the case, the jaja is well past its original $25,000 goal on Kickstarter, so the odds of it making it to the real world are pretty solid. $40 gets you one of the first 500 jajas, 471 of which have already been snatched up.

As just about everyone should know by now, the seeds of what grew into Facebook were planted at Harvard. Might there be a bunch of mini-Zucks lurking in the dorms of Cambridge? If so, a new venture capital firm — the first housed right on the Harvard campus — wants to find them.

Dubbed The Experiment Fund, the firm describes itself as “a bridge between America’s oldest universities and storied venture capital firms.” Backed by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), the firm is made up of Hugo Van Vurren, NEA co-head Patrick Chung, and NEA General Partner Harry Weller — all of whom have a degree of some form from the school.

When I say it’s “right on the Harvard campus”, I’m not kidding — it’s going to be based out of 33 Oxford Street, which is Harvard’s School Of Engineering And Applied Sciences. It’s a bit more than a stone’s throw from Harvard Yard. With that said, the fund operates with complete independence from the university.

And if you’re not a Harvard student? Don’t sweat it too much. The fund says they’re open to anyone, “regardless of university affilation, nationality, age, or prior experience.” Being a Harvard student (or at least a Cambridge local) probably wouldn’t hurt, though.

While it seems the size of the fund isn’t set in stone yet (or at least, it wasn’t disclosed — I’ll look into it. Update: they’re not setting a cap at this point), the team says they expect to seed “several” companies with up to $250k each over the next two years.

Wuh oh, Samsung — better watch your tail. While Apple might not be seeing any impact (be it positive or negative) on iPad sales from the launch of the Kindle Fire, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab ought to be feeling the heat.

Tapping into the data provided by their app analytics platform (which they estimate has found its way onto around 90% of the Android devices out there), Flurry highlights a few surprising numbers.

Downloads:

Next up, Flurry looked at the download numbers for 5 applications that were in the Top 10 on both the Android Market and Amazon’s App Store. To boil it all down: for every sale of one of these top apps to a Galaxy Tab owner, there were 2.53 sales to a Kindle Fire owner. Again, consider how much bigger the Galaxy Tab audience is (Flurry estimates that it’s at least double) — and yet, the Kindle Fire owners are buying more.

If you’re an Android developer wondering whether or not you should target the Kindle Fire and Amazon’s App Store, the answer seems to be an incredibly clear “Yes.”

Sure, your mom carried you for nine months. And yeah, she wiped your bum for years, put clothes on your back, and made sure you got a decent education so you could move to California and rock a hoodie and work somewhere where there’s always beer in the fridge and go-karts to be ridden. But can you really be expected to call her from time to time to let her know where you are? Time is money, Mom. Get on Foursquare or something.

Looking to ease the anxiety for the mothers of the world whose brats kids are too busy to call is #hashtagmom. You check-in somewhere on Foursquare with the titular #mom hashtag, and it’ll do all the talking (or texting) for you.

To begin, you punch in your mom’s phone number and then login to the service with Foursquare (from which it’ll grab your first name, determine whether to call you “Son” or “Daughter”, and monitor your check-ins). From there, any check-ins with the “#mom” hashtag will be relayed to her by text or phone call. As their example, the check-in “Landed! #mom” could ring up your mom and say “Hi! Your [son/daughter] [Your name here] asked us to let you know he is safely at JFK airport. He said, “Landed!”

According to the guys who built it (Jeff Weinstein and Steve Pike), the service was built as a “fun side project” to help them wrap their heads around the Twilio/Foursquare APIs that power it.

(And don’t ask me what the mom is doing with her non-phone-holding hand in that picture. I have no idea.)

After raising just shy of $23 million over the past 5 years, Skyfire today announced that they’ve raised their second biggest round of funding to date. Coming in at $8 million dollars, this Series C round is being funded by Verizon Investments (as in Verizon Communications’ venture arm) along with new investments from previous investors Matrix Partners, Trinity Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

So, what’s Skyfire need the $8 mil for? They list three key spots: to “meet the demands of its growing list of wireless operator customers through increased engineering” (read: to keep doing what they’re doing), “sales and support resources” (read: to pay people to sell it), and to “expand into European and Asian markets” (read: to… yeah.)

Skyfire also tells us that their “Rocket Toolbar” — a web-based tool bar that sits at the bottom of your browser and adds various social network sharing buttons to just about every page of the Internet (which, unless I’m misunderstanding things… sounds kind of terrible) — has found a partner in one unnamed “tier-one” US carrier. Meanwhile, their “Skyfire Rocket” engine (which compresses streaming video on-the-fly by about 60% when the network is congested) found two tier-one partners, also unnamed. Given that there are only four US tier-one carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless) and the details of today’s investment, it’s probably safe to assume Verizon is in there somewhere.

And for anyone keeping track of how Skyfire’s main public-facing product, the Skyfire browser, is doing: across iOS and Android, it’s just passed its 12 millionth download.

Modern day video editors can be daunting. While it’s better than the literal cut-and-paste practices of yesteryear, opening a new video editor can feel like stepping into the cockpit of a spaceship. Unless you’re trained to fly spaceships, in which case this analogy is broken (and also, you’re awesome.)

Looking to distill video editing down to its simplest form — a game like experience, they say — is Game Your Video, a new iOS app from Global Delight.

Here’s how it works: you pick a video from your library, and play it back. As it’s playing, you poke any of the myriad effect buttons (things like jitter, shake, spin, RGB splitting, or speed tweaks) sitting at the bottom of the screen to start the effect. The video keeps playing with the effect applied on the fly. Tap it again, and the effect stops. Don’t like the effect? Stop the video, drag back to that point in the timeline (which isn’t so much a timeline, really, but an iMovie-esque thumbnail summary) until the cursor is on top of the effect highlight, and tap a button to remove it.

The same effects can be applied in real-time to videos being shot through the app, using an identical mechanic: tap an effect to start, tap it again to stop. You can also pick songs from your iPod library as your video’s soundtrack, and cut/join clips with just a tap or two. Want to make your friends sound like a chipmunk (or an axe murderer)? You can do that, too.

It is really quite simple — at least in its overall concept. Some of the finer nuances of the UI can be confusing at times; it took me a few minutes to figure out, for example, that to edit videos you’ve already recorded you have to hit a specific “Game Your Video” button rather than the camera roll button sitting right next to it. None of it’s hard to wrap your head around — but given that they’re trying to make something for an audience daunted by other video editors, it’s probably worth fine tuning.

Here’s a quick video of my desk demo of some of the effects:

Will it turn you into the next Scorsese? Nah, but that’s not the point. It’s for adding cute little effects to your clips before tossing them up on Twitter or Facebook — and for that, it gets the job done.

Game Your Video launched this morning, and is going for $1.99 in the App Store.

The guys from NimbleBit (developers of Tiny Tower, the game handpicked by Apple as iOS Game Of The Year) are on a bit of a tweeting spree tonight, blasting out two big ol’ gems of knowledge in as many hours.

First: Zynga just launched a new iOS game, and it looks a lot like Tiny Tower. Second (and this one makes that first bit all the more interesting): Zynga allegedly tried to buy NimbleBit at some point in the past, but NimbleBit turned them down.

The new game, Dream Heights, seems to only be available in Canada thus far. Perhaps Zynga thought those nice folk north of the Border somehow hadn’t heard of Tiny Tower yet? It’s not like it’s a hugely popular game with a massive fan base or anything, right?

As word of Zynga’s latest release got back to them, NimbleBit’s David Marsh hinted at the refused buy-out:

Even when you refuse to go work for Zynga, sometimes you end up doing work for Zynga anyway.

A few minutes later, co-founder Ian Marsh swooped in and nailed out the confirmation:

They did go the honest route and try to acquire us first.

Bringing it all together, the NimbleBit guys blasted out the image below comparing the two.

Inspiration is one thing — but this… is pretty friggin’ blatant. One could argue that Tiny Tower is itself influenced by past games like SimTower, but seriously, just look:

We’ve reached out to Zynga for a comment, but haven’t heard anything back on the matter just yet.

We’re still a few minutes out from Apple’s Q1 2012 earnings call — but as is par for the course, the raw numbers have made their way out a bit early. And they.. are… insane.

Note: For those wondering how the heck Apple is reporting earnings for Q1 2012 in January, note that this is fiscal quarter Q1 — which for Apple, runs from September 25th to December 31st, 2011. In other words, this one quarter includes both the iPhone 4S launch (October 14th) and the holiday sales spike.

Here’s how it all breaks down:

Revenue: $46.3 Billion ($28.3 Billion last quarter), with a record quarterly profit of $13.06 billion. Earnings per share was $13.87 (vs $10.08 consensus estimate)
iPhones sold: 37.04 million (17.07 million last quarter)
iPads sold: 15.43 million (11.1 million last quarter)
Macs sold: 5.2 million (4.89 million last quarter)
iPods sold: 15.4 million (up from 6.62 million last quarter, but down 21% year over year)

Earlier this morning, Erick asked if this would be Apple’s first $40 billion quarter. The answer, clearly: yes, and then some.

I’ll be taking live notes on Apple’s earnings call down below beginning at 2 PM Pacific.

2:01: Just waiting for the call to start. Shouldn’t be much longer.

2:03: And we’re live!

2:04: Apple SVP/CFO Peter Oppenheimer is on the call, mostly recapping the stats above.

2:05: “Mac sales are up in all of our geographies, especially the Asia Pacific”. Oppenheimer cites sales of the MacBook Pro as a primary driver behind the spike.

2:06: iPod Touches made up over 1/2 of the 15.4 iPod sales made in this quarter

2:07: We’re on to iTunes numbers; of Apple’s $46.3 billion in revenue this quarter, $1.7 billion was from iTunes sales

2:11: “iPad continues its unprecedented adoption in business. Nearly all of the top companies in all industries [from pharma to retail] use iPads [in the field].”

2:12: Over 600,000 copies of iBooks Author have been downloaded since it was announced last week. 3 million copies of iTunes U have been downloaded.

2:13: As of today, over 85 million customers have subscribed to iCloud.

2:14: By the end of this month, iOS developers will have earned over 4 billion dollars in total sales

2:15: Apple retail stores are seeing an average of 22,000 customers, per store, per week.

2:16: As of the end of the quarter, Apple has $97.6 billion in cash on hand. While they have “nothing to announce today”, Oppenheimer specifically said that they don’t plan on “letting it burn a hole in [their] pocket”. ($64 billion of that cash is off-shore)

2:18: We’re moving to the Q&A.

2:19: “Can you describe the iPhone momentum as you ended the quarter, and your enthusiasm for the product as we move into the next year?” They’re thrilled with the momentum; Tim Cook recaps the sales stats, comparing it to previous quarters, and attributes the record breaking sales to things like Siri. “We were short of supply throughout the quarter. That situation has improved some, but we’re still short in key geographies.” After a followup question, he confirms that the iPhone 4S (as opposed to the now cheaper iPhone 4) was the most popular iPhone this quarter.

2:24: Regarding which countries saw them most iPhone sales: US and Japan. China, where the iPhone 4S just recently launched, was not included in this quarter’s numbers.

2:25: “[Due to the flooding in Thailand], we will pay more for drives this quarter. That’s reflected in our guidance.”

2:28: “Did you see any impact from lower-priced tablets on the market?” “We were really happy with the 15.4 million iPads that we were able to sell… This is consistent with our long term belief that we’ve had since before we launched the product. I think there will come a day that the tablet market is larger than the PC market… I think people really want to do multiple things with their tablets; as a result, we don’t really see these limited function tablets, these e-readers, as being in the same category. I don’t think people who want an iPad will settle for a limited function. In terms of other tablets, last year was supposed to be the year of the tablet. I think most people would agree it was the year of the iPad.”

2:33: Regarding your statement on how you’ll be utilizing your cash; is that a reflection that something has changed? “We are actively discussing the best uses of our cash balance… We realize that cash is growing… but we have nothing to announce today.”

2:37: “We just got back from CES. Everyone has a connected TV offering and is trying to solve problems only Apple can solve. When we look at what Apple is offering though, it’s just the Apple TV.” “Our Apple TV product is doing quite well… but in the scheme of things, we still classify Apple TV as a hobby. We continue to add things to it. If you’re using the latest one — I don’t know about you, but I can’t live without it. Other than that, no comment.”

2:38: You’ve been CEO for 4 months now. What’s the early read on the new job so far? “I love apple. It’s a reminder every day as to how much of a privilege it is to work with people who are so incredible, and how lucky I am.” Anything from a strategic standpoint? “Nope — you can see our results. We feel very good about where we are.”

2:39: Another question about the cash on hand, specifically regarding dividends and share buy-backs; they dodge the question with another “nothing to announce today”.

2:43: “Can you give us an update on where you are regarding distribution for the phone? What are your prospects for expanding your carrier reach in China?” “We now have over 130,000 points of sale around the world. We’ve consistently added points of distribution — both carrier distributors, and owned distribution. We added carriers last quarter (KDDI in Japan, Sprint in the US). Both of them can speak for themselves — but we’re extremely pleased with both. In terms of China: China Unicom continues to be a key partner, but we’ve got nothing to announce today. China is extremely important to us, and we’re always looking for ways to grow there”

2:44: Estimates for next quarter (ending in March): they expect iPhone/Mac/iPad sales to be down from this quarter (of course — it’s not the holiday quarter), but up year-over-year. They probably wouldn’t say that if a new iPad was launching sometime by March (as has been rumored).

2:49: After China, Cook sees their next biggest opportunity being Brazil.

2:51: “In terms of adding more carriers — we have been adding carriers, and will keep adding carriers. Nothing to announce today.”

2:53: “iPad growth really outpaced our expectations. Do you think that Apple actually benefited from some of these lower-cost tablets coming into the market? Do you see that happening with the MacBook Air, as well, with the influx of Ultrabooks?” “I’ve looked at the data, particularly in the US, on a weekly basis after Amazon launched the Kindle Fire. [There wasn't a clear effect, positive or negative. I've heard stories of people doing what you suggest, but whether that's happening on a large scale is unclear.] There is cannibalization of the Mac by the iPad, but we continue to think that there’s much more cannibalization of the PC by the iPad.” In K-12, we sold twice the number of iPads as we did Macs.

2:56: Android vs iPhone. Is this becoming a two horse race? How do you see the sustainability of your integrated model?

“I wouldn’t classify it like Mac/Windows at all. The Mac has outgrown the market for over 20 quarters, but still has a single digit percentage of worldwide market. iOS, if you look at phones/tablets/etc, we’ve sold over 350 million iOS devices. I think this compares very favorably in any comparison. I don’t have comparable numbers on Android, I haven’t found a way to get very crisp, quarterly reporting like we do. If you look at NPD data, it shows — just looking at Oct/Nov — it shows that just the iPhone is at 43% with Android at 47%. Nielson shows it at 45% with Android at 47%. Comscore shows iPhone at 42 with Android at 41. All of the data I’ve seen is that it’s a very close race. I think on the iPad side (I don’t have specific numbers), all of us believe the iPad is way ahead there. There’s also no comparable product to the iPod Touch out there. iOS is doing incredibly well. I wouldn’t say it’s a 2-horse race. There’s a horse in Redmond that always suits up, and others that will always keep running. What we focus on is innovating and making the world’s best products. We’ll keep doing that and keep ignoring how many horses there are.”

3:01: Has the uprise of larger screens and 4G devices changed your view? [I won't comment on future roadmaps, but we sold 37M iPhones and could have sold more if we had more supply. People love what we're doing.]

3:02: And we’re done! Thanks for tuning in.

Microsoft Points are dead! Or, they’re dying. At least according to InsideMobileApps. Dead, dying, being taken to a farm, whatever — but man do I hope it’s true.

Citing a “source with knowledge of the company’s decision”, InsideMobileApps says Microsoft is planning to ditch the Points system on Windows Phone (where it’s only used for in-app purchases, oddly), Zune Marketplace, and Xbox Live by the end of the year. Of course, given that it’s January, “by the end of the year” is about as precise as saying “before the end of time” — but in the end, what matters is Points going away.

For anyone who’s somehow managed to avoid Microsoft’s silly-ass points system, here’s the idea: instead of buying content with, you know, money, you buy content with Microsoft Points. Points… which you buy with money.

Imagine you’ve gone to the store, and you want to buy 2 pineapples. You take them to the counter, and the guy at the register says “Great! That’ll be 7 bloo-blops.”

“What? I don’t have any bloo-blops. I only have dollars. Can I just give you dollars?”

“No. You have to give me bloo-blops. Fortunately, I have this pack of 10 bloo-blops right here.”

“..But I thought you said I only needed 7 bloo-blops?”

“You do. But I only sell them in packs of 10. Don’t worry! You’ll have 3 bloo-blops left over to buy anything you want!”

“Oh, okay. What can I buy with 3 bloo-blops?”

“Nothing.”

See? Garbage.

Now, there’s some logic behind the point system — at least for Microsoft. It lets developers set one “price” (in points) globally — if something is 400 points in the US, it’s 400 points in Japan (though what 400 points works out to obviously varies by country.) But it also totally works out in Microsoft’s favor: the dollars-to-points ratio (80 points per $1) makes things seem a bit cheaper than they actually are, and that you always seem to have points left over after each purchase (but never enough to buy anything else) means pretty much everyone with an Xbox is constantly floating Microsoft a few pennies. (It also lets Microsoft cut down on credit card fees, which isn’t a bad thing.)

With all that said, it’s got one other major effect: making me not buy things. Of the many dozens of games I’ve gone to grab, the movies I’ve wanted to rent, and the stupid hats I would’ve bought for my avatar, I’ve ended up buying two — all because I didn’t want to deal with adding more silly bloo-blops Points. I know I’m not the only one.

Good news: You’ve been promoted to CEO! Bad news: Public perception of your company has tanked over the past few years, and your stockholders are looking at you to save the day. What ever you do first, just hope that you don’t give the world that sound bite that suggests you think everything is okay and that nothing at the company needs to change. Whoops!

Less than 24 hours after RIM’s executive shakeup, the company is already seeing its first “drastic change”: its stock price.

After opening the day at $17 (down from $62.69 a year ago, a drop of about 75%), the effects of the incoming CEO’s first (surprisingly defensive) teleconference call began to spread. To put it gently, it was not well-received. By closing time, the stock had dipped another $1.44. That’s a drop in the bucket for most mammoth tech companies — but for the already bruised RIM, that works out to another 8.5% lost.

I’m actually surprised it didn’t tank further. If I was someone who still had money in RIM (un-disclaimer: I’ve got no money in anything), I’d have lost my last shred of hope by noon today. If RIM’s new CEO really thinks that something doesn’t need to change, he’s probably just about the only one left.

Another day, another hack. The company whose data was compromised this time? DreamHost.

According to DreamHost’s status blog, the company detected “unauthorized activity within one of [their] databases”. In other words: someone was snooping around where they shouldn’t have been snooping, and DreamHost noticed the foot prints.

Alas, the company isn’t divulging much information as to the nature of the hack, beyond that they “don’t have evidence that customer passwords were taken at this time”. Still, they’re requiring password resets for all Shell/FTP accounts (read: not the account that DreamHost customers use to login to the billing/backend system, but the user accounts they use to access and maintain their actual websites.) for what seems to be all DreamHost customers. If you find yourself having trouble logging into your DreamHost FTP accounts today, it’s because your password has already been disabled.

Perhaps it goes without saying, but: If you’re a DreamHost customer and you use a similar password elsewhere around the Internet, now’s the time to switch them all up.

While the once long list of legitimate reasons to jailbreak your iPhone has taken a hit with each new iOS release, that burning desire to “Free your device” and/or “Fight the power” and/or “Just do crazy stuff that other people can’t do” never really goes away.

3 months after the release of the iPhone 4S and 10 months after the release of the iPad 2, the ridiculously talented iOS hacking community has finally cracked the ultimate challenge for both devices: the untethered jailbreak.

I know these things can get a bit jargony, so a quick recap: to “jailbreak” means to modify a device to run code and applications not signed or approved by Apple, thereby allowing you to do things with your device far outside of what would normally be possible. “Untethered” means that once it’s jailbroken, it stays jailbroken (whereas a “tethered” jailbreak means the device resets to its normal, un-jailbroken state whenever it is reset)

The team behind this hack, Chronic Dev, is the same group that makes the greenpois0n tool that’s been jailbreaking iOS devices for years. Remember comex, the iOS hacker who went legit with an internship at Apple? He was a key member of this group.

While their server seems to be taking a bit of a pounding right now, you can find the new iPhone 4s/iPad 2 jailbreaking tool (dubbed “Greenpos0n Absinthe”) right over here.

“iPads And Digital Textbooks Don’t Belong In Classrooms Yet”? What a headline. Alas, it doesn’t quite do the post justice; Matt actually raises a few valid points on the potential woes of digitally assisted learning, but they’re lost under a headline that (falsely) paint him as some sort of luddite.

iPads absolutely have a place in the classroom. It’s just a matter of finding a balance.

Let me tell you a bit about my childhood.

I grew up in an interesting place, in an interesting time. My (relatively) small town was about an hour outside of San Jose — just close enough to the glowing core of Silicon Valley as to feel its warmth, but far enough that you always wondered if you were actually a part of it. If Cupertino is the heart, we were its appendix. For every tech millionaire who chose my town as their escape, there were two nth-generation locals with calluses for hands and sweat for blood. It made for an interesting crowd.

By the time I hit gradeschool (’92 or so?[Cue jabs at my age]), computers were by no means rare in my area. While they still weren’t nearly as ubiquitous as they are today, I was lucky enough to be coming in just as the late 80′s explosion of computers into education had begun to pay off. Most (but not all) classrooms had one, and the teachers knew how to use them (with the vast majority happily embracing them). By second grade, computers were deeply intertwined into our curriculum.

And thank heavens for that. That immersion into technology is a driving factor for who I am today. The early typing classes turned me into a key-pounding monster (I was unknowingly being polished for this very job.) The BASIC programming classes that came later were the foundation for the programming and web design work I did to avoid getting a real job in High school, and the early introduction to technology acted as a spark for my still-burning desire to learn as much about it as I possibly can. I consider myself a part of the first generation born and raised with keyboard in tow, and I love it.

Now, what does all of this have to with Matt’s post?

Even in my little town located but a stones throw from the core, there was some resistance to letting computers make their way into schools. In the build up to the aforementioned educational computer explosion, naysayers were asking many of the same questions that Matt asks in his post, and that I see being asked in the comments down below it.

“What if it becomes a crutch? I want my kids to know how to actually do math, not push buttons.”

This is a matter of curriculum, not the tools used. If a kid leaves knowing how to solve a math problem (or whatever challenge) using a calculator (or in this case, iPad) but turns to stone when the calculator is taken away, it’s because something in the teaching process was broken, not because the calculator was introduced.

That’s not to pretend that I’m some sort of math wiz regardless of my computer-heavy upbringing — quite the contrary, in fact, and that’s part of the reason I’m comfortable waxing on about this topic.

With a connected device in hand, I am a demigod. With a universe of knowledge at my fingertips, I am all-knowing. 37th President of the US? boop boop boop Nixon! Math problems? More like math LOL–BREMS. Bear attack? Don’t sweat it guys: If we’ve got signal, I’ve got this.

Take away my device, and I am a shadow of my former self. Dewey decimal system? I didn’t need that book anyway. Math proof? More like math POOF IM OUT. Drop me off in the middle of a forest, and I’m bear food by sun down.

I am the kid Matt worries about. But I’m okay with that — and I don’t blame my computer, or my calculator, or my iPhone. I don’t blame my teachers, either; it’s a weird, ever-evolving world we live in, and hindsight is 20/20. In the end, it’s no one’s fault but my own that I can’t recall how to do all of this stuff sans gadgetry.

With that said, I honestly believe it’s entirely possible — nay, crucial — to teach a kid to live both with and without technology. Teach and test them on how to do it the hard way (and more importantly, to understand the underlying concepts)… then drive it in with technology. If you instill a sense of pride in doing things with your very own brain, perhaps all that junk won’t fly out the window as soon as the diploma is signed. It’s all about balance.

“But they’ll be so distracting!”

Of course they will! Anything you put in front of a kid, if they have no interest in being there, is a distraction. Paper and pencil? Doodle time! Science book? Let’s scan the index and try to find pictures of boobs! Graphing calculator? Don’t even get me started.

Here’s the thing: true attention is binary — you’re either paying attention, or you aren’t. Being distracted by an iPad is no worse than being distracted by anything else. Again, it all comes down to the teacher and how they use the tools at hand. If you can get away with playing Infinity Blade II (Matt’s example) in class on a 9.7″ display, your teacher probably isn’t paying much attention either.

“But what possible value do they actually add?”

Instant feedback, tailored to a kid’s learning style. The physical metaphor in touch interaction. Enjoying learning, even when the kids don’t realize they’re learning. Portability. Share-ability. (And, to go slightly tangential for a second, security. It’s a lot harder for a kid to accidentally bork the iPad’s software then it is to demolish a computer running XP/IE.) To say a tablet adds nothing over books, or even over a more traditional computer, is incredibly short-sighted.

“But they cost so much! There’s no way District X can afford these”

Technology is expensive, period. Just as not every school district got computers at the same time, not every school district needs to get tablets right away. Those that can afford to experiment can — and should. When District X can afford them in a way they feel is beneficial to their curriculum, they should. Whether that means one tablet per student, a tablet lab, a roaming tablet cart, or a single shared presentation tablet isn’t set in stone. One school using a new tool and a new teaching method doesn’t antiquate all that came before it for everyone else— and regardless of Apple’s announcement today, school books aren’t going anywhere any time soon,

(Oh, and given Apple’s history with schools and little details like all of today’s new stuff being compatible with the original iPad: if you think Apple’s not going to find a way to push iPads into schools on the cheap, you’re crazy)

Tablets, like their bigger desktop computer brethren, aren’t going anywhere. Nor are touch interfaces. For a kid entering Kindergarten this year, tablets and other portable form factors will likely be as big a part of his life as any other computing device. If school is a place for learning, it’s our duty to surround kids with the technology that will empower their lives. We must teach them a deep comprehension of the world around them, but also how to traverse its challenges in the most efficient of ways. Teach technology as a means of efficiency, not a means to an end — find the balance.

We’re tuned in live to Google’s Q4 2011 earnings call, where they’ve just disclosed a few details they left out of this morning’s big ol’ data dump. Amongst them: a progress update on Android’s growth.

According to Larry Page, Android has now been activated on over 250 million devices. That’s up 50 million since just November of last year.

Meanwhile, the Android Marketplace has managed to cruise past its 11 billionth download. (For the curious: Apple’s App Store, which is around 3 months older, passed its 18 billionth download in December of last year.) Alas, no word on how many of those were free/paid.

When our friends over at The Verge got wind of a price change coming to AT&T’s data plans, AT&T responded that it was “an error. There are no changes to our data plans.” What they should’ve said was “There are no changes to our data plans… yet.”

AT&T has just announced a new set of data plans for smartphones and tablets. As you’d probably guess, they’re a bit pricier than those they replace. On the upside, they’re (ever so slightly) cheaper per megabyte.

The Old Plans:

• $15 for 200MB ($0.075 per megabyte)
• $25 for 2GB ($0.012 per megabyte)
• $45 for 4GB with Tethering ($0.010 per megabyte)

The New Plans:

• $20 for 300MB ($0.06 per megabyte)
• $30 for 3GB ($0.0099 per megabyte, or slightly less than a penny)
• $50 for 5GB with Tethering ($0.0097 per megabyte)

(Note: Only the latter two in each category are available for tablets. The old $15/250MB plan for tablets will continue to exist in place of this new one.)

In the end, each plan gets bumped up $5 for a slightly larger helping of data. Current customers can keep their existing plans, though you’ll almost certainly have to pay for the pricier new option if you’re looking to enable/disable tethering on your account. I’d find some reason to be outraged — but really, when you’re already paying through the nose for data, it’s hard to be surprised when they come back around with bigger coffers.

The plans will launch for new customers this Sunday.

Regardless of where you stand on the SOPA battle, you’ve got to agree: seeing what seems to be the entire Internet come together to stand against something is incredible. Each company has a different approach, but their goal is the same: make sure everyone goes to sleep knowing what SOPA is.

While I don’t want to turn today’s protests into a who-did-it-best battle (that’s not at all the point), I’ve got to highlight Turntable.fm’s approach. It’s about as simple as could be, but it just oozes with symbolism.

If the goal is to raise awareness, the most effective form of peaceful protest is the one that spreads your message without inconveniencing those you’re trying to inform. Wikipedia’s approach, as a counter-example, brings a ton of attention to the issue — but it also pisses a lot of people off. It’s a hugely powerful move, but it taints the message for the huge chunk of people who just leave angry and confused.

Now, take a look at the screenshot above. Notice the anti-SOPA/PIPA stickers on each DJ’s laptop lid? That’s Turntable’s approach.

“Wait, what? That’s it?”

Yep, that’s it.

Here’s the thing: on any other day of the year, each DJ’s laptop generally represents which OS they’re using. On a Windows machine? It’ll have a Windows flag. Mac? It’ll have an Apple. Ubuntu? It’ll show Ubuntu’s… logo… thing. It actually becomes something of a point of contention, with OS flamewars breaking out on the regular and “Of COURSE a platform-X user would play this song” stereotyping abound.

Today, everyone playing music on Turntable stands behind the same message: Stop SOPA/PIPA. It’s the very first thing you notice when you enter the room — and if you don’t already know what SOPA/PIPA are, curiosity will almost certainly make you turn to Google, where the information is quite literally front and center. There’s no inconvenience introduced, no damning of the user experience… and yet, it spreads the message just as well as anything else. Add in the headbobbing of the crowd and the inherent power of music, and it comes together into something not only powerful, but also positive. Good job, Turntable.

Oh, you thought SOPA was dead? That the riled rallying of the entire Internet, the blacking out of dozens of popular websites in protest, or the President himself coming out against the bill would be enough to kill it off?

Nope. It’ll be back — they’re just taking a little break.

News of the expected return comes from Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, who said:

“To enact legislation that protects consumers, businesses and jobs from foreign thieves who steal America’s intellectual property, we will continue to bring together industry representatives and Members to find ways to combat online piracy.

Due to the Republican and Democratic retreats taking place over the next two weeks, markup of the Stop Online Piracy Act is expected to resume in February.”

In other words: it’s clearly got too much opposition right now, so they’re going to shelf it for a few weeks (presumably with the hopes everyone has moved on to being angry about something else, as the Internet tends to do.) The challenge: don’t move on. Keep protesting. Keep explaining to your not-so-tech-savvy friends what SOPA could mean to them and the sites they love. Keep being angry.