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There’s an overnight shift planned for around 10-15 individuals at each Apple Store to work from late Saturday all the way through mid-Sunday.

The research suggests that if you can't upgrade to Android 2.3.4 the best thing to do is avoid open Wi-Fi networks altogether, although this is pretty sage advice for the most part anyway for anyone using wireless data.

Hard as it may be to believe, Sony has been hacked yet again. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, So-net Entertainment Corp., a Japanese ISP owned by the technology giant, said that hackers accessed its customer rewards site earlier this week and stole customers' redeemable gift points worth about $1,225.

Called “Space Life,” the doodle was created by seven-year-old Mateo Lopez of South San Francisco, California. Lopez entered his drawing into the Doodle 4 Google competition, and was the winner out of over 107,000 submissions and five million votes cast. Students were asked to draw on the theme, “What I’d like to do someday.” Google received several entries from kids longing for a life in space, but also from those wishing to explore the deep sea and even become a storybook illustrator.

Apple has struck deals with three of the top four music labels that will let consumers access their digital music collections from mobile devices like the company's iPhone, several reports said this week. The agreements also hint at the possibility that Apple will roll out a digital music subscription service that would create a "jukebox in the sky," a move that could push music revenues to levels last seen more than a decade ago.

As of this writing you can still grab apps like Buzzed and Fuzz Alert Pro in the App Store for a buck apiece. Google, too, offers similar apps via its Android market. And senators who first raised the issue two months ago are beginning to lose patience—on Thursday, Senator Tom Udall criticized Apple and Google for not removing the apps during Senate hearings on mobile privacy.

Scientists using an magnetic resonance imagine (MRI) machine presented Apple fans with images of the company's popular gadgets. Upon doing so, they found brain activity that mirrors how a religious person's brain reacts when presented with a picture of their chosen deity.

Google Wants to Kill the URL: Chrome 13 Lets Users Hide the Address Bar #302 #twig

Apple triggers 'religious' reaction in fans' brains, report says #302

Netflix Passes Piracy in U.S. Net Traffic #302

Woman kicked off train after 16-hour cell phone chat #302

BBC: Loving Apple looks like a religion to an MRI scan #302

Microsoft helps stop malware, while Apple blows off malware victims #302

Amazon to Allow ePub eBooks on the Kindle e-Reader #302

Sometime after midnight Tuesday morning, the iTunes team pushed through a batch of app submissions that sent the total over a six-figure milestone. In 34 months, Apple has approved more than 500,000 iPhone, iPad and iPod touch apps for the company's U.S. store. (Through attrition, replacement and withdrawal, number of apps currently available for download is 20% lower, around 400,000.)

witter has acquired TweetDeck, an application for organizing the display of tweets, for more than $40 million in a mix of cash and stock, according to sources close to the deal. TweetDeck has been the subject of speculation about deals for months. TechCrunch surfaced reports, citing a $40 million-$50 million acquisition. The deal has yet to be announced, but papers finalizing the deal were signed Monday.

To me, the risk theoretically is more for Google to use releases–Android releases–as a weapon in their relationship with device manufacturers and indirectly with telcos than anything else. So far they have not really tried to do it. On Apple and App Store openness: Everybody is talking about Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is not only dealing with pipes. It also deals with management of application shops. If you have people like Apple managing their application store and saying “This is OK and I don’t want to see this app in my shop,” it’s a problem.

During remarks at a developers conference in Japan on May 23, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer referred to the next version of Windows as “Windows 8.” He also said the next generation of Windows systems will be out next year. T

There’s lots of talk today on mobile payment processor Square’s outstanding results. 500,000 readers shipped, 1 million transactions so far this month, $3 million in transactions per day. That’s impressive. There really is a real need out there for the everyday consumer to have a method to accept good old plastic. I can tell you personally that I rarely carry cash anymore: it’s just so much simpler to swipe. Square’s rates aren’t horrible (although not great either): 2.75% for each swiped card, or 3.5% plus 15 cents for manually entered ones. So its not surprising they’re doing well.