Cody Taylor

Cell phones are moving into more homes and pushing traditional landlines out the door.

Can you feel that? That electricity in the air? Yes, it means that the final release of iPhone OS 3.0 is closer than ever, and here is iPhone beta 5—build 7A312g—to demonstrate it.And of course, it comes with a new beta of the SDK and iTunes 8.2. Start your torrents now.

When a system update caused service failures and bugs in T-Mobile customers’ unlocked iPhones, the users emailed T-Mobile to alert them to the issue. Even though T-Mobile doesn’t offer the iPhone, they fixed the bugs and gave the users a service credit for the inconvenience.

Amazon as promised announced the Kindle DX, its extra-large version of its e-book reader. The device centers on a 9.7-inch E Ink display that provides a larger view of newspapers and also has an iPhone-like accelerometer, twice as much storage, and (finally) native PDF support.

Like all shiny toys, your iPhone is always at risk of being stolen. Given your iPhone’s hefty price tag, and the amount of personal data that it houses, it is imminent for all iPhone users to protect their phone.

MarkDennehy writes “The Broadcasting Bill 2009 (currently in the last stages of becoming the Broadcasting Act 2009 and then being commenced into law in Ireland) has thrown up a rather unpleasant little nugget for broadband users in Ireland. It now defines a television set as being an electronic apparatus able to receive TV signals or “any software or assembly comprising such apparatus” which would mean that even if you haven’t got a television set, even if you don’t watch streaming content from RTE.ie (the state broadcaster’s website), you’d still have to pay 160 euro a year for a television license for your iPhone, or netbook, or laptop or desktop if you have fixed or mobile broadband.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Since the announcement of iPhone software 3.0, the Internet has been busy picking away at its many builds finding new and exciting features. Once feature the OS spelunkers don’t have to root around for is MMS. Apple is finally bringing the sought after feature to the iPhone.

You need a peculiar set of half-formed, skinny fingers to text on an iPhone.And you need a peculiar set of strangely-formed cranial connections to send and receive 303,398 texts on it in one month.

mr100percent writes “Apple rejected the iPhone aggregator app Newspapers because of a topless photo in one of the app’s subscribed-to papers. In the rejection message, Apple noted that Parental Controls have been announced for iPhone OS 3.0, adding that it ‘would be appropriate to resubmit your application for review once this feature is available.’ Rumor sites are speculating that Apple will relax their content restrictions once the 3.0 update puts parental controls in place. This may mean that apps like NIN will be allowed in the future.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An innocent-looking IQ test on Facebook is really a test of your privacy savvy. And ability to read tiny, tiny print.