Apple has snapped up music streaming biz Lala in what many initially thought to be a move to step beyond the strict download market of iTunes. On closer inspection it seems that Lala was a somewhat less-than-ideal target and Apple may just be gunning for ready-made engineering talent. "On balance, the purchase appears to give Apple the chance to bring in engineers that will be useful now, and could be even more so if it chooses to enter streaming or subscription services. But, for the moment, there's nothing about the purchase that seems to provide the company with any key technologies it was missing in terms of diving into markets. Until another company demonstrates that there's money to be made (or iPods to be sold) through streaming, there's no reason to think that a move of this sort is imminent."

Several sources have shared the news that "Google Goggles," publicly known as Google Visual Search, will be "coming soon" to an Android phone near you. Rather than typing in the search term, you will be able to just take a picture with your phone and search results will be returned. The new search was recently featured on CNBC's "Inside the Mind of Google." Unfortunately Goggles didn't pass muster with a recent focus group, so it could be a while before Google decides this is ready to hit the streets.

Science Daily is reporting that researchers from Yale have discovered "very large RNA structures within previously unstudied bacteria that appear crucial to basic biological functions such as helping viruses infect cells or allowing genes to 'jump' to different parts of the chromosome." Ronald Breaker, professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale, stated that this would be equivalent to protein scientists finding a whole new class of enzymes. "The Breaker laboratory has used the explosion of DNA sequence information and new computer programs to discover six of the top twelve largest bacterial RNAs just in the last several years. One of the newly discovered RNAs, called GOLLD, is the third largest and most complex RNA discovered to date, and appears to be used by viruses that infect bacteria. Another large RNA revealed in the study, called HEARO, has a genetic structure that suggests it is part of a type of 'jumping gene' that can move to new locations in the bacterial chromosome."

Tarinth writes "Google just announced its new Google DNS platform. Many have viewed this as a move to increase ad revenue, or maybe capture more data. This article explores those questions, as well as the actual benchmarking results for Google DNS — showing that it is faster than many, but not nearly as fast as many others." We also recently discussed security implications of the Google Public DNS.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to Ambassador Ron Kirk, the head of US Trade Representatives, the secrecy around the ACTA copyright treaty is necessary because without that secrecy, people would be 'walking away from the table.' If you don't remember, that treaty is the one where leaks indicate that it may contain all sorts of provisions for online copyright enforcement, like a global DMCA with takedown and anti-circumvention restrictions, three-strikes laws to terminate offending internet connections, and copyright cops. FOIA requests for the treaty text have been rebuffed over alleged 'national security' concerns. One can only hope that what he has said is true and that sites like Wikileaks will help tear down the veil of secrecy behind which they're negotiating our future."

An anonymous reader writes "According to Sophos, Facebook users are getting sloppier with their personal info, not better. Revisiting a 2007 survey in which a plastic frog got 87 hits out of 200 friend requests, this time a rubber duck and a cat got 87 out of 200 friend requests, plus a bonus 8 friends who decided to trust them anyway. The research also suggests that older Facebook users are sloppier than the young, being keener to build their list of friends. (The older users had more than 4x the friends each, on average, than the young.)"

An anonymous reader writes "Some hackers out there don't like to do all the hard work of running a successful phishing campaign. Instead, they developed a simple online service to 'steal' account details from the hard-working phishers. Named AutoWhaler, the service allows anyone to scan a phishing server for log files that contain juicy information such as usernames and passwords."

An anonymous reader points out this report that a Canadian Supreme Court has broadened its interpretation of an existing law designed to punish adults who attempt to meet children online for criminal purposes; under the court's interpretation, says the article, that would now "include anyone having an inappropriate conversation with a child — even if the chats aren't sexual in nature and the accused never intended to meet the alleged victim." The story quotes Mark Hecht, of the organization Beyond Borders, thus: "If you're an adult and if you're having conversations with a child on the Internet, be warned because even if your conversations aren't sexual and even if your conversations are not for the purpose of meeting a child and committing an offence against a child, what you're doing is potentially a crime."

harrymcc writes "Barnes & Noble's Nook — the most significant e-reader since Amazon's original Kindle — hits B&N's retail stores today. I've published an extensive review of the device, which is also the first e-reader to run Google's Android OS: It's an interesting and capable gadget in many ways, but the interface — which is sluggish and somewhat quirky — isn't polished enough to render it a Kindle killer."

Says the New York Times: "With the curious resurgence of vinyl, a parallel revival has emerged: The turntable, once thought to have taken up obsolescence with eight-track tape players, has been reborn."

Sharky2009 writes "VMware is developing virtualisation for smartphones which can run any two OSes — Windows Mobile, Android or Linux — at once. The idea is to have your work applications and home applications all running insider their own VMs and running at the same time so you can access any app any time. VMware says: 'We don't think dual booting will be good enough — we'll allow you to run both profiles at the same time and be able to switch between them by clicking a button,' he said. 'You'll be able to get and make calls in either profile – work or home – as they will both be live at any given point in time.'" Also mentioned in February of this year, but now the company's announced a target of 2012 for mass production.

zaxl writes "Palm is being sued by Artifex Software over the PDF viewer in Palm's Pre smartphone, which may violate the GNU GPL. Artifex alleges that Palm has copied Artifex's PDF rendering engine, called muPDF, and integrated it into the Palm Pre's PDF viewer application without the proper licensing conditions. The entire application must be licensed under the GPL if muPDF is part of the application. It seems more and more cell phones are shipping with open source code, but in a closed manner."

RiffRafff writes "Iran is at it again, pre-emptively slowing or cutting Internet access before anticipated student protests." From the article: "Seeking to deny the protesters a chance to reassert their voice, authorities slowed Internet connections to a crawl in the capital, Tehran. For some periods on Sunday, Web access was completely shut down — a tactic that was also used before last month's demonstration. The government has not publicly acknowledged it is behind the outages, but Iran's Internet service providers say the problem is not on their end and is not a technical glitch."

theodp writes "In investigating the question of whether men are smarter than women, British researcher Adrian Furnham came up with some startling results. His analysis of some 30 studies showed that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ, but women underestimate their own intelligence while men overestimate theirs. Surprisingly, both men and women perceived men being smarter across generations — both sexes believe that their fathers are smarter than their mothers and their grandfathers are more intelligent than their grandmothers. And if there are children, both men and women think their sons are brighter than their daughters."

kai_hiwatari writes "The recently released KDE SC 4.4 Beta 1 has introduced tabbed windows as a new feature. It is now possible to tab together windows from different applications. This looks like it will be a very good productivity tool. Like the tabbed browsers, this may well end up as a feature in all desktop environments in the years ahead."