After discovering that BBM and their Twittery playthings fed straight into the hands of the cops, smartphone-toting revolutionaries have taken up a new type of instant messaging – Vibe.

According to the New York papers, Vibe is now the instant messaging app of choice for the protesters at Manhattan's #OccupyWallStreet.

"It's anonymous too, so not only are you able to send out relevant information to a small radius, but it also disappears, there's no record of it, so no one can come after the person who sent it."

10 public-interest groups have asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate Facebook’s various business practices. This demand comes right after two similar ones this week: two US congressmen asked the FTC to investigate how Facebook’s cookies behave, and Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner has agreed to conduct a privacy audit of Facebook.

They are also concerned about its “frictionless sharing” feature that is available on the newly launched Ticker and the upcoming Timeline and Open Graph rollout announced at f8 last week.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops had gained ground after defectors pulled out of the town, in restive Homs province.

Analysts have expressed concern that the revolt in Syria, which began peacefully six months ago, is evolving into an armed conflict.

On Friday, the draft of a UN Security Council resolution against the violence in Syria was watered down, with a reference to sanctions being removed in order to appease Russia.

European nations instead called for "targeted measures" in the text, which Russia and China have threatened to veto.

With Illinois planning to appeal the Michael Allison case, in which the state wants to put Allison in jail for 75 years because he recorded an interaction with the police, it's worth pointing out that this is not the only such case in Illinois. A few people have sent over this ABC report about another guy, Louis Frobe, who was arrested and told he was facing 15 years in jail for daring to turn on his Flip cam during a traffic stop.

In this case, prosecutors eventually dropped the charges, but Frobe turned around and sued them for the arrest in the first place. The Illinois Attorney General -- who still insists there's no First Amendment right to record the police -- has said Frobe's case should be dismissed since he has no standing.

As of Wednesday, Chrome's global average user share for September was 23.6%, while Firefox's stood at 26.8%. IE, meanwhile, was at 41.7%.

The climb of Chrome during 2011 has been astonishing: It has gained eight percentage point since January 2011, representing a 50% increase.

During that same period, Firefox has dropped almost four percentage points, a decline of about 13%, while IE has also fallen four points, a 9% dip.

TDF and LibreOffice were originally founded in response to the long-standing governance problems that have historically afflicted OOo. Under Sun's leadership, bureaucratic barriers and concerns about the project's copyright assignment policy impeded participation in OOo development. Friction between Sun, independent community members, and other corporate contributors created an unhealthy environment for collaboration. The problems only worsened after Oracle's acquisition of Sun.

In April, after seeing OOo abandoned by many users and contributors, Oracle gave up the fight and made a token effort to spin off OOo as a community project. In a somewhat petty move, Oracle decided to hand off OOo to the Apache Software Foundation rather than TDF—preventing OOo from being reunited with its former community.

Witnesses, including our own photographer, tell us that the NYPD has been specifically targeting photographers and videographers for arrest. Two protestors who were maintaining the live video feed of the protests were arrested on Saturday, the first claiming that she was detained solely because she was holding a camera.

"I was standing off to the side so I could document what was going on—you couldn't really see much from within the group," Ross says, "And he kept saying, 'You either join them or I'll arrest you.' I wasn't blocking traffic or harming anything, it was obvious it was because I was holding a camera."

Samsung wants to charge Apple 2.4 percent of its chip price for every patent, according to Andreas Udo de Haes, an editor at Dutch publication Webwereld.

Haes also tweeted that Apple called Samsung's demands "simply excessive."

Apple has sued various Android partners as it looks to maintain its leadership in the smartphone business. Android has since overtaken Apple in total market share, but the iPhone remains the top-selling single smartphone and continues to be the leader among high-end handsets.

The remains are thought to be those of inmates who were killed by security forces in 1996 in the Abu Salim prison.

The NTC said it had discovered the site - a desert field scattered with bone fragments within the grounds of the Abu Salim prison - by questioning prison guards who had worked there when the prisoners were killed after protesting against their conditions.

A few eyewitnesses have talked about the fact they were killed in their jail cells by grenades and sustained gunfire after a protest.

Where are the ARM powered desktops? I finally see some desktop models however they are relegated to "developer" models with USD200+ price tags (trimslice, etc). Raspberry Pi seems to be the only thing that will be priced correctly, have the right amount of features, and may actually be released.

Are ARM powered desktops destined to join the mythical smartbook?