Blackberry has certainly had its share of problems. From global Blackberry outages to Yahoo making Blackberry not an option at Yahoo, to CEO Thorsten Heins rather ridiculously predicting the death of tablets, the Blackberry has certainly seen better days.

AT&T has updated their polices to allow them to collect and sell data from your phones (this most especially applies to smartphones such as the iPhone and Android phones). This includes your location, and what ‘groups’ you may belong to based on geolocation. Here is how to mostly opt out from AT&T collecting and selling your data.

We’re all familiar with the movies and stories about jurors who skirt or even violate rules in the name of “real justice” (one of our favorites is the little-known movie Suspect, with Liam Neeson, Dennis Quaid, John Mahoney (best known as Frasier’s dad), and Cher). But it’s become a serious problem as the confluence of Google, social media, and smartphones in the pocket of every juror has led to a phenomenon known as the “Googling juror”, or “digital disobedience”. Put simply, jurors are taking matters into their own hands, doing extra-curricular (and extra-legal) research, and also sharing information on social media, which is throwing trials, and even causing mistrials.

A New York court has ruled that Manhattan residents can legally use the e-Hail “hail a cab” app to which the private car-for-hire and livery industry had objected. One of the apps, called the “New York Taxi Cab Riders – NYC Taxi Free” app, from Mphony, is the companion app to the “NY Taxi Cab for Drivers and Service Providers – NYC Taxi for Drivers” app, which New York City taxi cab drivers can run on their iPhones or iPads, and which shows where fares wanting to hail a cab are located. However, recently NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission Commissioner David Yassky said that Uber would be the service that would participate in a year-long pilot program.

Like many high school students, Ryan Orbuch and Michael Hansen had a problem, managing everything from mid-terms, to a simple homework deadline. But unlike your average high school student, these two did something about it, they created task management app “Finish,” (available for the iPhone, but not yet Android).

If you’re an Apple iPhone 5 or any other type of iOS6 user who missed a few appointments or an important notice today, you’re not alone. It seems that with the roll over of the new year, those who used the “Do Not Disturb” feature on iOS 6 found that it won’t turn off, causing their phone to be stuck on “Do Not Disturb” mode through New Years Day, and so not sending them notifications as usual.

Sprint and ATT have provided their official responses to Senator Al Franken’s inquiry about Carrier IQ, (also known as CIQ) the commercial customer tracking software included on the sly on their customers’ cell phones, and their response is, essentially, “our customers agreed to it.” ATT admits that they have CIQ installed on “900,000 devices, with 575,000 of those collecting and reporting wireless and service performance information to ATT.” They also admit that they were capturing the content of SMS text messages sent and received while a voice call was in progress. This they blame on a “programming error”, and that may be, but it illustrates the capabilities and danger of Carrier IQ. But one of the biggest bombshells may be that through Carrier IQ, they can – and do – remotely turn on your wifi! Think about that for a minute.

Cell phone companies are scrambling amid growing concerns over the Carrier IQ (or “CIQ”) software that has shipped preinstalled (and undisclosed) on many, many smartphones across several carriers, as demands for full disclosure and accountability increase, Federal representatives demand answers, and some suggest that the use of the software, which is alleged to log keystrokes, websites visited, and location, violates Federal wiretapping law. Trevor Eckhart, who first discovered and outed what Carrier IQ was doing, went so far as to call it a “rootkit”.

Blackberry users around the world found that their Blackberrys were simply not working as they should. Both messaging and web-browsing were impacted, leaving many users high and dry in a day when millions depend on their Blackberries for business use. Europe, Africa, and the Middle East were hit with the Blackberry outage at the beginning of the week, with the U.S. joining the misery mid-week.

Three researchers in Germany at the University of Ulm have discovered a massive security hole in Android – so big, in fact, that it affects at least 97%, and as many as 99%, of all Android users. The researchers, Bastian Könings, Jens Nickels, and Florian Schaub, have discovered that the security flaw allows anyone who is sniffing around your connection on an unsecured wireless network to acquire your Google authorization credentials from a specific token (the authToken), giving them access to your contacts, your calendar and, well – really any application that authenticates you by using your Google authorization credentials contained within that authToken.

If you are a conscientious parent who wants to let their child use an iPod Touch (or “iTouch”) or iPad, but who wants the iPod Touch wifi disabled before you give it to them, you may be frustrated at the lack of any way to disable wifi so as to lock down the iPad or iPod Touch internet access. You can’t password protect the internet access on an iPod Touch or iPad, as there are no passwords for iPod iTouch wifi. In fact, natively, there is no way to disable or password protect the iPod Touch internet access (how stupid, Apple, get on the ball here! Give us some iPod Touch wifi apps to disable wifi!) Oh sure, you can put parental control restrictions on individual applications (Safari, Email), but your child can still turn the iPod Touch wireless internet on, and for some parents, that’s still too much of a risk (and we say “Bravo!” to them for ‘getting’ it). There is, however, an iPod Touch hack that will allow you to disable wifi on your iPod Touch or iPad, by password protecting the iPod Touch wifi on/off switch, and here it is.

As you travel over the holidays, ask yourself “What does what I put in my luggage, and how I pack it, say about me?” Is there more baggage in your baggage than you may realize? Just in time for the holiday travel season, listen to our interview with Dr. Williams, which covers everything from the psychology of luggage packing to tips for travel, as well as includes a behind-the-scenes look at baggage handling.

Chelsea Sexton is one of the most passionate and knowledgeable advocates for electric cars anywhere. The star of “Who Killed the Electric Car”, Sexton has been involved in the trenches, and possesses a depth of knowledge about electric vehicles, and the issues surrounding them, that is unparalleled in the industry.

One of the perks of getting the iPad 3G is that, in addition to the 3G, says AT and T and Apple, “you’ll have access to over 20,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, including Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, and more.” In other words, you can connect your 3G iPad, via wifi, to more than 20,000 AT and T wifi hotspots (usually named “attwifi”), at no additional charge. But how do you connect at these 20,000+ AT&T hotspots at no additional charge? How do you connect to a Starbucks AT&T wifi hotspot, for example, with your iPad 3G?

What is the truth about cell phones and radiation? While many will tell you that the jury is out – and others will tell you that there is no (conclusive) evidence – many feel that cellphone use presents a health risk in electromagnetic (ionizing) radiation, particularly for children. The reality is that short term studies have found no correlation between cell phone radiation and health problems such as cancer, however the other reality is that there are no long term studies (say, of greater than 10 years) yet, as it is only relatively recently that cellphones have been so commonplace. Of course, the cell phone industry says there is no risk – but that’s what the tobacco industry said too. Now the state of Maine is contemplating requiring cell phones to carry a warning label.