The bearded will rise up against the beardless

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Nathaniel Beard, of the world’s premier beard-faced band The Beards, has hit back at Victorian top cop Ken Lay who wants to ban beards and ponytails. Mr Lay is facing an investigation into whether his campaign to defoliate the entire police force is a breach of human rights.

Get ’em beard-faced Aussie.

Leaky LinkedIn

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Lex Friedman:

Two stories about potential user data leakage at the networking company trickled out late Tuesday and early Wednesday. One suggested that the LinkedIn iOS app may leak personal data from your calendar to the LinkedIn website; the second report indicates that a Russian hacker may have posted 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords on the Web.

I guess a little bit of security is too much to ask for.

46% of users would buy a data-only smartphone plan

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Now the CEO feels that regardless of what AT&T (cough… Stephenson) wants, the company might have to start offering data-only smartphone plans in the distant future to compete with other cellular providers in coming years.

The grip of big telcos is loosening.

Airtime a novelty

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During Airtime’s launch event, Parker and Fanning said they wanted to recapture the excitement and energy of the popular AOL chat rooms of the 1990s – which strikes me as a dubious goal at best – but still provide some safety for users.

R.I.P. Zune

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There was nary a mention of Zune, an existing Microsoft music and movie service, at the E3 event where Xbox Music was announced. But afterward, a Microsoft spokeswoman, Melissa Stewart, confirmed that the Zune brand is going away so Microsoft can use the better-known Xbox brand for its entertainment services, including its online video service.

Xbox is one Microsoft product that I do like.

The Deck June

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Two slots just opened up for the balance of June on our advertising network, The Deck. We’ll do a nice price for an advertiser who can pull the trigger quick.

This is the ad network used by The Loop.

Google acquires Quickoffice

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Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device. Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we’ll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite.

CDSweep benefiting the Autism Science Foundation

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Donating your old discs to CDSweep will help advance cutting-edge scientific research into the causes and treatment of autism and provide the fast-growing number of affected individuals with the gift of hope. You can even request that your CDs be digitized and sent back to you as MP3s for free.

Dragon ID voice login

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Nuance isn’t yet saying anything specific about iOS integration for Dragon ID — “We aren’t providing details yet, but we’re in discussions with several of the top OEMs,” was the word via the company’s PR rep.

As Mike said voice login isn’t new, but this could be interesting.

Matches: Euro 2012 for iPhone

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Stay up-to-date on the Euro Cup 2012 matches, with goals, team rankings, player stats and more on your iPhone.

Bought it.

UI vs UX

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Dain Miller takes a look at the differences and misconceptions of UI and UX.

Oracle sues patent troll Lodsys

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Oracle has filed a legal complaint against Lodsys — the company that’s taken aim at app makers on Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, and other technology platforms for infringing on its patents — with the hopes of invalidating them.

Go Oracle!

Apple dominates tablets, everyone else fizzles

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Apple continued to lead the market with nearly 65% of worldwide units and surpassed 67 million cumulative shipments in its first eight quarters of availability. iPad can’t claim the highest mobile broadband (3G/4G) attach rate for media tablets, though Apple retains its title of shipping the most 3G-enabled tablets by outpacing the number two competitor by a factor of eight.

The battle is for second place.

Android growth slows

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The concern has to be that rather than seeing the net adds growing–as they have for two years with only two contiguous months of decline–Android net adds have been falling for four months.

iOS held steady and that’s just with the iPhone. Imagine the growth if they included the iPad.

Meechu for iPhone [Sponsor]

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Headed to WWDC next week? Leave your business cards at home for shimming tables. Take Meechu with you on your iPhone and connect to all the cool people you meet quickly and easily. When you meet someone, open Meechu and … Continued

Beardatheon

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The latest comic from Nitrozac and Snaggy at The Joy of Tech.

Absence note from President Obama

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Ryan’s son Tyler missed school to see his dad introduce the president, so Obama wrote him what just may be the best absence note ever collected by a 5th grader. Try punishing the kid for truancy now.

Magnetic iPhone mounting system

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This looks kind of cool. It’s on kickstarter with only four hours left and they currently $400 to meet the goal for the project.

Facebook iOS 6 integration

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My guess is that Apple will keep things simple with at least the initial Facebook/iOS integration. Beyond authentication, there will probably be a Facebook button in the existing share screen which will allow you to share something to your Facebook Wall.

Sounds like the Apple way to do it.

The shapes of CSS

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Now this is amazing stuff. Look at all of the shapes that can be done with CSS.

iStorage 2

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I’d like to thank iStorage for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.

The ultimate file manager for iOS. Connect, browse and edit your files in the cloud.