Animal:

The Department of Homeland Security monitors updates on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to uncover “Items Of Interest” (IOI), according to an internal DHS document released by the EPIC. That document happens to include a list of the baseline terms for which the DHS–or more specifically, a DHS subcontractor hired to monitor social networks–use to generate real-time IOI reports.

So – don’t use those words.

New York Times:

Developers of applications for Apple’s mobile devices, and Apple itself, came under scrutiny this month after reports that some apps were taking people’s address book information without their knowledge.As it turns out, address books are not the only things up for grabs. Photos are also vulnerable. After a user allows an application on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to have access to location information, the app can copy the user’s entire photo library, without any further notification or warning, according to app developers.

AllThingsD:

Twitter is expanding its ad program to iPhone and Android handsets, as the company gets more aggressive about ramping up revenue. Twitter has already been showing some limited advertising on its mobile apps.Just like the Promoted Tweets that Twitter shows on its primary Twitter.com site, these ads will show up in users’ “timelines.” At first Twitter will only allow advertisers to place the ads in front of users who already following their accounts. But within months it will expand the program to allow marketers to reach people who don’t follow them — just as it does on the Web.

Matthew Panzarino for The Next Web:

Earlier this morning, mobile phone carrier Sprint released its 10-K filing with the SEC for the fiscal year ending in December. In the filing, it revealed that it had made a commitment with Apple to purchase a minimum number of iPhones from Apple amounting to $15.5B in outlay.

Panzarino cites Horace Dediu of Asymco’s back-of-the-envelope average revenue per user (ARPU) projections to come up with a total of 23.8 million iPhones. That’s quite a commitment from Sprint, which just started carrying the iPhone last year.

Alice Chan for psfk:

Luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz unveiled plans to integrate Apple’s Siri into its A-Class electronics system that would allow drivers access to their iPhone apps using voice commands.

The Drive Kit Plus electronics package will enable iPhone users to interact with Siri and their phones using the built-in “system screen,” according to the report.

Tom Davenport and Charles Arthur for The Guardian:

Apple is working on a new audio file format that will offer “adaptive streaming” to provide high- or low-quality files to users of its iCloud service.The new format could mean that users can get “high-definition” audio by downloading to an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Alternatively, it could offer a streaming service – like that of Lala.com, the music streaming and online storage company, which Apple acquired late in 2009.

The report indicates that the service will adjust sound quality depending on bandwidth and available space on the target device. Apple for its part refuses to comment on rumor, of course.

Thumbtack is a menu bar utility that provides quick and easy access to the most recently saved bookmarks in your Pinboard account. It was developed around one core feature allowing it be polished, reliable, and extremely efficient.

Dave Caolo talking about Gizmodo’s Mountain Lion review:

Complaining that an early pre-release meant for developers is unfinished. I stopped reading right there.

I agree.

I wondered about this when I saw the stories this morning. Ben Brooks gets to the bottom of it.

In many work environments, cashiers are given worksheets where denominations are counted, recorded, totaled, then submitted. Deposit was created with this in mind. With Deposit, each denomination is recorded separately, the total is calculated in real-time, and printed cash reports are only a few touches away.

It can also print the total and send an email to your manager.

Fred Dutton for EuroGamer.net:

A proposed bill to impose a one per cent tax on violent video games in the US state of Oklahoma has failed to become to law.

The bill would have created a one percent tax on violent video games, with the proceeds used to “fight childhood obesity and bullying.” It died in a subcommittee hearing when lawmakers failed to establish any directly causal relationship between such games and childhood issues like obesity and bullying.

Andrew Beaujon for Poynter:

Krystal Myers’ editorial for the Lenoir City High School student newspaper about how atheists like her don’t have the same rights as Christians met a somewhat ironic fate: It was not published. School officials feared “the potential for disruption in the school.”

Minimalism has always been one of the things I admired most whether it’s about interior design, people, fashion or web design. When you are looking for information let’s say on the Internet, you might get really annoyed because of the flow of commercials or different colorful and intricate designer stuff that get in your way while browsing a website in order to find what’s most important – content. “Less is more” – that’s what should be on a web designer’s mind when inventing something new to post on the Internet.

Adam Satariano and Peter Burrows for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s rivals aren’t rushing to emulate the iPhone maker’s decision to subject supplier factories to audits by a labor group. Instead, they’re sticking to internal checks that may leave room for violations — and negative public relations fallout.

Where’s the outrage from citizen’s groups and environmental groups?

Cool idea. If you only want to work in a Mac environment or at least think it’s a good idea to single those places out, you can.

Florian Mueller:

Apple scored a breakthrough court victory today against Motorola. Its important can hardly be overstated. This is so huge that it even begs the question of whether Google’s strategy for its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility has failed before the deal is even formally closed (they’re still waiting for some regulatory approvals).

That’s protection.

I don’t even know what to say.

Adobe:

Photoshop Touch app lets you quickly combine images, apply professional effects, share the results with friends and family through social networking sites like Facebook, and more — all from the convenience of your tablet.

A first review is available at MacStories.

Buzzfeed:

It’s 2012. And it seems like something much, much worse than what the Mayans predicted is coming—and much sooner than you’d think. These are the twenty places you definitely want to see before it’s all over on March 6, 2012.

I’ve been to three of these and would like to get to at least three more. Won’t make it before March 6th though.

Pocket-Lint:

Running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the smartphone will come with a 5-megapixel autofocus rear camera and VGA front camera. No details as yet as to what the processor, memory or storage capacity will be.

Oh come on, you can’t be serious. Now companies can’t even come up with their own names?

Tim Bajarin:

Yes, the iPad is a real concern for the PC vendors as Apple has a huge lead in tablets and strong demand. But if Apple starts eating into their laptop market share, this will have the greatest impact on these PC vendors in the future and make it even harder for them to make strong profits on this part of their laptop business.

Tim brings up a good point. You could argue that Wintel vendors are scared of everything Apple does because they don’t understand how to compete with them. The iPad is a perfect example of that. However, it must scare the hell out of them when Apple starts eating their lunch in the laptop market.

Apple is attacking the PC vendors from both sides — one with the iPad and the other with the MacBook Air.

BGR:

In summation it’s a Galaxy Tab 10.1 with Ice Cream Sandwich and a slightly modified case.

Did anyone really expect Samsung to introduce an HD tablet? Of course not, they have to wait until Apple introduces theirs so they know what to copy.

John Gruber takes on John Battelle’s defense of Google and its practice to track users through cookies, even if they don’t want to be tracked.

There are many websites where the typography speaks for the site itself. Here typography becomes the chief element of a web or graphic design project.

Interesting examples of how different type affects the look and feel of a site.