It's time to tap into the juiciest tech conversations for Monday:
Microsoft has not given a straight answer about whether its Skype service can facilitate law enforcement wiretapping of conversations. Previously, the online chat service was so heavily encrypted that the company went on the record about not being able to participate with wiretapping.
But Skype just made a change to its technology, and some say the changes make it possible to intercept a call. But when asked, Microsoft didn't admit if wiretapping was possible. It told Slate that Skype "co-operates with law enforcement agencies as much as legally and technically possible."
Wiretapping has been a hot topic recently. As more conversations head online to social media or services like Skype, police have no way to listen into these calls. The FBI has been pushing for online services to build backdoors for government surveillance. And that's why there's the hunch that this change at Skype could be a step to help the FBI.
When the Olympics kick off on Friday, you'll be hit with global games goodness from every side of social media. And Twitter of course is no exception. As part of a deal with NBC, Twitter will have one page that pulls in all the millions of tweets sent by athletes, fans and NBC reporters over the course of 17 days. The Wall Street Journal says big-name brands have purchased ads for the Twitter page. (Hey, would ya look at that! Twitter's making money!)
The news aggregator Digg, which was just bought by Betaworks, will be getting a new look with a relaunch on August 1.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 is the hot phone of the summer, and Samsung is reporting that so far it sold 10 million units.
Samsung has a surpriseannouncement for August 15, but a good guess is that it's the debut of the stylus-friendly tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. We first saw the 10-inch tablet screen at Mobile World Congress. It's the cousin of everyone's favorite phablet, the Galaxy Note.
But as for the hot tablet of the month, the 16GB version of Google's Nexus 7 is out of stock in the Google Play store and listed as coming soon.
Looking ahead, it's a safe bet to expect that Apple's next operating system, called Mountain Lion, will be released to the public this week. So Mac users, before you pounce on this upgrade to version 10.8, don't forget that you'll first need to have the previous version installed, Snow Leopard. It's also a good time to do some hard drive housekeeping and backup your system. You can find all the details on upgrading in this how-to guide.
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