Week in review (pictures)

More photos of what appears to be Apple's next iPhone, or at least a lower-cost version of it, have cropped up. Sonny Dickson, who is a frequent leaker of all things Apple hardware, has posted a rather large gallery of the rear case of a white, plastic iPhone.

After months of leaked details, loads of speculation, and plenty of waiting, the Moto X has been unveiled. And the new smartphone will be on all four wireless carriers later this month, for $200 with a two-year contract.

President Barack Obama met with a number of tech figures Thursday to discuss the future of technology and its role in surveillance. Among others, Apple CEO Tim Cook, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, and Google computer scientist Vint Cerf were reportedly present at the closed-door gathering.

An encrypted e-mail service reportedly used by Edward Snowden is shutting down, presumably in response to an investigation of the NSA whistle-blower's use of the service.

Ladar Levison, the owner of Lavabit, announced the move Thursday in a note posted to the service's home page. Though Levison's cryptic note didn't mention Snowden by name, he did say he's "been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly 10 years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit."

Microsoft had to write down $900 million on its Surface RT last month, but it's not giving up. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told CNET that his company is "working really hard" on the second-generation Surface with hopes it will be more successful than its predecessor. No official word out of Microsoft about its plans.

MixBit debuted as a free app for iOS users this week. An Android version is due out by the end of September. Why is this app different from any other apps? Maybe because the backers include Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the same folks who were behind YouTube before selling the service to Google.

Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon.com, is buying The Washington Post for $250 million. The purchaser is an entity that belongs to Bezos and is not Amazon.com

The Korean phone maker launches its latest flagship smartphone with hopes that the gadget's impressive specs can stand up to the best from Apple and Samsung. Perhaps the most noticeable difference from other devices is the location of the volume and power buttons. The three buttons were placed on the back of the phone rather than their typical location on the side of the device.

In the lead-up to the debut of the biopic "Jobs," Ashton Kutcher talked with CNET about the future of mobile apps, wearable technology, and what the next Steve Jobs may look like. Read our Q&A here.

IBM scientists unveiled an all-new computing architecture that's based on the human brain. IBM Research said its new software ecosystem was built to program silicon chips whose architecture is directly inspired by the brain's size, function, and minimal use of power. The company hopes its breakthrough may support a next generation of applications that could mirror what the brain can achieve in perception, cognition, and action.

As a blackout of CBS channels for Time Warner Cable subscribers in New York continued, the two sides blamed each other's stance on the digital-content terms for a lack of progress in the negotiations.