Paul Carton / ChangeWave HotWire Blog:
Apple Ups The Ante With 3G iPhone  —  But RIM’s almost ready to counter  —  It’s been just over a year since the iPhone was released, and Apple (AAPL) is upping the ante in the smart phone wars.  —  We’re talking about the release of the new 3G version […]

Chris Ziegler / Engadget Mobile:
Leaked Sprint roadmap reveals slew of releases through September?  —  Though the document doesn’t exactly look magazine-quality, this is a case where we’d argue that it doesn’t have to be to be real; it’s clearly for internal use only, for one thing, and secondly, we don’t know where else … […]

Mary Jane Irwin / Forbes:
IPhone Apps Likely To Launch Thursday  —  Apple may launch its iPhone App Store Thursday, according to three people who have been briefed on the matter.  —  The online store will open at noon Eastern time, Thursday, to coincide with when the iPhone goes on sale in New Zealand, according […]

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Who Needs Music Labels?  Last.fm Starts Paying Royalties To Unsigned Artists  —  Music-streaming service Last.fm is now paying unsigned artists royalties for every song played on its service.  Since the company announced the program last January, 170,000 artists and small music labels have signed up for it and uploaded 450,000 tracks.

Steve / The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs:
I’m sailing away  —  My goodness I am so high it’s not funny.  Apologies for all the confusion lately and much love to the many folks who have written in asking, Dude, what the hell is going on with the blog?  There’s no big scandal or anything.  […]

Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft to deliver SQL Server 2008 in August  —  The long wait for SQL Server 2008 is nearly over.  —  At its Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston on July 9, Bob Kelly, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Infrastructure Server Marketing, told attendees that SQL Server 2008 will be […]

Joelle Tessler / Associated Press:
Microsoft, Google back broad privacy legislation  —  WASHINGTON - Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. told lawmakers Wednesday that Congress should pass basic privacy legislation to protect information about consumers, such as the data being gathered about people’s Web surfing habits in order to pinpoint Internet advertising.

Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple’s next-gen MacBook Pro casing design revealed  —  Photos that reveal the industrial design of Apple Inc.’s next-generation MacBook Pro notebooks have been making the rounds on the Internet since late last week, AppleInsider has learned.  —  People familiar with the ongoing development …

Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
First Look: OpenMoko’s Linux-based open smartphone platform  —  Penguin calls  —  Last Friday, OpenMoko launched its highly anticipated FreeRunner smartphone, a Linux-based handset that’s completely open in both hardware and software, and is designed to encourage third-party modification and customization.

Amit Singhal / The Official Google Blog:
Introduction to Google Ranking  —  In May, Udi Manber introduced our search quality group, the group responsible for the ranking of search results.  He introduced various teams within “Quality” (as we like to call the group) including Core Ranking, International Search, User Interfaces, Evaluation, Webspam, and other teams.