Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
Who’s Afraid of Chrome?  Flock 2 Released With Even More Bells And Whistles  —  Design philosophies could hardly be further apart.  Google’s ironically named Chrome browser, which launched last month, advanced the notion that browsers ought to be neither seen nor heard.

Mozilla Developer News:
Firefox 3.1 beta 1 now available for download  —  Please note: Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is a public preview release intended for developer testing and community feedback.  It includes many new features as well as improvements to performance, web compatibility, and speed.

Madison Park / CNN:
Study: Google does a brain good  —  (CNN) — Can Google make you smarter?  Is the more you Yahoo, the better?  A new study suggests that searching online could be beneficial for the brain.  —  A study at the University of California, Los Angeles, measured brain activity of older adults as […]

Jacqui Cheng / Infinite Loop:
Answers about the new buttonless MacBook trackpad  —  We have spent some time messing around with the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros, and the number one question we’re getting so far is, “How in the world do you use the buttonless trackpad?”  —  Let me just say first that if […]

Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Ex-Google, Yahoo, Facebook employees snub recession, launch Hadoop startup  —  Recession be damned, a group of top Silicon Valley engineers have come together to launch an interesting startup called Cloudera.  Not yet launched, it intends to help other companies adopt a promising software platform called Hadoop.

Between the Lines:
Apple’s new MacBook line: Affordable enough?  —  Apple on Tuesday moved to address a weakened consumer and its statement on a its refreshed MacBook lineup is telling.  Since when does a premium brand like Apple worry about price and making its notebooks “far more affordable?”

AndroidGuys:
Motorola Recruiting for “Android Social Networking SmartPhone” Project  —  An innocuous posting on Coroflot might be indication of Motorola’s plans for implementing Android into their hardware lineup.  One of our readers sent us a link to a job posting for the Interaction Design Team at Motorola.

Darren Murph / Engadget:
Apple finally refreshes Cinema Display: 24-inch, LED backlit, $899  —  Another rumor to tick off the list, Apple just announced the 24-inch Cinema Display.  LED-backlit, check; Mini DisplayPort, check; $899 list price, check; MagSafe adapter, check.  In fact, it has a tri-pronged cable that also includes USB .

Ben Jones / TorrentFreak:
Bush Signs Draconian Anti-Piracy Law  —  Over in California, champagne corks are popping.  In the offices of the MPAA and RIAA, lawyers turned lobbyists are dancing jigs.  In houses all around the US however, people are left dumbfounded by the passage of a bill based on appeasement to big money … […]

John Mahoney / Gizmodo:
Next-Generation MacBook Ditches the Plastic, Becomes MacBook Pro Mini  —  Joining the MacBook Pro, Apple’s MacBooks, their best-selling mac ever, also received a complete hardware re-tooling today, with rejuvenated hardware packed inside a brand-new aluminum case, thus putting one of the final stakes …