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Apps such as InstantMeeting, Expensify and yes, Siri are taking mundane tasks that top managers might have hired an assistant to handle and makes delegating them affordable for all. This is a welcome break for time-strapped workers called on to do more.

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't tried my hand at making music with various iPad apps. I'd also be lying if I said any of that music sounded even halfway decent. Imagine someone getting into a fist-fight with a duck. Add some reverb and a terrible bass track. It generally sounds like that. That's clearly a limitation of my own musical abilities, though, as dudes like the one in this video are managing to make entire songs with nothin' but the iPad, a handful of apps, and their own golden pipes.

For Christmas this year, I was finally able to shed the cash to pick up an Xbox 360 along with a Kinect. While I do enjoy playing the games, what I’m most enthralled by is using the Kinect when watching TV. People keep talking about a forthcoming Apple TV, and I welcome it with open arms, but right now Microsoft has the right tool to shake up the market.

Welcome to Minority Report in real life as police are being increasingly federalized by Homeland Security and taken deeper into the intelligence apparatus to hunt homegrown terrorists. Some police are armed with cutting edge crime detection tools. In New Jersey, cops can shine a red pre-crime spotlight to mark people up to a block away before they might commit a crime. The NYPD are testing a gun-scanning technology called Terahertz Imaging Detection. You could secretly be scanned to see if you are packing heat and not even know it.

Welcome, kids, to TIL – Today I Learned. Today’s TIL is “Don’t post your correspondence with AppleCare representatives or Apple will totally tell the government on you.� David Boles had a nice Apple monitor that died on him. He had a little trouble transferring AppleCare coverage to his new monitor after it pooped out and posted some advice on his blog. Nothing major, just “don’t forget to connect your AppleCare accounts.� Very innocuous.

As a Member of the European Parliament, I very much welcome the increased attention the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has received in the past weeks. It has taken a while for massive outcry to emerge, but we are seeing protest voices getting louder and louder.

Internet service providers BT and TalkTalk have lost their appeal against the UK’s Digital Economy Act. The ISPs had argued that the legislation was incompatible with EU law, but this morning the Court of Appeal decided otherwise and dismissed their appeal. While the decision was welcomed by copyright holders, Internet account holders now face warnings, disconnections and speed throttling.

Starting this week, a revised and simpler Newsbar began rolling out to all users. It may look familiar to those who have had a chance to test it over the past few weeks & thank you for those that have already shared their feedback.

Where the Swedish home-furnishings behemoth once placed a couch in a living room, they now want to place you and 6,000 neighbours into a neglected corner of your city, design an entire urban world around you, and Ikea-ize your lives. An 11-hectare project in East London is the leading the way.