The exception to the DMCA that allows jailbreaking and rooting is about to expire.

The act of jailbreaking or rooting smartphones may once again become illegal, as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) exemption set in place back in July 2010 by the Copyright Office is set to expire soon.

According to the exemption, jailbreaking an iOS device or rooting an Android device is perfectly legal as long as it doesn't circumvent copyright. Apple, a public advocate which strives to keep a closed, secure platform, wasn't keen on the ruling, and even indicated that jailbreaking would still void any official Apple warranty. Like Apple, some device manufacturers still claim that jailbreaking violates Section 1201 of the DMCA, which carries stiff penalties.

So what does that mean for consumers if the exemption runs out? "Modifying a device to run independent software – known as jailbreaking – is important to programmers, enthusiasts, and users," the Electronic Frontier Foundation states.

Tom's Hardware has the details HERE!

The Firefox web browser is in a constant state of development as the team at Mozilla continue its rapid pace of releasing new versions of the program. Firefox 10 will be the next major version and a beta has already been released. Now ExtremeTech.com reports that an upcoming version of the browser, Firefox 12,  will be adding some new features, including some much requested ones that have appeared in other web browsers such as Google's Chrome.

One of them is a new tab page that will show a three-by-three grid of a user's most visited web sites. Users will also be able to rearrange the grid as well as hide or pin a particular web site on that page.

Yet another new feature is the Firefox home tab. The article states that it will be released in two different phases. In phase one, the Firefox home page will contain launcher buttons on the bottom for various web browser features like bookmarks, downloads, settings and more. The second phase will change the Firefox home page even more with showing recent web sites, one-click access to a user's favorite apps and more.

Read the full story HERE!

I had an epiphany this morning that frankly has taken me by surprise. I realize I am fully 90 percent post-PC, without making a special effort to get there. A lot has been said about the “post-PC” era and what exactly that means. For me, it means that I now can do at least 90 percent of my work and play on a mobile OS-running device. The Windows PC/Mac has largely been kicked to the curb. I have been using mobile devices to do a bigger part of my work for a while. This didn’t start out as a concerted effort on my part to make do, it just happened as I grabbed the mobile device first and found it to be more enjoyable to get stuff done. The more I used a “non-computer” for working, the more I realized that not only was I able to do so, in many ways it was better than sitting at the old PC chugging away.

ZDnet has the rest of the Editorial HERE!

Amid the debate surrounding controversial anti-piracy legislation such as SOPA and PIPA, our public discourse on piracy tends to focus on the present or the near future. When jobs and revenues are potentially at stake, we become understandably concerned about who is (or isn’t) harmed by piracy today.

I’m here to offer a different perspective, at least when it comes to software piracy. While the unauthorized duplication of software no doubt causes some financial losses in the short term, the picture looks a bit different if you take a step back. When viewed in a historical context, the benefits of software piracy far outweigh its short-term costs. If you care about the history of technology, in fact, you should be thankful that people copy software without permission.

It may seem counterintuitive, but piracy has actually saved more software than it has destroyed. Already, pirates have spared tens of thousands of programs from extinction, proving themselves the unintentional stewards of our digital culture.

Read the full Editorial HERE!

Excel puts lots of great tools on your desktop, but what each one of them does isn't always obvious, especially since so many Excel features are hidden.

Would you like to create multiple lines of text within a cell? There's a keystroke for that. What if you want to reuse a chart's formatting on another chart, or print multiple worksheets on a single sheet of paper? Those aren't the only timesaving tools at your fingertips. Here's how to find and use them to work smarter in Excel.

1. Make New Text Lines in a Cell

As you've probably already discovered, when you’re typing text into a cell and you want to start a new line of text, the Enter key doesn't produce the desired result. Pressing Enter merely places the text in the current cell and then selects the next cell.

Instead, to start a new line in Microsoft Excel, as you're typing text, press Alt-Enter. On the Mac, the key combination is Control-Option-Return.

Read the full story HERE!

When Apple set up its customer service plan for the iPhone, it seems to have had the best intentions of humanity in mind -- any phone under warranty can get serviced because it's the phone that's tied to the warranty, not the owner.

So you don't have to show up in person at an Apple store to get your phone fixed, which allows the common scenario of the boss sending his or her assistant to get repairs. Similarly, someone who bought their phone from someone else can get a repair without a hassle.

This approach thrills many Apple owners, who have boasted on message boards of how generous some stores have been in replacing broken iPhones. But that same approach has apparently rewarded a lot of thieves. The ease of trading in stolen iPhones and selling their replacements makes them nearly as tempting as grabbing cash.

Reuters has the article HERE!

Apple billed this summer's release of Mac OS X Lion as having more than 200 new features, but most coverage of Lion in the intervening months has focused on only a handful of them. While iOS-like navigation and app-launching interfaces, autosave/restore capabilities, AirDrop file sharing and an emergency restore partition are by all means important, there are a lot of helpful tweaks and enhancements that can easily be missed.

After spending several months really getting to know Lion, I've uncovered a plethora of little-talked-about functions that are well worth knowing about. Here are more than 15 new and useful features in Lion for you to explore.

Computerworld has the article HERE!

If you thought that Windows 8 would improve the personalization features of Windows 7, then you are only half-right. While the operating system certainly offers its fair share of customizations, it has now been confirmed that Windows 8′s new Metro start screen will not offer as many customization options as users may have hoped for.

Instead of allowing users to pick the color scheme or background image they want, selection is limited to eight different styles currently. While it is fairly certain that we will see custom hacks to overcome the limitation, it is likely that many users will be disappointed by the lack of options.

Windows 8 director of communications Chris Flores mentioned in a Tech Radar interview that users would not want photographs as the background, as the photo would not stretch or scale with the start screen, and that it would be covered up mostly as well so that it would be barely visible.

Windows8news has the article HERE!

While dropped Wi-Fi links can be frustrating, what can be even more aggravating is the process of trying to reconnect a PC or mobile device to a network after the signal is lost or when the host machine is resuming from standby. To reduce some of that pain, Microsoft says it's building technologies into Windows 8 that will get users onto a Wi-Fi network in as little as one second.

By contrast, it takes Windows 7 about 12 seconds on average to get users back online, according to Microsoft.

Windows 8 can "reconnect you faster to your preferred Wi-Fi networks by optimizing operations in the networking stack, and providing your network list, connection information, and hints to your Wi-Fi adapter," said Billy Anders, a group program manager on Microsoft's devices and networking team, in a blog post.

Informationweek has the article HERE!