India Issues Ultimatum To RIM: Open Up By August 31 Or Else

The ongoing drama concerning government access to secure Blackberry communications is coming to a head in India, where RIM was given a final compliance date today. If a satisfactory agreement is not reached between the smartphone company and the Indian government, the latter will shut down the former’s email and messenger communications altogether, resulting in Blackberry users being reduced to internet and voice access.
RIM, predictably, has said it will not make any special deals, although if (as-yet unconfirmed) reports are true, that’s just what they did in Saudi Arabia. I don’t envy RIM, but this is one of the known risks of being a multinational corporation.

Sprint Epic 4G launching August 31st

Earlier this month we reported that my favourite of the Galaxy S variants — Sprint’s Epic 4G — would see a release… yesterday. Clearly, this didn’t happen. So, when can we expect the QWERTY infused beast?

Gizmodo report today that we can reserve the phone from August 13th, for an August 31st release date.
And you know what else they told me? The price: expect to fork out $350 for the privilege, with a $100 MIR bringing it down to a still-rather-hefty $250.
So, given this new information, are you still keen? If I lived in the US, you know I would be. S-AMOLED QWERTY phone? Try and keep me away!

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Video: Slim n sexy Android-powered Dell Thunder

Dell have produced two Android-powered handsets to date: the uninspiring Aero and the enjoyably large Streak. Neither of the phones, however, have had true mainstream appeal. It seems the third time, as they say, is a charm, as the Thunder is a sexy piece of kit. We first saw the Thunder back in April, when it leaked alongside two other sexy-lookin’ handsets. At the time, we were unsure of the authenticity of the leak, but now it appears that it was at least 33% real… and 100% gorgeous.

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Apple releases iOS 4.0.2, patches PDF vulnerabilities (and sends jailbreakers back to the drawing board)

When the genius minds of the iPhone hacking community discovered that just about every iPhone around was vulnerable to a PDF rendering bug that allowed for one-click jailbreaking, the geek world celebrated — until someone pointed out that this was really, really scary. Deep running system controls, accessible via a browser exploit? As our Spanish-speaking friends around the world would say: No bueno.
Fortunately, Apple didn’t just kick back and hope nothing bad would happen.

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U.S. Cellular launching the HTC Desire on August 27th

Being the sixth largest carrier in the U.S. is no small feat — and once you’re there, you’ve gotta make sure to roll with the times to keep your customers for defecting. U.S. Cellular seems to realize that Android is all the rage right now, and has been embracing it well: they’ve got the Samsung Acclaim (exclusively, even!) already, plans to launch a Galaxy S variant in October, and, according to their people, “two LG Android-powered phones following closely behind”.

But wait, there’s more! On August 27th, U.S. Cellular will be launching the HTC Desire to the hungry hands of their 6.2 million customers

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RIM Reportedly Bows To Pressure From Saudi Arabia, Hands Over Blackberry Access

Even when you’re one of the largest mobile companies in the world (and certainly the largest for the business elite), things change when you find yourself at odds with a sovereign nation. Or a few. That’s the situation RIM is in right now as they attempt to reconcile their longtime promise to users (uncompromising encryption and security) with the unforgiving world of global politics. As you’re likely aware if you’re reading this post, RIM has been the center of government ire in a few countries (most prominently the UAE, India, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia), which have threatened to ban Blackberry devices if RIM doesn’t provide them reasonable access to users’ data.

RIM’s response was a stolid “relax,” but the public response appears to be different from the internal one, if reports from inside the company are true. What the Saudi Government has praised as “positive developments” are reportedly concessions by RIM giving that government unprecedented access to certain RIM resources, giving it the power to eavesdrop on any Saudi Blackberry user.

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How Is 3D TV Doing? Some Data From Japan

Think what you want about 3D TV, but it’s here already, and we’ve just seen the beginning. But are people actually buying the devices, as a few dozen models are now available in the US, Japan and other places? The Nikkei, Japan’s biggest business daily, recently investigated the 3D TV market in Nippon. What they found out could be of interest for the US and European markets as well.

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WePay Raises $7.5 Million For Hassle-Free Group Payments Platform

WePay, a Y Combinator backed startup that aims to take the hassle out of group paying, has raised $7.5 million in Series B funding led by Highland Capital Partners with existing investor August Capital participating in the round. The startup previously raised funding last December from an all-star roster of angel investors including Max Levchin, Ron Conway, Dave McClure, and Steve Chen.

As we wrote in our initial coverage of the payments platform, WePay is an easy way to collect, manage and spend money for groups. WePay’s platform based around a prepaid debit card system, which makes its accounts easy to set up as well as more flexible when it comes to setting up group paying.

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This Is How I Read TechCrunch: Without Comments

As regular readers are undoubtedly aware, I have a sort of love/hate relationship with our commenters. Well, okay, it’s more hate/hate. I find it amusing, but I realize not everyone does. Some people say they avoid our stories just so they don’t feel the need to take a shower after reading our comment section. I have good news for those people: there’s an extension for that.

Remove TechCrunch Comments is a Google Chrome extension made by user hrparmar. He actually made it back in January, but we’re just seeing it now. And it’s awesome.

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Microsoft Sends Us Crayons, Fails To Tell Us IE9 Beta Launches Sept 15

Today, as I walked into TechCrunch headquarters after this morning’s Google Android event, I was approached by a sweaty man who had clearly just ridden his bicycle across town. He’d come to deliver a large, white box that had only a single marking: a tiny Internet Explorer sticker. “This will probably be mediocre,” I said to myself. “Goofy” would have been a more accurate prediction. Inside, I found a handful of confetti along with an array of crayons, colored pencils, and paints that would put some pre-schools to shame. There was also a single, not-so-mysterious note with the text www.beautyoftheweb.com. Given my extensive sleuthing skills it did not take me long to attempt to plug the domain into my browser, only to repeatedly meet a “401 – Unauthorized” error that said I had invalid credentials. My attention waned and I went off to play with my new crayons.

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And Of Course, Here’s The Twitter Movie Trailer

First there was the Facebook movie trailer. Then, there was the YouTube movie trailer. Obviously, it was only a matter of time before we got the Twitter movie trailer. And now here it is.
And it’s good.
As you might expect, the Twitter movie trailer created by Next New Network’s Barely Digital group, explores the founding of everyones’ favorite 140-character social network. It opens with tweets such as “My hair is sad today”, “My computer is being a fart butt right now” and “Just left my wife and kids. W00T!” Then we get into the backstory. “I need to create a way to blog that is as random and incoherent as writing on a bathroom wall.”

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The Motorola Droid 2 Gets Released And Ripped Apart In The Same Day

The Droid 2 hit VZW stores earlier today, but yet the mad scientists over at iFixit already got their hands on one and tore it apart in the name of gadget pr0n. The process didn’t revel any terribly surprising although while the battery is rated at the same 1390 mAh, even though Motorola is claiming twice the battery life. That’s neat. Click through to iFixit for the rest of the gory pictures.

Axon Logic Hackintosh Tablet May Just Out-iPad The iPad

Back in April we heard word of an affordable hackintosh tablet called the Axon Haptic. We were skeptical, since all we had was an anonymous tip and a render — something any 3D concept artist could have cooked up in an hour or two. But now we know that the Axon Haptic is real, you’ll be able to pre-order it this week, and yes, it runs OS X.
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QuakeCon: Carmack Has Rage Running At 60 Frames Per Second On The iPhone. Whoa.

Am I QuakeCon this year? No, of course not because that would have actually been fun. But I do know this: John Carmack just announced that he’s got the Rage engine running on an iPhone. At 60 frames per second, no less. Ridiculous, yes.

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Cyber-Cute Overload: Quadrocopter Drone Has Its Own Little Home

Oh no! I’ve been wrong all this time! The Robocalypse won’t be a sudden proliferation of hunter-killers and corpse-eating tanks — it’s going to be a Cutezkrieg! Japan will be, I am afraid, the first to fall. They are already a slave to the kawaii.
This little bugger is called the Scandicraft, and it lives in that mailbox until there is a perimeter breach, at which point it emerges and flies around, looking for the intruders and transmitting a live video screen. Irresistible (and terrifying).