The U.S. government on Monday announced new rules that make it officially legal for iPhone owners to “jailbreak” their device and run unauthorized third-party applications. In addition, it is now acceptable to unlock any cell phone for use on multiple carriers.

According to The Associated Press, the government approved a handful of new exemptions to a federal law that prevents the circumvention of technical measure that prevent users from accessing and modifying copyrighted works. The report noted that every three years, the Library of Congress’ Copyright Office authorizes exemptions to ensure existing law does not prevent non-infringing use of copyrighted material.

In addition, another exemption was approved that would allow all cell phone users to unlock their device for use on an unapproved carrier. Currently, Apple’s iPhone is available exclusively through AT&T, but unlocking it can allow for voice calls and EDGE data speeds on rival carrier T-Mobile.

Other exemptions announced Monday allow people to break protections on video games to investigate or correct security flaws; allow college professors, film students and documentary filmmakers to break copy protection measures on DVDs to embed clips for educational purposes, criticism, commentary and noncommercial videos; and allow computer owners to bypass the need for external security devices (dongles) if the hardware no longer works and cannot be replaced.

Ask.com, the Internet search engine owned by IAC/InterActive Corp, is seeking some human help answering web surfers’ questions.

The company has begun testing a new service that lets users of its search engine submit questions to other Ask.com visitors, tapping into the powerful social networking trends that are increasingly gaining popularity on the Web.

The new service represents a striking shift for the company, which like most Internet search engines has long sought to distinguish itself based on the brawn of its computer algorithms.

But with only 3.6 percent share of the U.S. search market in June according to analytics firm comScore, Ask.com is looking for ways to differentiate itself from rivals Google Inc, Yahoo Inc and Microsoft Corp.

From ZDNET:

“Companies with a high page rank are in a strong position to move into new markets. By “pointing” to this new information from their existing sites they can pass on some of their existing search engine aura, guaranteeing them more prominence.

This helps companies such as AOL and Yahoo as they move into the low-cost content business, says Mr Bonnie. “They can use their Google page rank to make sure their content floats to the top,” he says.

Google’s Mr Singhal calls this the problem of “brand recognition”: where companies whose standing is based on their success in one area use this to “venture out into another class of information which they may not be as rich at”. Google uses human raters to assess the quality of individual sites in order to counter this effect, he adds.”

It looks like an iPad, only it’s 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.

The tablet can be used for functions like word processing, web browsing and video-conferencing. It has a solar power option too - important for India’s energy-starved hinterlands - though that add-on costs extra.

Consumer Reports tested three iPhone 4s and several other AT&T phones in their RF isolation chamber that simulates varying levels of signal from every carrier, and found that the iPhone 4 was the only handset to suffer signal-loss issues.

What’s more, CR directly says that its findings call Apple’s explanation of a miscalculated signal meter into question since the tests “indicate that AT&T’s network might not be the primary suspect.” CR found that simply putting duct tape over the bottom-left corner is enough to alleviate the issue — we’re guessing that’s Jony Ive’s worst nightmare — and says that while the iPhone 4 has the “sharpest display and best video camera” of any phone it’s tested, it simply can’t recommend the device until Apple comes up with a permanent and free fix to the antenna problem.

Thanks to Japanese based JFE Engineering, you can now add half-charging your EV to the list, courtesy of its ultra-fast charge station.

Designed to comply with the CHAdeMo standard developed by Tokyo Electric Power Company, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Toyota, the system is capable of charging a 2011 Mistubishi i-Miev from empty to 50% full in just three minutes.

Even just three minutes plugged into the fast-charge station was enough to enable a standard 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev to travel a further 50 miles before further charging was required.

Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. said Thursday it is introducing a new version of its higher-end Kindle at a lower price as competition among electronic-book readers intensifies.

The new version of its Kindle DX has a better screen that will display sharper images.

The large-screen reader, which Amazon hoped would catch on as a textbook substitute at universities, has free wireless over 3G cellular networks. It will be sold for $379, about 23 percent less than the $489 Amazon charged for the previous generation of the larger Kindle DX.

Amazon also said it improved the way the Kindle DX handles PDF documents, potentially solving a major complaint among students who tested out the Kindle in a pilot program over the past academic year. The original Kindle DX didn’t allow people to zoom in closer on PDFs, leaving graphics and small print difficult to decipher.

The new device can be pre-ordered immediately and will ship on July 7.

Could a blind person drive a car? Researchers are trying to make that far-fetched notion a reality.

The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech plan to demonstrate a prototype vehicle next year equipped with technology that helps a blind person drive a car independently.

The technology, called “nonvisual interfaces,” uses sensors to let a blind driver maneuver a car based on information transmitted to him about his surroundings: whether another car or object is nearby, in front of him or in a neighboring lane.

More doctors are sounding the alarm over the new full-body scanners becoming popular in airports.

Several doctors are expressing concerns that full-body scanners may indeed deliver a low level of energy as advertised — reportedly this is why they’re “safe” compared to X-ray machines — but they worry that all the energy becomes dangerously concentrated on and directly beneath the skin, particularly at the face and neck, delivering much more radiation to the traveler than previously thought.

The upshot: You may not get lung cancer from the machines, but your risk of skin cancer — particularly basal-cell carcinoma — could be significantly higher. In children, the impact may likely be even worse.

Columbia University’s David Brenner says that this effect of concentrating energy on the skin means that the level of radiation delivered is actually 20 times higher than official estimates.

Online video site Hulu, under pressure from its media company parents to generate a bigger profit, launched a subscription service Tuesday with complete access to back episodes of popular television shows.

For $9.99 a month, subscribers can get the entire current season of “Glee,” “The Office,” “House” and other shows from broadcasters ABC, Fox and NBC, as well as all the past seasons of several series. The popular, ad-supported website will continue to have a few recent episodes for free online.

In a surprise move, however, paying subscribers will get the same number of ads as users of the free website.

Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar said keeping ads was necessary to help keep the subscription price low.

The security of Android apps was called into question by a report issued on Tuesday by SMobile Systems, an Ohio-based mobile security company.

The survey of over 48,000 apps in the Android Market notes that “one in every five applications request permissions to access private or sensitive information that an attacker could use for malicious purposes.”

It further states that one in twenty Android apps have the potential to place unauthorized calls. “One out of every twenty applications has the ability to place a call to any number without interaction or authority from the user,” the report says.

Google says the report has problems. “This report falsely suggests that Android users don’t have control over which apps access their data,” a company spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. “Not only must each Android app gets users’ permission to access sensitive information, but developers must also go through billing background checks to confirm their real identities, and we will disable any apps that are found to be malicious.”

Hewlett-Packard plans to use Yahoo’s advertising network in a pilot program that will deliver targeted advertisements for content printed with its latest line of Web-connected printers.

HP launched a line of Web-connected printers last week that allow users to print content directly from the Web or send content from their mobile phone to a remote printer using an e-mail address specific to that printer.

HP also launched a program called “scheduled delivery,” where a user can regularly schedule printing, for example, portions of a daily newspaper every day at 7 a.m.