Many signs have long pointed to a 3G iPhone launch next month, and the speculation grew even louder over the weekend as Apple stopped selling the current 8GB and 16GB models from its online store.

The iPhone becoming "Currently Unavailable" from Apple followed UK wireless carrier O2 posting a message saying that it was temporarily no longer offering the device either. However, O2 later put back on sale the 16GB iPhone without further explanation.

The FBI recently discovered it had been duped into buying about 3,500 parts that were not genuine Cisco products.

Among the fake parts purchased were routers, switches, interface converters, and WAN cards. There was some concern initially that these parts could pose a potential security risk, allowing hackers access to sensitive data.

Eye-Fi, the company behind the Wi-Fi SD card that debuted early this year has branched out its offering with added features.

Now, instead of offering only a single 802.11g-equipped memory card, two new models have been added, and all three cards fit into categories depending on their functionality: Home, Share and Explore.

While Google and Microsoft are pressing the FCC to give further consideration to "white space" networking devices that transmit in unused portions of the TV spectrum, a microphone company -- no less -- is trying to tip the balance.

Huge players like Google, Microsoft, Motorola, Sprint, and the National Association of Broadcasters are hardly the only ones interested in the FCC's ongoing white space deliberations. Shure Inc., a maker of wireless microphones, has just filed an alternative proposal arguing against a "beacon plan" backed by Google and Motorola.

Obsolescence comes in many forms, one being the natural kind, the other planned. Then there's the suddenly, unexpectedly enforced kind, which is rarer but which reared its ugly head today with one of Google's more innovative, but old, ideas.

Of the dozens of Google experiments over the years, some in "beta" and some in "release" form, not all survive to adolescence. One that is due to expire next week is Hello, an interesting take on person-to-person photo sharing that, on its face, sounded like a good idea.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday that he still sees Microsoft as a potent competitor, even though its concerted and often acrimonious campaign to buy Yahoo now looks like it will pass into history.

"Microsoft has been a significant competitor with Google for a very long time," Schmidt declared, in a talk with reporters just before Google's annual meeting in the Silicon Valley.

When a query is entered on Yahoo's Glue Pages, search results -- whether text, image, or video -- all turn up on an organized single page. It's an idea that's turning heads, and it's showing up first on Yahoo's Indian domain.

Currently, topics related to health and medicine, sports and entertainment, travel, technology, and finance yield results on these Glue Pages, which entered beta earlier this week.

A patent filed in 2006 and published this week indicates that Apple is developing a game controller that would allow for control much like Nintendo's popular console.

The controller will be able to detect which way it is being turned on the first and second orthogonal axes -- in other words, left and right, and up and down respectively -- and the position in the third orthogonal axis -- which is "in" and "out" from the screen.

Retailer Circuit City has secured Goldman Sachs to advise it on its future moves and confirmed it had received information on how a buyout by Blockbuster would be financed.

Circuit City said it will consider all proposals, although it stressed it had not come to a decision on any single alternative. Furthermore, the company will no longer comment on any future moves until the board approves a particular plan.

The company responsible for the .mobi mobile phone Internet domain, dotMobi, has bought out a mobile browsing company that was on the verge of death just one month ago. DotMobi will immediately integrate Mowser's directory, search, and listings into the find.mobi service.

"The original strategy around Mowser was pretty simple: provide a service which helps Web sites go mobile, helps mobile sites connect to the regular Web, and helps users access the Web from any handset," said Russell Beattie, a Mowser founder. By adapting every Web site on the planet, theoretically Mowser has an unlimited amount of content to serve up; and though none of that content is directly monetizable, the plan was to capture enough ancillary traffic to make it worthwhile."

A bipartisan bill was introduced in the US House of Representatives Wednesday aimed at forcing stores to card minors attempting to purchase video games rated "Adults Only" or "Mature." It's not the first time such legislation has been tried.

"Too many children are spending too much time playing inappropriate video games that most parents would find shocking and objectionable," reads a statement from the bill's principal sponsor, Rep. Lee Terry (R - Neb.), on behalf of co-sponsor Rep. Jim Matheson (D - Utah). "As a parent, I know that I'm the first line of defense against my kids playing Mature-rated video games. But parents can't be everywhere monitoring everything and some reasonable, common sense rules ought to be in place to back parents up."

AT&T "officially" posted information about free Wi-Fi hotspot access for its iPhone customers on Thursday, and summarily removed it.

In February, Starbucks and Barnes and Noble stores dispatched the six-year partnership with T-Mobile for Wi-Fi hotspots in favor of AT&T. In addition to the free access given to AT&T broadband subscribers, iPhone users were reportedly going to be granted the ability to use the AT&T-provided hotspots for free.

At Nokia's annual meeting yesterday, CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo vowed to change the business model of the world's leading mobile phone maker, to make it, in his words, "more like an Internet company."

"Our goal is to act less like a traditional manufacturer, and more like an Internet company," Kallasvuo told Nokia shareholders yesterday. "Companies such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft are not our traditional competitors, but they are major forces that must be reckoned with. Make no mistake. We are taking on these challenges seriously and aggressively."

It's been almost one year since social music network Last.fm was acquired by CBS, and the site has opened "Last.fm/presents," offering original video content from prominent artists.

Last.fm says this is its first attempt at providing original content altogether, and Last.fm/presents has launched with exclusive interviews with Moby, Santogold, Spoon, and Joshua Radin. A following series of "high profile musicians" is being prepared for online broadcast.

A Microsoft executive has thrown cold water on hopes that the company would try again with Yahoo, and sources indicate the company has released its proxy slate of would-be Yahoo directors.

During a tour of company executives in Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday, Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie told Reuters that Microsoft considers its efforts to acquire Yahoo over, and that the company had moved on to what he termed as "Plan B."