Top Tech

AP - Electronics retailer Best Buy Co. said Thursday it is offering store credit in exchange for used video games at nearly 600 of its stores, expanding an online trade-in program that has been in place for about a year.

PC World - Rumors swirled once again this week regarding a possible takeover of Red Hat, this time by SAP, but a number of industry observers said Thursday that the prospect is unlikely at best.

Ben Patterson - Got a Samsung Blu-ray deck that suddenly won’t play Universal and Warner Brothers movies such as "The Hangover," "The Book of Eli," "The Incredible Hulk" or "Clash of the Titans"? Well, you’re not alone. Samsung says a fix is in the works, but it won’t arrive until next month.

AP - Sony Music says it has obtained a court order barring a state legislative candidate in northeastern Brazil from using a Michael Jackson song in his campaign.

Appolicious - Bloggers and social networkers will be pleased with the latest and greatest from the Android Market. StumbleUpon has launched an Android app, along with Trillian, while Tweetdeck continues to test its beta app. Here are the week's top Android apps.

Reuters - Apple Inc is expected to show off a snazzier line of iPods on September 1, as speculation mounts the consumer electronics giant may also unveil plans to reinvigorate its long-neglected TV project.

AP - Google Inc. is adding a free e-mail feature that may persuade more people to cut the cords on their landline phones.

PC World - It's 1 a.m., and everyone in the house is asleep. The television is off. The computers are off. Your cell phones and MP3 players are plugged in but no longer charging. And all these products are still sucking electricity.

Macworld.com - You just can’t keep a good army of Terminators down. Apple may have had an ulterior motive in the deal it struck with the Liquidmetal folks; HTC has struck back at Apple’s patent infringement suits; and the EFF thinks Steve Jobs is a cackling, diabolical mastermind. The bad kind. If you can stomach that, you can handle the remainders for Wednesday, August 25, 2010.

AP - An Indiana man created a Facebook page in the name of an ex-girlfriend he raped in Ohio, then used it to stalk a more recent ex in Pennsylvania and threaten to distribute a secretly filmed video of them having sex if she didn't return to him, police said.

The Upshot - Here's our daily roster of stories that evaded full-on blog treatment: • Police are investigating whether vandalism at a California mosque was a hate crime. A brick was thrown through the window and three signs were left behind on Friday, with one of them reading "No Temple for the God of terrorism at Ground Zero." [...]

Investor's Business Daily - Apple (NMS:AAPL) didn't disclose the information about the event, but a guitar featured in press invitations raised expectations that the company will unveil revamped iPod digital media players. Some believe Apple will launch an iPod Touch with sharper screen and front- and rear-facing cameras. A revamped TV device may also be in the works.

AP - Apple Inc.'s iTunes store may have revolutionized the music business, but its recent push to let people rent TV shows for 99 cents won't amount to a game changer for how people watch TV.

Ben Patterson - Get ready to lay your eyes on Apple’s latest and greatest — including, perhaps, a new iPod Touch and a $99 Apple TV — next week, with Apple sending out guitar-decorated invites (hint, hint) for a September 1 "special event."

AFP - IBM on Wednesday reported that the number of discovered cracks that hackers could exploit in computer software surged in the first half of the year.

Ben Patterson - Forty bucks a month for unlimited 3G data that you can share over Wi-Fi via the MiFi wireless hotspot? Where do I sign up — and how long before other carriers follow suit?

AP - A foreign spy agency pulled off the most serious breach of Pentagon computer networks ever by inserting a flash drive into a U.S. military laptop, a top defense official said Wednesday.

AP - Lately I've been feeling very self-conscious when talking on the phone in public, and it's not because I'm worried about strangers listening in on my private conversations.

PC World - Gmail users have been reporting in droves that the Google webmail service is resending messages to their recipients, turning these users into accidental spammers who are unintentionally annoying friends, acquaintances and business contacts.

Mashable - Foursquare players too busy painting the town red to go to the trouble of whipping out their iPhone and checking in can sit back and let Checkmate do the work for them.