Your Monday Tech News Round Up!

by Sophie Russell · November 21, 2011

    Noah Wyle and George Clooney compete to be the next Steve Jobs; Tumblr fights Congress over the phone; Mozilla wants a piece of the smart phone universe and Dr Dre has revolutionized the world of headphones. All this and more in today's tech news round up!

    1. Noah Wyle and George Clooney are in competition to play Steve Jobs in the film adaptation of his biography. Both actors have been tipped for the title role in the adaption but Wyle seems more popular with the public, having played the role before on the TV show, Pirates of Silicon Valley. [CNN]

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    2. Tumblr fights SOPA by placing 87,834 calls to Congress. The micro-blogging site asked users to sign up to receive phone calls with talking points against the Stop Online Piracy Act; the company went on to connect users to Congress representatives. [CNET]

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    3. Mozilla will release a version of Firefox for Android on Tuesday. It is a move by Mozilla to move themselves into the huge smart phone market and Android is the only way in which they can gain market access. The software will be faster, hold more memory and be more responsive then current systems. [CNET]

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    4. eBay has acquired New York company Hunch.com for approximately $80 million. Hunch, a site that allows you to share your tastes and connect with others who share similar tastes, will aid eBay in restructuring their own system of recommendations. [NY Times]

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    5. Bill Gates has called for more money to be spent on energy research. Gates stated that federal funding need to increase from the $5 billion it is currently at, to $16 billion. [CNET]

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    6. Dr Dre has transformed the headphone industry. The headphone range, Beats By Dre have annual sales totaling $500 million and have revolutionized the headphone industry. Despite a recession, people are eagerly spending $300 on a pair of beats that are fashionably iconic in their own right. [NY Times]

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    7. LinkedIn's stock price has decreased dramatically as insider's have dumped stock. The company that debuted to share prices tripling last May have suffered from the end of a 'lockup' period meaning initial investors are free to get rid of their shares should they choose to. [CNN]

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    8. Hackers have destroyed a water pump that supplies thousands of homes across Illinois. They apparently crashed the system after turning the pump on and off in quick succession. It's a new area of interest for hackers who seem to have showed no interest in public infrastructure until recent years. [BBC]

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