The dog days of summer have arrived. June 21st marked the first official day of summer, when the Earth’s semi-axis in the Northern Hemisphere reached its maximum incline tilt of 23° 26′ towards the sun – the Summer Solstice. With the basketball season over now, the only thing to keep us sports fans occupied is baseball, beer, and barbecues – but hey, I’m not complaining about that. So take a break from counting down the minutes until your weekend starts and let’s reflect on what’s happened over the last month in the tech world.

The Downfall of Research in Motion

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! The former king of the smartphone industry, RIM, is dying at a rapid rate… and employees and stockholders alike are making it known to the world. Yesterday, a high-level RIM employee sent an anonymous open letter to the RIM Senior Management Team that ripped the company apart. RIM, on the defensive, responded by issuing its own statement to the public concerning the letter. In the end though, Research in Motion is freefalling and investors are clamoring for a top-down restructuring of the company, but really, can anyone save BlackBerry?

The Future of Apple

OS X Lion is nearing a public launch for July, after Apple “seeded the golden master version of OS X Lion to developers” earlier today. “OS X Lion brings many innovations from iOS including home screens (called Launchpad in Lion), autosaving, full screen application interfaces, and auto resume in apps. This is in addition to native support for the Mac App Store, Mission Control, an all new email client, built-in FaceTime, and interface and feature  improvements through out the operating system. Lion also includes AirDrop file sharing, multi-user remote computer access, and Find my Mac (through iCloud).” – Source: 9to5Mac

Apple has done significantly well this quarter, and it is estimated that users of the iOS platform alone generates roughly $150 of revenue a year per account (not including the cost of the actual iOS device). The iPhone, however, has a ton of competition these days and the biggest threat may be the Samsung Galaxy S II – the follow-up to one of the most popular Android phones, the Galaxy S.

“LulzSec” Hackers: Attacking the Internet

After hacking the CIA, PBS, and numerous other web sites, it looks like LulzSec’s run of terror has finally come to an end. The group announced on multiple web sites that it would be disbanding on Monday, but did not provide any particular reason for the decision. For 50 days LulzSec hacked and terrorized corporations and governments for the sake of humor, and hopefully this is the last we hear of their exploits.

Photo by DrCrawford via DeviantArt

Apparently no one is safe from the wrath of LulzSecurity, the notorious rogue hacker group who claimed the recent high-profile attacks on Sony Pictures Website and Nintendo’s servers. Now, their targets are set on the U.S. Government after hacking into the Senate’s website and even going as far as taking down the CIA’s site, which was restored shortly afterward.

The group is apparently motivated by hacktivist culture and fueled by the amount of amusement – or “lulz” – that they can generate by causing mayhem on the internet. To bring down the Central Intelligence Agency’s website on Wednesday, LulzSecurity used a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack which uses computers to flood the targeted site with so much traffic that it causes it to go offline. It is suggested that LulzSec probably did not steal any sensitive information from the breach on the government websites and while this is reassuring, it doesn’t bode well for those who were among one of the 26,000 e-mail addresses and passwords that the group recently leaked.

Mashable mentions, “One thing separates LulzSec from many other similar groups, however: Its members are actively communicating with users, and they love the attention. And with a high-profile site being attacked almost daily in the past several weeks, we’re sure we’ll hear more about LulzSec in future.” LulzSec is active on the social media site Twitter and has even created a telephone hotline service which invites users to request potential targets for the group to attack in the future.

Although LulzSec may be amusing themselves for the time being, the CIA has surely taken notice of the group and will likely be the ones having the last laugh.

Photo by Stan Schroeder via Mashable