Tuesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Apple unveils faster iPhone with new features -SFGate

Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies, said Apple is migrating the iPhone even more toward becoming a true mobile computer, in the process distancing itself from rivals who are having trouble keeping up.

Tech cos enlist Democrat to blast Obama tax plan -Reuters

The Technology CEO Council recruited Robert J. Shapiro, a former top Commerce Department official, who wrote a report released on Monday arguing that significant jobs losses could occur under Obama's plan.

Two Views of Sun Micro’s Future in its Proxy -WSJ

Where Sun executives once talked up their advantages over rivals, the proxy lays out a series of disadvantages the company faced in remaining independent. For example, Sun’s revenue base is more dependent on a smaller number of larger customers than its competitors, many of them in the hard hit financial services sector, according to the filing.

Most firms unaware of Web domain changes: survey -Reuters

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees domain names, is expected to start taking applications for new top-level domains early next year, said Future Laboratory, which conducted the research.

Minn. regulators drop bid to block online gambling -AP

"Broadly, it's a victory for Internet rights because what you had was a government administrative branch deeming a list of sites to be a blacklist that should be censored," said Joe Brennan Jr., the industry group's chairman. "It was preventing Minnesota residents from freely accessing the sites."

‘Franken-Products’ Abound at Taiwan Computer Show -NYTimes

This year’s show signified the computer industry’s move far beyond traditional desktop and laptop PCs into more exotic devices. If dancing girls and loud music at an exhibitor’s booth helped attract attention to these strange new computers — or explain them — all the better.

NYC Waterfalls: How Real-Time Cellphone Data Can Impact Local Economies -NYTimes

Not only did the waterfall vantage points gain in popularity, but other points of interest on the waterfront in the vicinity also improved - e.g. Main Street Park, Brooklyn Bridge and South Street Market.

Movie studios launch Epix, 720p streaming service for films -ars technica

Epix would love to avoid streaming HD content across the public Internet wherever possible. One way to make that happen, which the company is currently pursuing, is to install caching servers directly in the data centers of ISPs with whom Epix has a relationship.

TI Raises Profit, Sales Targets -WSJ

The general manager of TI's mobile communications and computing business unit, Seshu Madhavapeddy, last week said the technology sector is bottoming out and companies are seeing a better performance in the second quarter compared with the first quarter.

AT&T’s New Network May Not Help Your Old iPhone -GigaOM

When I specifically asked if this meant the device could reach HSPA 7.2 speeds, however, I was not given an answer. I asked the question again today and was again pointed to the aforementioned link on the web site.

Software designed to make older drivers sharper -SFGate

Fernandez has just co-authored a consumer guide to brain fitness, and SharpBrains challenges claims made on public broadcasting that some of Posit's software can rejuvenate brains by 10 years. Posit CEO Steven Aldrich said the claims are backed by scientific research.

Snow Leopard: An Even Better Leopard -NYTimes

OpenCL is another new technology meant to better harness the raw hardware power that is already in your Mac. Today’s video cards or graphics processing units (GPUs) are capable of performing calculations for 3D graphics and modeling at an amazing pace. OpenCL is an attempt to let developers harness that power for use in other applications beyond drawing thousands of polygons on screen with fancy textures.