The Electronic Frontier Foundation has revealed that both Apple and Dropbox have joined the Digital Due Process coalition — a group whose mission is to pressure Congress into updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

It’s been a long-standing rumor that Apple will introduce Nuance speech-to-text capabilities in the public release of iOS 5. Apple partnered with the vocal technology giant known as Nuance months ago, and the two have supposedly been meeting behind closed doors to get Android-like speech-to-text integrated into iOS 5.

While this Nuance technology has yet to reveal itself in the public beta of iOS 5, a well-known App Store app is already showcasing the feature blatantly to the public.

Most of us work, right? Because Apple makes great stuff, but most of it isn’t free. Which means you need money, and that means you’ll need to get paid for your time. That’s where HoursTracker Lite, and its iPad equivalent, HoursTracker HD Lite, come in handy.

Here’s a Blast from the Past, a Best Buy flier from 1996 advertising sale prices on Hewlett-Packard, Packard Bell, and Macintosh Multimedia Computers. These are start-of-the-art systems approaching 200MHz speeds! A 133MHz HP Pentium package goes for $1899, while a blazing fast 180MHz PowerPC-based Mac will set you back $2399 – monitor sold separately.

Regent Seven Seas Cruises 700-passenger ship, whose routes include a Caribbean Escapade and Land of Towering Glaciers trip, now serves up iPads for the luxury suites.

Adonit’s humble origins as a Kickstarter project hasn’t stopped the outfit from taking the iPad-accessory world by storm. Adonit’s Jot styli were radical standouts in our stylus shootout a few weeks back, and their version of an iPad 2 keyboard case, the Adonit Writer for iPad 2 ($100), sparked similar “whoa”s as I marveled at its design.

To lure budget-weary U.S. lawmakers to into a session about saving federal research, organizers titled it “Deconstructing the iPad: How Federally Supported Research Leads to Game-Changing Innovation.”

Congressional sponsors of the forum, a trio of Republicans —  U.S. Randy Hultgren (R-Il.), Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) — must have known they had their work cut out for them.

33-year-old Jason Daniel Goodman left his iPod Touch behind at an Oregon gas station almost a year ago. Employees figured something that valuable would be claimed, so they waited five months.

We’re back with another round of Cult of Mac readers and their Apple gadgets. We had some great submissions for round one, and round two has proven to be just as great.

Android smartphones will quickly dominate as home media hubs, beating out Apple’s AirPlay, one market research firm predicts.

Western Digital has revamped its popular “My Passport” series of portable hardrives with next generation editions for the Mac.

The My Passport Studio and My Passport for Mac hardrives feature slimmer, all-metal designs and come in a variety of storage capacities.

Historically, AT&T has tended to hand out early upgrades to the next iPhone to qualifying customers around the time a new iPhone is announced. Which makes the above image very interesting, as it says that AT&T is already handing out early iPhone upgrades to existing customers, coinciding with a mid-October release.

I’ve been using Notational Velocity for years and years, and I can’t imagine using a Mac without it.

It’s an extremely simple application, but that’s a large part of its appeal. It stores text notes, and searches through them at blazing speed.

If you need even more proof that Sprint is getting the iPhone next month, here’s another careless move on the part of the nation’s third largest cell carrier: in a move prettty obviously suggestive of a major new smartphone incoming next month, Sprint will cap its data tethering plans to 5GB starting October 2nd… two days before the next iPhone is rumored to be unveiled.

Apple has seeded OS X 10.7.2 Build 11C62 to developers with areas of focused testing for iCloud. As we near Apple’s next media event, developers are putting the finishing touches on iCloud integration.

Apple has promised that iCloud will go live alongside iOS 5 to the public sometime “this Fall,” with the event estimated to take place on October 4th.

For months, we’ve been talking about the possibility of two iPhones: a speed bump upgrade called the iPhone 4S that may end up also being Apple’s low-cost, prepaid option, and the iPhone 5, the radically redesigned next gen device.

Over the last month or so, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that the iPhone 5 is going to show up next month. There’s no evidence for the device in the supply chain, while there’s tons of evidence that the iPhone 4S is coming.

The image above of a new Otterbox case for the iPhone 4S might be the nail in the iPhone 5’s coffin, though.

In my home state of Massachusetts, a fight is brewing between Apple and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, after the latter had her stolen credit card fraudulently drained using iTunes, and Cupertino barely lifted a finger to help her.

Apple’s custom built A4 and A5 processors are the latest target in yet another patent violation lawsuit filed against Cupertino, this time by Taiwanese company VIA technologies.

It seems that Apple’s iOS devices have become so popular that one department store has installed vending machines to sell them. Macy’s now has machines — just like those that sell you snacks — full of iPod nanos, iPod touches, and iPads.

AT&T is downplaying the impact of both Verizon and Sprint getting the iPhone 5. CEO Randall Stephenson told analysts the effect on the original U.S. iPhone carrier is “always overblown.” Instead, Stephenson said he was “very confident that we’ll do well” against the two CDMA carriers.

Long hair game designer and ruminant enthusiast Jeff Minter has designed some deliciously weird games over the years, including Attack of the Mutant Camels, Metagalaci Llamas Battle At The Edge of Time, Mama Llama, Space Giraffe and Llamatron.

Now he’s back, with another game of hoof and horn: the surreal, Doodle Jump like GoatUp.

The main problem with Android tablets taking on Apple is the software, research giant Gartner announced Thursday. Android tablet sales were cut by 28 percent over the previous quarter to 17.3 percent of the market versus 73.4 percent for the iPad.

Facebook’s f8 conference got under way today, and speculation has begun that suggests the social networking behemoth is going to announce its very own music service, which Jonny Evans at Computerworld believes “may give iTunes hegemony its biggest shake yet.” But I’m inclined to disagree.

The next time you visit the corner coffee shop, you may see iPads rather than cash registers. The trend is happening across the country. One Michigan retailer, Mighty Good Coffee Roasting Co., has become an enthusiastic supporter of iPads in business. In fact, customers call the company a “coffee shop meets the Apple Store.”

When I go on vacation and I want to take my notebook and iOS devices with me, I have to pack a bunch of white cables into my case — all of which seem to be tangled up with each other by the time I take them out again. However, Apple is developing a universal all-in-one data & power cable that will charge both your Mac and your iOS devices, and allow you to transfer data between them.