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Ben Patterson – Rumors of a BlackBerry tablet are heating up by the day, with Bloomberg now claiming that the BlackPad — yes, the BlackPad — will arrive in November, complete with an iPad-size screen and the ability to connect to the Internet via either Wi-Fi or your Bluetooth-connected BlackBerry.

Ben Patterson – Take an iPod Touch, add Wi-Fi and an Internet-calling app like Skype, and you’ve pretty much got a phone, right? Now comes word that Sprint could be prepping a cradle for the Touch that acts as a portable hotspot, good for keeping the iPod in a Wi-Fi cloud when Sprint 3G coverage is available.

Macworld.com – Amazon on Thursday released significant upgrades to its Kindle app for iPhone and iPad. Just days after the company announced the new Kindle 3, Amazon’s made the iOS version of its e-reader even more competitive with its hardware device: The app now includes a dictionary with 250,000 entries, adds the ability to search within books on the iPad, and improves the experience of searching books on the iPhone and iPod touch.

AP – Invasion of privacy in the Internet age. Expanding the reach of law enforcement to snoop on e-mail traffic or on Web surfing. Those are among the criticisms being aimed at the FBI as it tries to update a key surveillance law.

Mashable – Rob Howard is the CTO/founder of enterprise collaboration software company Telligent.

AP – Motorola Inc., the maker of cell phones and other telecommunications equipment, spent $880,000 in the first quarter to lobby the federal government on laws such as those that sought to discourage electronics manufacturers from using minerals from rebel-held mines in the Congo, according to a disclosure report.

NewsFactor – Research In Motion will introduce its own tablet computer, called BlackPad, in November, according to news sources. The BlackBerry maker is moving to compete with rival Apple, which currently dominates the tablet market with its iPad.

Macworld.com – As Apple is fond of reminding those who complain about the App Store, native apps are only one prong of developing software for iOS devices—there’s also Web apps. While they can’t necessarily do everything that a native iPhone app can do, Web-based apps are surprisingly powerful—and now, with the introduction of OpenAppMkt, they’ve got a store of their own.

AP – Nokia Inc., the world’s largest maker of cell phones, spent $150,000 in the second quarter to lobby the U.S. federal government on patents, the use of minerals from rebel-held mines in the Congo and other issues, according to a disclosure report.

Ben Patterson – Rumors of a BlackBerry tablet are heating up by the day, with Bloomberg now claiming that the BlackPad — yes, the BlackPad — will arrive in November, complete with an iPad-size screen and the ability to connect to the Internet via either Wi-Fi or your Bluetooth-connected BlackBerry.