A major tech company is facing bans on selling its gadgets in the U.S. — except this time, it’s not Apple, but their South Korean rival Samsung. It has to do with communications technology in older Samsung phones. You may remember Apple dodged a similar threat to selling some iPhone and iPad models last week. Today, the ITC is expected to make a decision on banning old Samsung phones because they infringe on Apple patents. Plus, Volkswagen has released a new app called “Smile Drive.” And, inspired by one percenter-filled space station in the new sci-fi epic “Elysium,” we find out how far away we are from establishing our own space colony.

Marissa Mayer has been making lots of changes at Yahoo, from buying up smaller companies, like blogging platform Tumblr, to changing the company’s telecommuting policy. But for a modern tech company, there are few things more important than successful branding. Every day this month, Yahoo will be using a new logo on its home page, with a big reveal of its official logo next month. And, another newbie entered the already crowded pool of smartphone options. The LG G2 flagship phone has some unique features. The most intriguing ones involve sensors that tell the phone what you’re doing and help you do it.

We think of the internet as an endless expanse of data and interaction with big, bright points of focus, and a million dark corners. But more and more, your view of the web’s vast spectrum depends a lot on where you live. In Vietnam there’s an extreme example. A new law there will make it illegal to post news or “general information” online. And, a look back at one year of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover.

Samsung did not have a good Monday, and Tuesday doesn’t look so hot, either. The South Korean tech giant had won a sales ban against older Apple products. It’s part of a larger battle involving patents for wireless communications over 3G networks. But it seems Apple has friends in high places. President Obama overturned that International Trade Commission ban this past weekend. And, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos just bought The Washington Post for $250 million. What was he thinking?

Giant hacking conference Def Con just wrapped up in Las Vegas. The purpose of Def Con? One stated motto is “Hack everything.” And one of the world’s first and most ambitious massively multiplayer online computer games is getting a giant makeover. Sony’s EverQuest Next is a re launch of the game EverQuest that first started way back in 1999 and is still going.

The Edward Snowden affair has shined a spotlight on the relationship between Silicon Valley and the federal government. For decades that relationship has been beneficial to both parties, leading to innovation in both the public and private sectors. But these days, things are getting pretty complicated. And activist investor Carl Icahn has sued Dell and its board to force a shareholder vote by today. Icahn wants that vote to fail.

The U.S. International Trade Commission gets ready to hand down a big decision in the patent war between Apple and Samsung. It’s about tablets and whether Samsung copied Apple’s iPad. And July and August are two of the biggest travel months of the year, with a lot of families spending quality time together. So what do you do when someone has their face buried in a gadget the whole time?

The debate about high speed Internet access and service grows more heated all the time. Susan Crawford, fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, argues big companies are over-charging and under-serving us, and that it’s up to the government to step in and regulate a better way. She’s even got a book on the topic. The reviews of that book on Amazon.com offered a new and strange chapter in the debate this week. And Dutch and English researchers found that Hondas, Volkswagons and Fiats have a technical problem that could lead to easy car thefts. But thanks to a court ruling in England, their research may never be presented to the public.  

You may have seen TV ads talking about the Internet of everything — a network of smart devices, from your car to your kitchen, that you can easily control or even program. Turn down the AC at home from your desk at work, for instance. But as the web of Internet-connected devices expands, so do the security risks.