Apple has announced that it will change the policy on apps and will require the app developers to get user permission before grabbing data off the device. That means that an app like Twitter has to get your permission before it looks through your address book to find out which of your friends is also on Twitter. The rules were changed because some apps were exporting the data to servers, where the info could remain for months. Also, the U.S. Senate has introduced a cybersecurity bill aimed at protecting computer networks in the U.S. from attack.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is offering a free online class and everyone’s invited and admitted. The class, Circuits and Electronics, is a full-strength MIT course and the first in what is intended to be an ongoing educational effort called MITx. At the end of the program, successful students will get a certificate. Not an engineering degree, mind you, but still something. What does this mean for education? Also, a deeply weird and highly entertaining video game on YouTube.

Remember MySpace? Not all that long ago, it was out on the bleeding edge of social media. It had 76 million users, everybody loved it, musicians flocked to it, it was the place to be, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. paid nearly $600 million for it. And then — crickets. But now, MySpace is showing signs of life.

Windows still runs more than three-quarters of the world’s PCs. And the upcoming Windows 8 is about Microsoft using that existing heft to power its way onto smaller screens too. Online opinions differ wildly on whether consumers will dig it, but one thing is for sure: Windows 8 looks dramatically different from the Windows that you’re used to today — Microsoft is trying to reinvent Windows for post-PC era. Also, we construct a boffo campaign speech from nothing but the titles of songs in President Obama’s Spotify playlist.

Imagine if your car insurance company and your in-car navigation device started talking to each other. Progressive and other insurance companies in the U.S. have been playing with this general idea of tracking you while you drive — and it’s already happening in the U.K. Also, The Pew Center for the Internet and American life says adults are mostly happy when they’re using social networks.

A confession right up front: Apple has not confirmed that it is, in fact, working on an Apple-branded television. Maybe it’s not. Maybe all the rumors and reports we’ve heard are just hogwash. But on the other hand, when you see a whole ton of those reports coming in, you begin to think there’s some fire underneath all that smoke. What could be in store? Also, Google has a new focus group program.

Path is a relatively new social network that has garnered a lot of critical praise. But it turns out the iPhone app has been gathering up a user’s address book information and transmitting it, unencrypted, back to Path. And Path isn’t the only app in the world to use your information. Also, the booming app economy is a jobs bonanza.

We already have a company that offers streaming movies and TV shows as well as offering DVDs and Blu-Rays. It’s Netflix. So why, then, is Verizon and Redbox teaming up to offer the same thing? Also, some Girl Scout troops are trying out mobile credit card payments for Girl Scout cookie sales.

Wael Ghonim’s memoir, “Revolution 2.0: The Power of the People is Greater than the People In Power,” arrives about a year after the uprisings in Egypt. Ghonim was a Google marketing executive when the Egyptian uprising began, and he took to the Internet to call Egyptians to action. He tells his story of what happened in that tumultuous time. Also in this program, shipments of smartphones surpassed shipments of PCs last year.