In an informal interview, a RIM executive strongly hinted that the company’s BlackBerry line would be getting a front-facing camera for videoconferencing in early 2010. It’s still officially unconfirmed, but totally plausible. Anybody out there dying for some videoconferencing? [TinyComb]

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This week in the App Store it may as well’ve been 1991: We’ve got Lollapalooza! Monkey Island! Novel self-help strategies! Glittery-clothed strippers! And last but not nearly least, everyone’s favorite defunct supermarket tabloid! The Golden Age of culture, people.

Weekly World News: Now is neither the time nor place to get into my deep appreciation of the WWN, and I feel their blurb says enough:

For over 30 years, the Weekly World News has been the World’s ONLY Reliable News Source. The Weekly World News bares the TRUTH about UFOs, aliens, monsters, Elvis’ whereabouts, cryptids, popular celebrities, and the mutant freaks that live among us.

Considering you can get the entire archives of the paper for free on Google Books, it seems dumb that this $1 app only gives you access to covers, though the add-your-own-face feature is pretty neat. Granted, this could have been a content ratings thing, because half of the dead magazine’s columnists were basically insane, or sexist, or some other terrible kind of “ist.” It’s part of the charm! [via Gawker]

Pocket Dancer: A 3D lady will dance a sad little dance while you spin her around with your finger and occasionally change the floor lighting. Fact: There is absolutely no way to use this without looking and feeling like a creep. One dollar!

Booyah Society : Pulling ourselves out of the slime, here’s the high concept app for the week: Booyah Society assigns arbitrary point values to day-to-day achievements, creatings a sort of WoW-ish self-help game, integrates with Twitter and Facebook. Despite how it sounds, it’s not at all pathetic or annoying; I can easily see how someone who already broadcasts their every action on social networks could get hooked on this. Free.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition: Diehard fans see Monkey Island titles as the zenith of 2D adventure gaming, while most people who grew up in the early 90s just remember them as being pretty fun. I’m guessing only one of those two groups will be willing to drop the full $8 on this, but to be fair to LucasArts, the game translates well to the iPhone and it’s truly massive.

Lollapalooza: Sharing its concept and design with the excellent Coachella app from last year, this free download helps you find your way around the only legendary music festival ever to be ruined by the advent of txt speak.

This Week’s App News on Giz:

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ TheXchange: Will This Porn iPhone App Survive the Apple Banhammer?

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ iDisk iPhone App Lightning Review: Halfway There

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Soon We’ll Be Able to Search the App Store For More Than Exact Product Names

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Apple’s Chickenshit Approval Process Has Gone Too Far

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ EA Bringing Madden, FIFA Franchises to the iPhone

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ iPhone Owners Score Free MobileMe iDisk App

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Offender Locator Tracks Sex Offenders on Your iPhone

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ iWet T-Shirts: Yet Another iPhone App That Makes Me Shake My Head in Shame

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ GV Mobile Google Voice App Available For Free On The iPhone via Cydia

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Nissan Developing iPhone App to Monitor Electric Cars

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Apple Rejects Official Google Voice iPhone App

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Multiplayer Chess iPhone App Is Very Cool, But Probably Won’t Be a Bestseller

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ GV Mobile Google Voice iPhone App Getting Booted From App Store for Usual Ridiculous Reasons

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Spotify iPhone App Kills Pandora, Last.FM, Slacker and iTunes in One Shot

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Weirdest Use of Spreadsheets I’ve Ever Heard

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Man, Don’t Choices Suck?

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Passion iPhone App Will Let You ‘See How Good You Are at Sex’

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Resident Evil 4 Brings More Re-Killing Zombies to the iPhone

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Top Three iPhone Apps: Weed, Booze, and Partial Nudity

?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ Apple Will Let iPhone Apps Augment Our Sad Little Realities in September With OS 3.1

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

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Onkyo’s Japan-only (for now) dock lacks speakers but makes up for it with optical/coaxial digital audio outputs, regular old composite video output and a USB connection for syncing with iTunes. It’s meant for higher end AV systems. [AVWatch via Engadget]

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When we last checked in with the lanky BL40, it was gussied up and posing for glamor shots. LG has followed up with a video that gets into how you’re actually supposed to use such a strangely-shaped device.

Some of these features and interface ideas will be familiar from the earlier ad, but they’re explained in more depth here. I particularly like the adjustable panes, which turn a single widescreen into two virtual screens, creating something akin to multiple workspaces. It’s clever, but without laying hands on the phone it’s hard to tell if the various other wide-optimized UI elements are features or compromises. [LG—Thanks, Tim!]

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Usually when Apple updates the iPhone OS, jailbreakers have to wait until the Dev Team comes out with a new version of jailbreaking software before they can update. Not this time around.

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UCSniff can be used to spy on video conference calls while VideoJak allows for hijacking of video streams.

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Denver appeals court says stock gains had been overstated for Joseph Nacchio, who is currently serving a six-year prison term for insider trading.

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Windows 7, like Windows Vista and XP drains battery really fast on Intel-based Mac laptop.

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Not surprisingly Melissa Catherine Smith-Means of Alabama (oh…Alabama) was arrested a few months ago for this incident in a Verizon store. Who knew someone would have a camera in a cellphone store?

After being arrested she told the police “My young ‘un loves being dragged around on a leash. It’s how I was brought up.” She was also wearing this shirt. Ok, maybe this last part didn’t happen—but you can picture it can’t you? [LiveLeak via TechEBlog via Gadget Review]

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A pair of computer security researchers have discovered a BIOS vulnerability caused by the Computrace Laptop Lojack software, serving as a rootkit to potentially let malware nest and thrive in an estimated 60% of newish laptops.

The research team of Alfredo Ortega and Anibal Sacco say that when malware infects a system BIOS, it is able to survive multiple attempts to reflash the core software, and extremely difficult to get rid of. Even worse, because Lojack is white listed by virus and malware scanners, any attacks exploiting this vulnerability on a computer will largely go undetected. And for Laptop Lojack to be effective, it must operate like a stealthy rootkit. Unfortunately, it’s installed in the majority of new notebooks from HP, Asus, Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba.

Moral of the story: find a new way to get your stolen laptop back. [ZDnet via Slashdot]

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