Today Apple pulled an application from its iPhone App store that was reported to include a nude photo of a fifteen year old girl. Prohibited content is feared to be a major weakness in Apple’s App Store, and this incident has effectively placed that fear in the spotlight.

The app is BeautyMeter from Braun Software, and users upload images of themselves and rate images of others with a five-star system in the categories of face, body and clothes. The screenshot in question has not been verified to have been taken by an underage girl, but the listing shows just such a caption, with nearly five thousand ratings, under a picture of a topless iPhone user partially nude below the waist.

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After a brief respite after the March court trial on The Pirate Bay sentencing the founders to a year-long prison sentence, the site is back in the news. The next chapter began on Tuesday with the announcement that the owners were selling the most well-known torrent file tracker site to a corporation - Global Gaming Factory.

Though both companies are based in Sweden, the effects on Americans has begun already. With the business model that GGM will introduce, a suggested partnership between The Pirate Bay, site members and internet service providers will create a new file-sharing system, they hope.

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Greenpeace has ranked Nokia the Greenest Electronics Company in its 2009 Guide to Greener Electronics.

“Nokia scores maximum points for its comprehensive voluntary take-back programme, which spans 84 countries providing almost 5000 collection points for end-of-life mobile phones,” according to Greenpeace. “It now also scores top marks for the information it provides to customers on what to do with their discarded products.”

“However, its recycling rate of 3-5% is very poor and more information is needed on how Nokia calculates these figures,” according to Greenpeace. “It also needs to
start using recycled plastics beyond just packaging.”

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Greentech investments, which reached record levels in 2008 but fell with the economy, are beginning to return, according to a survey of the sector by Greentech Media.

“Despite the eulogies delivered for the greentech sector because of a less-than-stellar first quarter, VC investment in greentech rebounded in the second quarter with more than $1.2 billion invested in 85 startups - a 50 percent increase,” writes Greentech Media’s Eric Wesoff.

In Q1 2009 there were 59 deals made, worth more $836 million. In the second quarter, 85 deals were made and total investments grew to more than $1,173 million, though there were slightly smaller average round sizes than in 2008.

Solar, which in 2008 represented 40 percent of total greentech investments, was the leading category in Q2 2009, with more than $330 million in funding.

There has also been a “marked increase” in automotive and energy storage and an increase in smart grid investments, Wessof writes.

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The US government spends more than 70 billion dollars every year on IT, says Vivek Kundra, US CIO, at the Personal Democracy Forum 09, today in New York. The speech was introduced by Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist), who welcomed warmly the beginning of a new governance, a real grassroots democracy, and the government of nerds!

Kundra explained that out of total government IT spending, at least 30 billion dollars are for projects in trouble. The launch of the IT Dashboard is aimed at giving total transparency to that spending. Kundra and the government initiative were welcome by attendees with a standing ovation.

All Maine students in grades 7 through 12 will receive free MacBooks for the academic year.

The measure is intended to bridge the digital divide, allowing all students access to new technology no matter their socioeconomic position. It is part of the state’s expanding Maine Technology Learning Initiative (MTLI), established in 2002, which provides all middle school students with free computers.

Today’s announced expansion brings computers to high-school students.

“We have seen incredible success, with our middle schools showing increased student engagement and achievement with (MLTI) in place, and we want to bring this same opportunity to our high schools,” Maine Educational Commissioner Sue Gendron said.

“This is not just about technology–it’s about using the technology to support education,” Gendron said.

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At the PDF09 Conference, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg comments on the 5 big challenges NYC is facing in going online. He is advocating the 311 service and launching a big App Contest.

The winner will get some funding … and a dinner with the Mayor. With a great sense of humor, Mayor Bloomberg shows that he is an able user of new technologies. Unable to attend the conference live, he did so by Skype connection … that failed in the middle, but was of great quality overall.

Image by acaben via Flickr

After a six-month medical leave of absence, and two months removed from a liver transplant, Steve Jobs returned to work today.

“Steve is back to work. He is currently at Apple a few days a week and is working from home the remaining days. We are very glad to have him back,” an Apple spokesman told ABC.

How will investors react to Jobs’ return? Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster believes their reaction should be positive.

“It should give investors confidence in Apple’s three-to-five year road map,” Munster said. “Having Steve Jobs back means they got the visionary back.”

“He’s an iconic figure that everybody wants around. He’s the world’s greatest salesman and that’s irreplaceable,” Munster said.

Apple announced Jobs’ six-month medical leave in January. In the six months since Jobs’ leave of absence began, Apple stock has risen 82 percent, so the CEO’s absence was not the disaster some had initially predicted.

More than half of venture capitalists polled by executive search company Polachi say that the industry is “broken.”

“These survey results validate a cautious sentiment we have been observing for some time now in the VC industry,” said Charley Polachi, Partner at Polachi, Inc.

“While we certainly acknowledge that somewhat of a reset is needed, we also believe venture firms play a critical role in the development of new technologies and start-ups, which are vital to the economy for growth,” Polachi said.

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I was at Structure 09 without a laptop all day yesterday, so I was shocked when I returned to the office and found out about Michael Jackson’s death. The news was stunning enough, but what really astounded me is that my Facebook stream had suddenly turned into Twitter.

For the first time I can remember, more than 90 percent – almost all, in fact – of Facebook status updates, which had tripled in frequency in response to the news, were about the same thing. Indeed, MJ’s death had one of the more profound pop culture impacts in internet history.

Om Malik, host of yesterday’s Structure conference, put some numbers and graphs culled from Keynote Systems and Akamai together for an article he wrote for Gigaom this morning about the spike in traffic so massive that it almost shut down ABC, CBS, LATimes, AOL and CNN Money.

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