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The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) announced the 1.0 release of the Open Data Handbook today. The 1.0 release is the culmination of a project that started in October 2010 at a book sprint in Berlin as the Open Data Manual.

The Open Data Handbook provides the introduction to what open data is, why organizations (particularly government) would be interested in providing open data, and how to go about it.

The firm that entered our lives as "The Document Company" must reinvent itself again if it is to thrive in a world where paper is used less and less as the agent of transferring information. Taking a cue yesterday from Research In Motion, which last November set up a safety net for itself as a mobile document management (MDM) company, Xerox is now headed the same direction.

Now, the former "Document Company" has announced it's setting itself up as a managed service provider for SMBs and enterprises to provision secure mobile devices, effectively reselling an MDM platform from Boxtone. If you think you're experiencing déjà vu, there may be a less-than-supernatural reason: Verizon has entered into a similar agreement with Boxtone, for similar services, on the exact same day.

For all of the talk about the mobile payments revolution, most of the world still deals in cash. About 85% of world retail transactions are still done with paper currency, while payment processors are smacking their lips at the prospect of increasing their share.

The problem with digital payments in emerging markets is most people do not have proper bank accounts. However, they are likely to have mobile phones. So today, MasterCard announced a partnership initiative to turn those phones into payment processors. Walk into a store anywhere in the world and use your phone to make a purchase. The combination of currency with telephony holds great promise, one that MasterCard thinks will net it a billion new customers.

As part of the Mountain Lion preview last week, Apple put out a beta of its revamped chat application, Messages. If you spend a lot of time connecting with other folks on iOS devices, Messages is a must-have. If not, it doesn't really add much to the mix.

Installing Messages is simple enough, though it does require a system reboot. If you've been using iChat, Messages will automatically import your accounts and you're good to go. If not, it's simple enough to set up your accounts. Like iChat, Messages supports AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk and Jabber accounts. To get the most out of Messages, though, you'll need an Apple ID and Messages on the desktop and/or an iOS device.

In a move ostensibly to confirm the European Parliament's opinion that the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is above board - but perhaps also to alleviate its own suspicions - E.U. Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht has opted to refer the treaty to the Court of Justice (ECJ). While Comm. de Gucht expects his support of ACTA to be ratified, the Court's decision could end up blocking enforcement of the treaty throughout the continent.

This even though 22 of the E.U.'s 27 member nations have already signed on to the treaty. Under the terms of the Treaty of Lisbon with which the E.U. was formed, the European Parliament must give consent to any treaty becoming law among its member nations. It will be holding public hearings on that very question next week.

Hop into the back seat of a cab, and you're likely to see one of those annoying mini-TV screens/credit card machines playing some banal news cast or commercial. To drown out that background noise, you stare at your smartphone and frantically check email and Facebook. Or maybe you put the phone away and strike up one of those "how's the weather"-type conversations with the cab driver. What if there was something better than either of these options?

If Square has its way, in tablets might soon replace TVs in New York City taxis. According to reports from CBS New York, Square recently met with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to discuss just that. To test things out, tablets would land in 50 cabs, replacing the current taxi TV system.

HTML5 Web apps are going to become a definitive section of the mobile ecosystem in 2012. The difference between the mobile Web and its native counterparts is that there is no one company seen as the de facto leader of the movement. Apple leads iOS, Google touts Android, Microsoft and Nokia push Windows Phone. The mobile Web? Lots of players, no clear leader.

One company is in the perfect position to take the reigns. What do you think about when you hear terms like "open," "cross-platform," and "standards?" Certainly not Apple. Facebook has the chops to lead the mobile Web but is closed system flies against the open Web community. When it comes to developers, resources, leadership and coding acumen, one company stands ahead of the mobile Web pack. If Mozilla wants it, the mobile Web is there for the taking.

Do you reuse passwords across multiple websites? The habit is alarmingly common, despite being a well-known security risk. You know how the warning goes: If you use the same password across a number of different websites and one of those accounts is compromised, some evildoer could infiltrate the other sites, potentially exposing a wide range of personal data and even putting one's finances or identity at risk.

Mozilla knows all too well the online privacy and security issues that its users face. Its Firefox browser is the gateway to the Web for millions of people, and it doesn't take that responsibility lightly. Mozilla Labs recently launched what it calls the Watchdog initiative to help users understand and manage passwords and privacy-related matters.

Download the Universe brings together 15 of the Internet's top science folks in an online forum that guides readers through the vast world of digital science e-books, texts and apps.

It was born last month, after a group of writers and scientists had started gathering at Science Online to discuss the rapid growth of e-books. They saw a blissful future for science books - but how would readers be able to find out about them? If you spend too much time on the Internet, you've probably noticed that science e-books do not get reviewed often, nor are they picked up by blogs.

The future of journalism, as Rawporter sees it, will include armies of regular people selling raw video footage to outlets who can't get a crew to breaking news events.

But, based on a test of Rawporter's iOS app Tuesday, the future of journalism is going to have to wait. And the test also provides a case study in why rushing an app out the door may not be the best business strategy: I'm frustrated after using it for a couple of hours as a correspondent. But think about how the news outlet that tried to contact me last night to purchase my footage and couldn't get it in time for their evening broadcast feels.

Technology changes not only the medium in which we process information, but how we interpret and act on that information. The creation of cellphones was a seminal moment in the history of human communication. Barriers that were once impossible to cross are only a push of a button away. Cellphones satisfy a basic human impulse, "the need to belong." By fulfilling that need to belong, though, some researchers show that people may be less inclined be charitable to others.

The term for an individual being charitable to others is "prosocial." When we help out our community, give to a charity, volunteer our time, we are being prosocial. A study by researchers at the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business posits that cellphone use may be linked to less prosocial tendencies. Can it be true? By fulfilling our need to belong, do cellphones cause us to care less about our fellow human?

Many people adore their Kindle Fire or iPad tablets, myself among them. Even so, we still have a few gripes, and Q&A site, FixYa shared a study they had done that showed some of the most common complaints of the owners of Kindle Fires and iPads.

We thought it might be just as interesting to ask you about your own experiences with these two tablets. What do you love? What annoys you?

Do you have any gripes about your Kindle Fire or iPad?

We asked and culled your responses from Facebook, Google+ and Twitter and presented them back to you with Storify. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.

One of the first rules of public relations is "never be photographed with a drink in your hand," but now, in the Facebook age, it may simply be "never be photographed."

A judge ruled that people can't sue for harassment simply because someone posts an unflattering photo of them on Facebook. Aaron Olson of Chisago City, Minn., sued his uncle, Randall LaBrie, for harassment. LaBrie's transgression? Posting a childhood photo of Olson on the 800 million+ member social network with an unflattering remark.

A lot of journalists are going to conferences and being told to use Storify, a site that lets you curate loads of social media on a given topic and present them in a narrative or timeline: you can, for example, pull tweets and YouTube videos, urls and Facebook posts.

That is generally a good thing, providing they do it right. But, unfortunately, like a lot of things related to social media, people end up doing it just to say they're doing it and don't spend too much time thinking about how to do it well.