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Twitter has just announced a change to the way in which it handles permissions for third-party applications. The update will give users a better understanding of how this process works and what information third-party apps can access.

When users authorize to a third-party app for the first time, they'll see a new permissions screen detailing what that integration with Twitter means. This can include activities like reading tweets, seeing who the user follows, tweeting on a user's behalf, or accessing Direct Messages.

Mike Lee, a Mac developer and former iOS developer with major contributions to Tap Tap Revenge, Obama '08 and Apple's own retail application, has suggested a radical way to fight back against the patent firms targeting mobile application developers with claims of infringement. It's time for an API boycott, he says.

Lee calls the current patent trolling, where firms such as Lodsys and others are threatening to sue developers who don't license patents for technology developments like in-app purchasing buttons and the use of forms, an "untenable situation" for developers. "There is no move we can make that will result in our ultimate survival. Either we pay Lodsys and usher in a new era of extortion, or we refuse to pay and are sued out of business."

But there's a third option, he offers. Developers can put pressure on Apple by boycotting the use of any API that comes under fire from these patent holders.

StackMob, a startup providing backend services for mobile applications, today announced it has closed a $7.5 million round of funding led by Trinity Ventures. The service, in private beta since March, has seen over 200 applications created using its platform, and has a waiting list of developers interested in the private beta over 1,000 people long.

Want to jump in line? You can grab one of 200 invites to StackMob's private beta below.

As promised, Google's upcoming version of its Android mobile operating system, code-named Ice Cream Sandwich, will merge the two different versions of Android in existence today. At present, Android-based smartphones run Gingerbread (Android 2.3) or older, while Android-based tablet computers run Honeycomb (Android 3.0). With Ice Cream Sandwich, due out later this year, that situation will begin to change.

I don't know about you, but when I hear the word "Lollapalooza," I think about beer, grunge rock and application programming interfaces. Wait, what?

Okay, so maybe an API isn't exactly what comes to mind, but this year, the rock festival that once helped propel bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam is looking to launch something else entirely: an open API chock-full of real-time scheduling data, stage geolocation and more.

Realtidbits is the model of the new startup. It did not start with the Web site. It started with an API. That's representative of a new trend. You don't launch a Web site anymore. You go straight to the API and create a service.

The API represents what Sam Rami of Apigee compares to the evolution of the 20th century supply chain. In the post-war economy, the supply chain changed our geographies. It transformed how we delivered goods to the market. With the advent of the modern highway, we created hubs that connected transportation systems which converged at central points. Through this we saw the emergence of a new commerce based culture.

Microsoft announced today via its Windows Phone Developer Blog the release of a new tool designed to help developers migrate iPhone applications to the Windows Phone 7 platform. While Microsoft reminds developers that there's "no magic wand that will do the work for you," the new iPhone/iOS to Windows Phone 7 API mapping tool will make the process far less painful.

It's been a big week for mobile app developers, thanks, for the most part, to the AppNation conference held in San Francisco. From Qualcomm's AR platform to Opera's new developer program, many of these mobile announcements made headlines across the Web. Others, however, flew a little under the radar.  Below we've rounded up some of our favorite stories from the past week, including those from the event and elsewhere.

STREST is a new open source protocol and server from Wiredset, the company behind the real-time social media analytics service Trendrr. STREST is HTTP-compatible and is designed for real-time data streaming. Wiredset has released the protocol spec, a server implementation and drivers in Java, Python and JavaScript.

Wiredset created the protocol to deal with the challenges it faced when building the Trendr API. The team needed a way to offer extremely high-volume API calls with low latency, deliver the results in real-time at scale, and do so through a RESTful interface.

Last month at SXSW, Infochimps, the self-described "Amazon of data," unveiled thousands of new API calls. The API calls, or plug-and-play bits of code that developers can insert into their applications, were released in hopes of soothing the headaches inherent in making data-dependent applications.

This weekend, a few developers took three headache-free days to make three awesome Twitter apps built on the Infochimps API calls.

Check 'em out.