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The CTIA Wireless Association announced this afternoon that it will add a new voluntary App Rating System to its list of industry guidelines. Participating app stores will allow parents to block access by children to apps rated suitable for adults only. It seems likely that new adult apps will thus be made available as well. From the sacred to the profane, effective content ratings and guidelines could create a safe haven for all kinds of new apps and commerce to flourish.

No such ratings system has been built yet, but the organization announced today the availability of a Request for Proposals for outside vendors to build it. The guiding principle will be that app creators will submit information about the contents of their apps at the time of submission to participating app stores and then the ratings would be applied automatically. No list of which app stores will participate is available yet, but the organization's membership includes both Apple and Google, among many others.

Between LAUNCH and DEMO, this last week has seen more than its fair share of startups. Among these companies, we've seen a number of DIY mobile app creation tools throw their hat into the ring and promise a world where getting your company into someone's hands is as simple as dragging and dropping a couple of buttons.

With all of these democratizing, empowering tools hitting the market, there's just one question - are we about to relive the era of <blink> tag text and marquee side-scrolling banner ads?

Last week we told you about three projects to create a government-less Internet by taking advantage of wireless mesh networking. Wireless mesh networks are networks that don't require a centralized authority to create networks. These can provide an alternative way to communicate and share information during a crisis such as a natural disaster or civic unrest.

Many of you followed-up by telling us about several other interesting projects, such as P2P DNS to Tonkia. Most importantly, there are at least four other projects that should have been on our original list.

In Cory Doctorow's young adult novel Little Brother, the protagonist starts a wireless ad-hoc network, called X-Net, in response to a government crack-down on civil liberties. The characters use gaming systems with mesh networking equipment built-in to share files, exchange message and make plans.

The Internet blackout in Egypt, which we've been covering, touches on an issue we've raised occasionally here: the control of governments (and corporations) over the Internet (and by extension, the cloud). One possible solution, discussed by geeks for years, is the creation of wireless ad-hoc networks like the one in Little Brother to eliminate the need for centralized hardware and network connectivity. It's the sort of technology that's valuable not just for insuring both freedom of speech (not to mention freedom of commerce - Egypt's Internet blackout can't be good for business), but could be valuable in emergencies such as natural disasters as well.

Here are a few projects working to create such networks.

Update: Here are four more projects. These are all a lot further along than the projects mentioned here.

Champagne and fireworks not your thing? Instead of partying it up this New Year's Eve weekend, why not take the time to do a little hacking instead?

Every so often, we like to feature a "weekend project" here on ReadWriteWeb. These generally consist of the kind of things you'll want to try out and play with when you have some free time, like over a weekend. Past projects have included things like hacking Nike+ for automatic Foursquare check-ins, a resource list on how to get started hacking Microsoft Kinect, experimenting with a customized, third-party version of Chrome OS called "Vanilla," and more.

This weekend, we've decided to round up a few resources detailing how to peek inside your mobile applications.

Ford Motor Company has just launched its first mobile application: SYNC Destinations, available today for iPhone/iPad and Android users, with a Blackberry version due out soon. The new app provides directions, navigation and traffic information, all of which can be sent from the app to any 2010 or 2011 Ford SYNC-equipped vehicles which are TDI-capable (Traffic, Directions and Information-capable).

In other words, it's your phone talking to your car.

The mobile healthcare market is finally starting to show significant growth. The number of apps has increased more than 150% on Android and 140% on the Blackberry in the past year.

According to Mobile Health News, more than 4,200 healthcare apps are on the Apple platform and Android users have access to about 500.

Today Microsoft announced that its Visual Basic add-on for Windows Phone Developer Tools is now available in its final RTW version ("Release to Web"). With this add-on, Visual Basic developers who have built Silverlight applications and games for the Windows Phone 7 platform can finally ship their apps after months of testing and then have those apps published in the official Windows Phone Marketplace.

Tango, a cross-platform mobile video chat application, had a notable launch at the end of September 2010. Thanks to a high-profile review in the Wall St. Journal, the application was downloaded a million times within the first 10 days of its release. But did the downloads trail off as the hype died down?

No, they did not. Now, approximately 6 weeks later, Tango is reporting it has crossed the 3 million download mark and is available in 127 countries around the world. People want mobile video chat, it seems. But Tango isn't going to stop at mobile - the company is planning to bring Tango to all your screens - desktop, tablet, mobile and TV.

Yahoo! Mobile has teamed up with the second largest mobile applications store, GetJar, to integrate mobile apps into its search engine results. Starting now, users conducting searches on their mobile phones via m.yahoo.com, will see a separate section called "apps" which will feature relevant results from GetJar's collection of over 75,000 downloadable applications.