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Too busy to keep up with today's tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET for Tuesday, July 5.

Facebook blocks contact-exporting tool Social network hobbles a Chrome extension that moves friends' contact info to Google+, but a programmer is working on a way around the restriction. More

Twitter buys influence with BackType acquisition The next battleground in social networking is measuring influence, not just winning users. Twitter's acquisition of social-media analysis company BackType illustrates that trend. More

iPhone 5 order: 15 million for Sept. launch, report says Apple has put in an order … Read more

Google is planning to rebrand two of its most popular services, Mashable is reporting.

Citing anonymous sources, the social-media blog said Google is planning to change the names of its Picasa photo management service and its Blogger blog platform to Google Photos and Google Blogs, respectively.

Google acquired Picasa in 2004 for an undisclosed sum. Its technology, which can be downloaded or used online, helps users edit and manage photos. In 2003, Google acquired Blogger owner Pyra Labs for an undisclosed sum.

According to Mashable, Google's decision to rebrand Picasa and Blogger is the result of its desire to &… Read more

The Transportation Security Administration appears to have pulled off an Internet first: hiring the U.S. government's most controversial spokesblogger.

All federal agencies have spokesmen. Some have blogs. But it's the pseudonymous Blogger Bob who, more than anyone else, has come to represent the online voice and personality of his employer--not always with entirely successful results.

Internet fact checkers have accused Blogger Bob of eliding relevant facts about disputes involving the TSA. A Forbes.com column noted that Blogger Bob had curbed critical comments (and then subsequently permitted them). Reason Magazine has dubbed Blogger Bob someone who's … Read more

Google got Blogger back online late this morning following a maintenance-related glitch that kept blogs dark for more than 20 hours.

"We're nearly back to normal -- you can publish again, and in the coming hours posts and comments that were temporarily removed should be restored," Eddie Kessler, tech lead/manager at Blogger, wrote in a post on the Blogger Buzz site around 10:30 a.m. PT.

The post continues:

Here's what happened: during scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger's behavior. Since then, bloggers and readers may … Read more

Google's Blogger service has been offline or unreliable for much of the day, with Blogger-hosted blogs changed to read-only mode, and posts and comments made after 7:37 a.m. PDT on May 11, 2011, removed.

In a post on the Blogger help forum, the product team said that it had rolled back a scheduled maintenance release from last night and that its "engineers are working hard to return Blogger to normal and restore your posts and comments."

Google's reply for a request for comment was, "The team is working on this." The company … Read more

The Google-owned Blogger network has released a free app designed to enable people who have built their blogs on the Blogger platform to easily update them from their Android smartphones.

Unveiled this week, the program lets people bang out copy, and take photos with their phones, from directly inside the app--and then either publish their words and images straightaway or save a draft for later. Posts and drafts can be viewed directly in the app or, by way of a quickly accessible menu, in a browser.

Users can also select their location and include that information with their post, switch … Read more

Hackers are increasingly hitting the Web sites of human rights and independent media groups in an attempt to silence them, says a new study released this week by Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Based on a survey of 45 groups, the report "Distributed Denial of Service Attacks Against Independent Media and Human Rights Sites" found that a large percentage said they've been targeted by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks from those who disagree with their viewpoints. The Web sites typically have been knocked offline for short periods of time but in some cases have … Read more

Amazon is looking to attract more readers and sellers of e-books with its improved Kindle for the Web.

Demonstrated yesterday at Google's Chrome event, Amazon's Kindle for the Web will let users buy and read full Kindle e-books directly from their browsers with no special download or installation required. The new version of the application will be available early next year.

Users will also have a lot of choice over where they can buy their Kindle books. Online retailers, publishers, authors, and bloggers will be able to offer Kindle books through their own sites, according to Amazon. Web … Read more

Google plans to integrate more of its services into the Google Apps platform, which lets businesses use the company's Web-based tools within their own custom domains.

Google Apps already incorporates several core office productivity applications, such as Docs, Gmail, and Calendar. Starting this summer, these will be joined by Blogger, Picasa, Reader, and AdWords, the Google Enterprise team said in a blog post Thursday.

"Co-workers will be able to publish their organization's blog on Blogger, share project images with Picasa Web Albums, track industry news in Google Reader, advertise online with AdWords and much more, all without … Read more