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The smartphone is no longer just a portable computer in your pocket. It has become the remote control for your life.

Want to flip off the living room lights, unlock your front door or get a reading of your blood pressure? All of this can be done through mobile apps that work with accessories embedded with sensors or an Internet connection. For several years, technology companies have promised the dream of the connected home, the connected body and the connected car. Those connections have proved illusory. But in the last year app-powered accessories have provided the mechanism to actually make the connections. That is partly because smartphones have become the device people never put down. But it is also because wireless sensors have become smaller, cheaper and ubiquitous. Big companies with strong brands have been heavily promoting the new uses for these gadgets.

The family of Internet activist Aaron Swartz is accusing federal prosecutors of driving him to commit suicide. Swartz, who was facing computer hacking charges, hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment. He was 26. “Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach," the family said. "Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death."

The Entertainment Software Association’s decision to even attend Vice President Joe Biden’s meeting on gun violence sent shockwaves through the gaming community.

Gaming site Gamasutra’s editor-in-chief Kris Graft said that talking with Vice President Biden was tantamount to accepting responsibility. “If you’re among the ‘game industry leaders’ entertaining this question in the court of the Vice President of the U.S.A. and his task force on gun control and violence, you, my well-meaning friend, are stating that you’re part of the problem, and therefore, you are part of the problem,” he wrote. Graft’s piece, in turn, set off a backlash of its own, with critics saying that the game industry has to continue to address the issue or risk being left out. As IGN writer Casey Lynch said in a response to Graft’s piece, “this conversation will happen, whether we’re a part of it or not.” That much, at least, is true.

Businesses and individual subscribers to Verizon's Internet service may have to pay a $35 fee to challenge piracy allegations, according to a leaked draft of the company's forthcoming Copyright Alert Program.

Subscribers could also face temporary service slowdowns to 256kbp if Verizon suspects its Internet tubes are being used for transporting copyrighted material. Torrentfreak posted a version of Verizon's Copyright Alert Program, purportedly swiped from the company's Web servers. A Verizon spokesperson told InfoWorld that "the document in question is a draft document, and was neither public nor even final" and that in coming weeks, the company "will be informing its customers about our education and mitigation program, at which time we will be able discuss the plan and its implementation." Though just a draft, the program makes for some interesting reading. It reflects the "six strikes plan" introduced in 2011 by major entertainment companies under the auspices of the Center For Copyright Information. Based on CFCI guidelines, online pirates who persist in sharing copyrighted music, movies, and television episodes will be sent a series of six increasingly severe alerts from their ISP. The alerts ultimately include such punishments as bandwidth throttling, temporary suspension of service, and copyright reeducation.