Can humankind survive the rise of mobile devices?! Along with continued concerns over radiation and the well-documented dangers of driving and texting, touch-screen devices are now being blamed for the spread of stomach-turning germs and viruses. "If you're sharing the device, then you're sharing your influenza with someone else who touches it," Timothy Julian, a Stanford University doctoral student, tells The Sacramento Bee. According to Julian's study, published online in July by the Journal of Applied Microbiology, the risks of transmitting pathogens from glass surfaces to a person's skin are relatively high. Meanwhile, according to British researchers, …

Is the US government obstructing the growth of WikiLeaks? So says the whistle-blowing Web site, which, according to the Guardian, "claims that it has had its funding blocked and that it is the victim of financial warfare by the US government." Specifically, British Web payment company Moneybookers reportedly shut down WikiLeaks' account because it had been put on an official U.S. watchlist, as well as an Australian government blacklist. As the Guardian reports, the alleged blacklisting followed the Pentagon publicly expressing its outrage at WikiLeaks -- and its founder, Australian citizen Julian Assange -- for obtaining thousands …

As if the streaming music space wasn't crowded enough, another startup named SoundCloud is about to secure "significant" backing. Citing sources, MediaMemo reports that Index Ventures and Union Square Ventures will lead a round for the Berlin-based streaming music service. Sources tell MediaMemo that VCs have been competing "fiercely" to get in on the three-year-old company, which has already raised $3.3 million from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. Why, when, as MediaMemo notes, "online music has been a black hole for investors for a very long time." For one, SoundCloud isn't dependent on deals with the major music …

Who said Google lost its mojo? Walloping Wall Street expectations for the third quarter, analysts, investors, and media types spent late Thursday and early Friday heaping praise on the search giant.    "This is the best performance they've had in three years ... We're back to the old Google we know and love," RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler told Reuters. "Clearly search is holding up better than anyone expected." According to the Los Angeles Times, the strong performance should assuage investor concerns that Google has become overly distracted by far-flung pursuits …

The New York Times just rolled out a comprehensive iPad application, which, for a short time, consumers can experience for free. "Starting next year, NYT plans to charge," notes ReadWriteWeb. The new app offers breaking news, videos, photo slideshows and blogs. Overall, 25 sections of the paper's content, and 50 NYTimes.com blogs are included in the new app. Previously, The Times offered iPad users an "Editor's Choice" app, featuring a limited collection of news and opinion, and which left many disappointed. "Here, at last, we have an digital alternative to an old-fashioned newspaper and one of the …

Eduardo Saverin, in a CNBC blog post, reminds us of the value of entrepreneurship. He comments on Hollywood's portrayal of the journey to build Facebook, "The Social Network," and explains how America and its strength in technological innovation benefit a society that encourages entrepreneurship and creativity, pointing to Apple and others. "These are the types of companies that result in the creation of thousands upon thousands of new jobs," he writes. "Just as importantly, they affect our lives in a way that enables us all to conduct our daily business in a more efficient and productive …

Facebook and Skype have entered into a new partnership that includes the total integration of Facebook's newsfeed into Skype. "This is a partnership of massive proportions as Skype also has a user base of 560 million, a number which Facebook should surpass in the near future (if they haven't already)," writes All Facebook. Per the deal, "The Facebook Phonebook in Skype allows users to call and SMS their Facebook friends directly on their mobile phones and landlines," according to Facebook (the company). Skype filed to go public in August, but is also rumored to be considering an …

Casual game maker PlayFirst has raised $9.2 million in Series C funding from Mayfield Fund, Trinity Partners, Comerica Bank, DCM and Rustic Canyon Ventures. Launched in 2004, PlayFirst makes both mobile and social games to run on PCs and Macs, as well as iPhones, iPads and Facebook. One game, Diner Dash, along with its sister titles Cooking Dash and Wedding Dash, attracted over 100 million "play sessions" in 2010 alone, according to Vator News. "It's also garnered more than half-a-billion downloads." The San Francisco-based startup markets a combination of free and paid games. Diner Dash, for instance, …

Mobile voice and text Q&A service ChaCha has raised another $20 million in series F funding from VantagePoint Venture Partners and Rho Ventures. "With the new round of funding, ChaCha is expected to expand its real-time, human-powered, free answers service," reports TMCNet.com. The service currently attracts over 15 million unique visitors a month -- "putting it just ahead of Google as the leader in mobile-based text search," according to TMC. Uses can ask ChaCha a question via voice, text or through the company's website, though the vast majority -- 95% -- of users access ChaCha's Q&A capabilities …

Social media marketing startup Involver has raised $7M in equity, options, warrants or other securities, according to a filing with the SEC. "The company also raised $1.6 million late last month," according to VentureBeat. All told, the San Francisco-based company has now raised $10 million. Founded in 2007, Involver presently helps over 80,000 brands manage their online communities on sites like Facebook, VentureBeat reports. We didn't know there were 80,000 brands, though we imagine the term is being used loosely. This summer, Involver released Audience Management Platform (AMP), an integrated social marketing dashboard that lets marketers monitor, …