Jack Loftus —Popular Android emulator developer “yongzh” has had all of his apps yanked from Android Market without warning, he told users today, signaling that Google’s recent bans (started last month at the behest of Sega) are all but over.
The culled few include user favorites like Nesoid, Snesoid, Gensoid, Ataroid and Gameboid, just to name a few. This would appear to be the quiet, unceremonious end to sanctioned emulator sales in the Android Market. [Android Market via Engadget]

Margaret Hartmann —Texas lawmakers are standing up to the TSA, saying that invasive patdowns amount to sexual harassment. In response, the federal government has threatened to “cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.”
Earlier this month, the Texas House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill that aims to keep TSA agents from touching flyers’ private areas. Reuters reports:

The proposal would classify any airport inspection that “touches the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person including through …

Adrian Covert —If Google has its way with Google Wallet, your bank and credit cards will be obsolete. The only things you’ll need a wallet for are IDs and cash. But is Google’s vision really the future of money, here today?
Google Wallet is a good idea, no doubt. Is tapping your phone really that more convenient than swiping a card? Probably not. Yet. But this might be the first time in a long time we use discounts and coupons (DEALS!) in the real world with any sort of regularity. …

Kelly Hodgkins —Cornell is the place to go if you like looking at small things with expensive machinery. The University recently made its $ 500,000 micro-CT scanner available for public as well as academic usage.
For $ 40 to $ 75 a pop, you can use the instrument to look inside stuff like a mouse heart, a fat deposit or even a Habanero Chile. The system uses a computer and low-dose X-rays to generate color 3D images. Though the specimen does get irradiated, it’s not damaged or …

Oobject.com —The mechanical love-child of an industrial assembler and articulated centrifuge, a Robocoaster can flick, flip, and spin riders better than any traditional coaster could. Our friends at Oobject.com have eight great examples of them in action.
If you’re looking for more robotic hijinks, try these wall-climbing, sewer-diving and historical toy automotons.

If you’ve already filled up your tank ahead of this holiday weekend, you know the price of gas is up over a buck since this time last year. Don’t panic! Just use our comprehensive guide to help you cut the cash you’re sending to big oil in no time.
Top ten most fuel-efficient cars for 2011
Don’t have a fuel efficient Geo Metro? Is fuel economy a higher priority than your car being fun to drive? Here’s our list of the ten new gas-powered cars (sorry, no electrics) for the 2011 model …

Casey Chan — Leafsnap: Leafsnap is the smartphone user’s secret weapon to a more meaningful relationship with trees. It’s incredibly simple and strangely addictive: find a tree, grab a leaf, snap a picture. The app scans its outline-parsing criteria like smooth or jagged edges, single- or many-lobed-and tells you what tree it thinks it came from. It’s similar to the “whoa! this is the future” feeling you get when you deposit a check via smartphone.

Hound: Hound is a voice recognition app that’s essentially a really, really good music-specific …

Casey Chan —BBC News: Catching up with the iOS app, the Beeb has just released an Android app for breaking news across any of the categories that could possibly attempt you. You can personalise the homescreen to your interests, too. As is par for the course with these apps, the ability to share a story via email, SMS or social networks has been included also, and if your phone is running Android 2.2 or higher, BBC News can also be live-streamed using Flash. Free

GhostTown: GhostTown is a music aggregating …

Casey Chan —Jackass: Tens Years of Stupid: Jackass: Ten Years of Stupid for iPad is a behind the scenes look of the biggest Jackasses we know: Knoxville, Steve-O, Pontius, Wee-Man, etc. There’s video clips, gross photos, and essays on the entire history of Jackass. It’s awesome to re-watch some of the epic skits, look back on the history and see the creative-yeah, I said creative-process behind the show. There’s also two super simple games to waste your time on too. $ 5

Hound: Hound is a voice recognition …

Kyle VanHemert and Casey Chan —In this week’s app roundup: leafs, identified; music, voice recognized; Jackass, documented; keyboards, personalized; BBC News, Androidified; Amazon free apps, notified; food, stylized; and much, much more.
The week’s best iPhone apps
Leafsnap: Leafsnap is the smartphone user’s secret weapon to a more meaningful relationship with trees. It’s incredibly simple and strangely addictive: find a tree, grab a leaf, snap a picture. The app scans its outline-parsing criteria like smooth or jagged edges, single- or many-lobed-and tells you what tree it thinks it came from. …