last week, the Supreme Court issued a TRO versus the recently enacted anti-cybercrime law. This means the government just lost some legal basis for going after what it perceives as breaking the laws of the land online. At least, that rings true for a while.

Opponents of the cybercrime law, however, are saying the battle is not over by any chance. In fact, they are gearing up for a bloodier war over the law and what they claim as its freedom-curtailing provisions.

Meanwhile, the more concerned among us are looking at our honorable legislators and what steps they are going to take regarding the most talked about piece of legislation this side of the globe.

Would most of them have the guts to stand up for the reasons they had when they supported the legislation in the first place? Or, perhaps, they would see the light and realize how their piece of lawmaking achievement caused this much brouhaha online and offline?

Sprint Sells QWERTY 

Smartphones

American mobile carrier Sprint announced its plan to continue selling smartphones equipped with QWERTY keyboards. In particular, the company says it will sell two smartphone models with slider-style physical QWERTY keyboards — the LG Mach and the Motorola Photon Q.

Both smartphones support LTE technology, which means they will work on the company's next-generation network.

At first glance, this looks like something contrarian. Some would say such a move is plain stupid. Seen from the perspective of how popular touchscreen (and hence, non-keyboard-toting) smartphones are, such anti-QWERTY sentiments seem valid.

A look at the respective fates of Apple, the purveyor of the world's bestselling keyboardless smartphone, the iPhone, and Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, most of which come with physical keyboard, will give anybody who does so an inkling of where the market is heading.

So, why sell QWERTY phones?

Maybe, it is because there are plenty of consumers who prefer a physical keyboard to a software-generated, onscreen version.

HTC Drops

Each time I would run out of excuses and have to ride a Ferris wheel, there is always one thing that I look forward to and dread the most, at the same time — that sensation of falling, when everything inside you seems ready to pop out of your mouth, as the wheel turns faster and the seat you are on seems only too eager to meet the ground.

HTC Corp. executives must be having that kind of sensation right now.

The Taiwanese smartphone maker just saw its third-quarter profit fell 79 percent. Not long after, the company's stock suffered the 7-percent drop limit in Taipei trading.

The stock has lost some 46 percent in value this year.

UK Researchers Show Digits

Researchers at the Newcastle University and Microsoft Research Cambridge introduced the Digits, a sensor that tracks the three-dimensional movement of the hand and lets users remotely control any device.

By mapping finger movement and orientation, Digits acts as a virtual remote control without being tied or limited to any external hardware.

Right now, I can think of about a dozen applications for this technology, and not all of them are naughty.

That's all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.