Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on four particular stories of interest today.

Apple Outsells Lenovo in Greater China

Apple‘s sales in greater China surpassed those of Lenovo for the first time in the second quarter of 2011, thanks to a sixfold increase in sales from last year.

AT&T Nixes Limited Texting Plan

AT&T is getting rid of a texting plan that allowed subscribers 1000 messages for $10 per month, leaving them with only an unlimited, $20-per-month plan.

Skype Selling Wi-Fi by the Minute

Thanks to a new iOS app, Skype users can now use Skype credit to pay for Wi-Fi access on their iPhone or iPad devices at more than 1 million Wi-Fi hotspots around the world.

Facebook Begins Rolling Out New Left-Hand Navigation

Facebook has begun rolling out a restructured left-hand navigation that includes revamped bookmarks and notifications for Pages, Groups and Apps.

Further News

• Hackers have posted the names, home addresses, email addresses and passwords of BART police officers after BART shut down cellphone and Wi-Fi service during a protest.
• Google has released a photo-sharing app for the iPhone.
• IBM has drafted the basic design of a computer chip modeled on the human brain.
• YouTube and the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) have signed a deal permitting music publishers and songwriters to earn revenue on songs used in fan-made videos.
• DirecTV is partnering with Sony to bring its NFL Sunday Ticket subscription package to the PS3.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59

The age of space tourism might be closer than you think. In fact, if you have an extra $1 million lying around, five years from now you could be one of the first off-world adventurers to stay for five days in this orbiting hotel built by Russian company Orbital Technologies.

You’ll get there via a Russian Soyuz rocket, taking you about a day to reach the Commercial Space Station 217 miles above the earth. Once you catch up to the orbiting abode, you’ll settle in with your comrades — up to six other space tourists (or researchers) — for an unparalleled adventure, residing in four cabins aboard the space station.

While you’re traveling at 17,500 miles per hour in low earth orbit, you’ll be pampered with all the spacely amenities you can imagine, such as plenty of gourmet foods, a specially designed sealed shower, your choice of a vertical or horizontal bed (does it really matter in the microgravity of space?), and you might even get to sip some Tang spiked with your favorite vodka (okay, we made that last one up — unfortunately, alcohol will not be available).

Perhaps the best feature of the Commercial Space Station will be its large portholes, which will probably occupy most of your time as you gaze out into the cosmos and down at the earth below.

We’re just wondering if this trip can really be done for $1 million apiece, when Russia and the U.S. agreed in 2009 on a $51 million price for each Soyuz round trip. No matter what, it’s not going to be cheap. We can only hope there will be many private space ventures in operation during the next decade or two (so far, we’ve counted 9 private sector companies ready to take off into space), creating a competitive environment for such spectacular vacations that could bring the price down to mere stratospheric levels.

via International Business Times and DVICE

Boeing announced today it has completed flight testing the Rolls-Royce powered 787 Dreamliner for type certification with the Federal Aviation Administration. The final flight took place Saturday and was a relatively simple simulation of a flight dispatch with a failed generator and failed fuel flow indicator.

The 90 minute flight from Billings, Montana back to the factory at Paine Field north of Seattle was the end of a flight test program that started on December 15, 2009. Seven flight test aircraft have completed more than 1,700 flights totaling more than 4,800 flight hours.

Flight testing with the General Electric powered 787 will continue and is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Saturday’s final flight test should mean the airplane will be issued a type certificate in the next few weeks and launch customer All Nippon Airways will begin service some time next month.

It’s probably no coincidence that a video was released on Saturday (after the jump) showing the 787 buzzing a familiar tower and performing a host of impressive maneuvers while evading an Airbus A380 (h/t FlightBlogger).

Photo: Boeing, Video: 3-D Aviation

Two days ago, hacker group Anonymous attacked San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) website in reprisal for BART shutting down its cellphone and wifi service during a protest over a police shooting. Now unknown hackers have taken action so extreme that Anonymous won’t sanction it: They’ve broken into the website for the BART police union, and posted database details online.

That means the names, home addresses, email addresses and passwords of BART police officers have been made available, according to CNET. More than 100 officers had their personal details listed, says Sophos.

“These people are criminals and we’re going to forward this information to the FBI,” BART’s union president Jesse Sekhon told the San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday.

Anonymous denied responsibility. “The leak today of BART officer data could be the work sanctioned by those who truly support Anonymous, or agent provocateurs,” said a recent tweet from the hacker collective’s Twitter account. “Stay skeptical.”

A separate post from the group pointed out that Anonymous isn’t a single coherent group of hackers. However, it added this note of self-justification: “If the media paid more attention to peaceful protests and general social unrest, hackers would be far less inclined to do things such as leaking data just to get the attention of the press.”

For the authorities, it was a fresh reminder that all kinds of official websites with sensitive information need to be better defended. “Nothing is protected in the electronic age,” added Sekhon. “Lesson learned.”