MBTA Transit Police tweet the entire Boston area is "experiencing a rash of iPhone robberies," in particular, from people who are texting:

If you're texting, your focus is on phone, on surroundings. Thieves are watching for this and will grab phone while you're preoccupied.

Last night, one Orange Line rider reported a T cop told her not to use her cell phone on the Orange Line because of an outbreak of cell-phone robberies on that line.

Zipcar and Meadow Networks founder Robin Chase imagines a national, open-source wireless network built atop the millions of toll transponders and other wireless devices that already sit in people's cars.

Talking to an audience of developers working on Massachusetts transportation data, Chase said the government should use some of the billions of dollars now being invested in "smart grid" technologies to make far better use of the devices and networks already in place along the nation's highways.

Each of the devices could be turned into a mini wireless access point connected to highway networks that already access to create "a mesh network" for "wireless coast to coast," she said.

Right now, she said, your typical EZPass transponder is in use maybe 30 seconds a month - as commuters pass through toll plazas. "We have a device, we have a wireless network, and it is so under capacity," she said.

After falling far behind other areas during the boom years, Boston has been making up lost ground during the Great Recession. That, at least, according to a new study from the Milken Institute that ranks metropolitan areas by their success at creating and sustaining jobs and economic growth, with a heavy emphasis on technology.

Take a look at what's on the slab at Boston Dynamics in Waltham (the robot wears tennis shoes!):

Via Benjamin Spear.

Wicked Local Cambridge reports Cambridge is working on a new employee policy that would ban workers from networks such as Facebook and YouTube while on the job.

An Israeli software company with an office in Waltham yesterday charged the way Google sends out updates for its Chrome Web browser violates its patent.

Harlan E. Anderson, one of the co-founders of Digital Equipment Corp., is blogging about his life in computing, from the 1940s through the founding of the company that made Maynard famous.

Via Pito Salas.

History of the DEC logo.
Re-creating the Digital logo in PostScript.

Ask for the stenographic record of the last public meeting of Boston City Council http://www.cityofboston.gov/contact/?id=18 The stenographic machine records more of the proceedings, transactions and Councilors debate than the all too brief Council minutes.

Comcast thinks that its customers won't notice if it increases their monthly service charge by $2, if they call it an "equipment charge" increase rather than a service charge increase. They're increasing their revenue by $358 million per year without taking on any additional costs or providing any additional services. Consumers, fight back!

Please visit http://digg.com/tech_news/Comcast_sneaks_in_rate_increase_as_equipment_charge to read more and help me publicize Comcast's most recent attempt to cheat its customers.

Xconomy reports Cisco is buying Starent Networks, a Tewksbury company that makes equipment for blasting multimedia across networks, including wireless ones. It's a big deal, Xconomy says. In fact, at $2.9 billion, it whops.