It looks like Yelp is looking to cash in on the local deal craze. As the folks over at deal aggregator YipIt first noticed, Yelp has recently been testing time-limited local deals in a select number of pilot cities.

Google has long been touting the deployment of its productivity suite and Microsoft Office-killer Google Apps to the City of Los Angeles. The City planned to equip its 34,000 employees with Google Apps, replacing Novell’s GroupWise system, the e-mail technology provider that LA had previously been using. But unfortunately, the process of transitioning the government entity over to the cloud-based system has seen a few speedbumps to say the least.

The airline industry is pretty much the worst offender in terms of being amenable to change, hence the large user experience holes filled by market distruptors like Virgin America , JetBlue , and Southwest . Aside from cloning Richard Branson or crossing your fingers in hopes that skunkworks will change things internally, what’s an old school airline executive to do? Part of the answer lies in paying attention to user suggestions, especially if they’re as elaborate as former Vimeo and College Humor founder and current Boxee CPO Zach Klein’s “one hour rethinking” of the Delta SkyClub complimentary wifi portal, a visualization he created and posted to Flickr while waiting for a flight out of Salt Lake City this morning (which probably should make the rest of us rethink how productively we use our commute times)

Earlier today, we noted that an update to Google Maps for Mobile was the clearest sign yet of Google going directly after Yelp . But it’s actually even more interesting than we thought. Key to the new Google Maps for Mobile is Places, the new establishment-centric area which Google has been building up for about the past year or so

Today’s adjustment of the DMCA has far-reaching legal implications, which will only be evident after a few weeks, months, or even years as various parties exploit them however they can.

Facebook users are now better protected from unauthorized password changes and suspicious logins thanks to a new set of security features.

Back in May, we first wrote about Pulse , an innovative and pretty news reading app for the iPad created by a couple of Stanford grads. Just about a month later, it hit for the iPhone as well . Today, they’re wasting little time graduating beyond the iUniverse with the launch of Pulse for Android.

The Chevy Volt is slowly and surely creeping towards dealers and GM is set to unveil the price tomorrow. At 12:00 pm ET Joel Ewanick, VP of US marketing, will make the announcement at the Plug-In 2010 Conference in San Jose, California.

The United States Agency for International Development ( USAID ) is using Facebook to promote the government’s humanitarian efforts around the world. The Page has about 5,000 Likes and incorporates Notes, videos, photos and discussions to share its message; posts usually only receive several dozen comments or Likes. We’ve already written about several ways governments are using Facebook to conduct business.

SecondMarket , a trading platform for private company stocks, has just released it’s Q2 2010 report. Overall transactions were down from Q1 – around $51 million in transactions were completed, less than the $70 million traded in March alone at the end of Q1. Volume may be down, but prices are still going up.