Declan McCullagh at CNET is reporting that the FBI is looking to expand CALEA — the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act — to apply to Web sites and services like iCloud, iChat, FaceTime, Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Gmail, and Hotmail. Passed in 1994, CALEA currently requires telecommunications companies to make their systems wiretap-friendly; CALEA was extended to broadband networks in 2004. Technology companies are generally unhappy about such expansions, and Apple is lobbying on the topic now. Mandated backdoors, apart from being generally creepy even when used only with court orders, also pose serious security risks.

In April 2012, Apple started shipping a slight variant on the iPad 2 that remains for sale even as the third-generation iPad has become the mainstay of the line. This new version of the iPad 2 — labeled internally as “iPad 2,4” — uses a 32 nanometer version of Apple’s A5 chip that replaces the 45nm version in the previous iPad 2 model. The processing performance is the same, but AnandTech is reporting that the 32nm model has notably better battery life (and a lower manufacturing cost). Alas, there is no way to know if any given iPad 2 uses the new chip without running an app that reports on the internals.

In a chapter excerpted from a book on WordPress, Kirk Biglione offers a nice rundown of the costs of DRM, to readers, to publishers, to retailers, and to the world at large. It’s especially apropos, given that 4 May 2012 is the fourth annual “Day Against DRM.”

Ars Technica reports that Oracle, the company that manages the Java development environment, has taken over distribution of Java for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion (older versions are not supported). Since Apple has failed to update Java as quickly as Oracle has in the past, this should mean that Mac users will be protected from future Java vulnerabilities more quickly. Unfortunately, this 1.7.0_04 release of Java does not support the Java Plugin and Java Web Start applications, meaning that Java applets won’t be available to Mac users who install Oracle’s code. Therefore, it’s probably best holding off on Oracle’s version of Java until those pieces are available, or until a new security vulnerability makes it unavoidable.

Apple made an in-house parody ad of its famous “1984” ad called “1944” that has to be seen to be believed. A long-ago Apple employee, Craig Elliott, provided the video to Network World’s Paul McNamara. Steve Jobs does an impression of FDR, among other bizarre moments. It was made to pump up Apple’s sales force, and may not have been seen since 1984.

Dropbox updated its software to allow automatic uploading of photos and videos when you plug in a camera or smartphone via USB or insert a memory card into a USB reader on a computer with Dropbox installed. Adam Engst explained the features in depth last month. Dropbox increases free accounts from 2 GB to as much as 5 GB as you upload photos and videos. Version 1.4 is automatically installed on your computer to enable this feature.

An update to Dropbox, the desktop file-synchronization service, lets you select any file or folder to share with others via a URL, no longer limiting such links to items in its Public folder. The new link format also provides a Web-based preview of many supported document and media file formats.

Apple has announced that the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference will take place from 11 June 2012 to 15 June 2012 in San Francisco. Tickets cost $1,599 and sold out within the first two hours (much to the consternation of West Coast developers who woke up to discover they couldn’t attend).

On the Tech Night Owl Live podcast, Take Control editor in chief Tonya Engst shared her perspective on ebook-related topics as a small publisher selling ebooks in big online venues like Apple’s iBookstore and Amazon’s Kindle Store. She also talked about her latest ebook, “Take Control of Your iPad,” recently updated to include the third-generation iPad and iOS 5.1.

Interested in learning how an iPad can fit into your photography? Jeff Carlson engaged in a Twitterview (a Twitter interview) on 25 April 2012 to talk about his book “The iPad for Photographers.” He discussed importing photos, using the iPad as a laptop replacement while on vacation, rating and keyword-tagging images, and editing photos directly on the iPad. A transcript of the interview is available if you want a crash course in working with photos on the iPad, parceled out in 140-character nuggets.