Tech Roundup: NSA MYSTIC, Air Pollution & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]

• China begins investigating new satellite images of debris in the southern Indian Ocean, potentially from the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, as the 25-nation hunt enters third week.
• Latest Edward Snowden leaks reveal NSA can record an entire nation's phone calls and store them up to a period of 30 days under a program named MYSTIC; Agency's top lawyer Rajesh De says US tech giants were fully aware of NSA's widespread data collection practices.
• Air pollution reaches record levels in Beijing and Paris; French authorities impose a partial driving ban, while China begins testing on a new anti-pollution drone to tackle the crisis.
• Scientists discover four new man-made gases, three chlorofluorocarbons and one hydrochlorofluorocarbon, contributing to ozone layer depletion.
• USA's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms a rare case of woman to woman sexual transmission of HIV virus.
• New study reveals climate change induced warmer temperatures are causing malaria to spread to higher altitudes that were previously malaria-free.
• Turkey imposes Twitter ban following civilian unrest; plan backfires as people begin to use SMS and DNS workarounds to tweet.
• Google's KitKat homescreen launcher now available for all Nexus and Google Play Edition devices.
• Microsoft Windows 8.1 development complete; Redmond said to be exploring a free or low-cost version to gun down Google Chromebook popularity.
• Android KitKat 4.4 for Sony Xperia Z, Xperia Z1, Xperia Z1 Compact, Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One and LG G2 rolling out; Samsung officially stops artificially boosting benchmarks with the update.
• Apple announces iOS in the Car to counter Google's Open Automative Alliance; rolls out iOS 7.1 in tandem with a multitude of improvements and iOS in the Car support.
• Indian OEMs Karbonn and Lava granted free license to use Windows Phone in their upcoming smartphones; seen as an attempt to boost market share in the country.
• Google redesigns search results page; bumps hyperlinks' font and removes the 90's-styled underlines.
• Yahoo! blocks Google and Facebook sign-ins; a Yahoo! user account mandatory to access its services.
• Nokia's first Android smartphone Nokia X launched in India for Rs. 8599.
• Oracle announces Java 8; adds Lambda expressions, new Time/ Date APIs and a host of other features.
• Apple working on a new music streaming service like Spotify; may even launch iTunes on Android to offset declining music downloads, reports Billboard.
• Microsoft releases OneNote as free software for Mac and Windows as it goes truly cross-platform.
• Facebook retires controversial '@facebook.com' email service.
• Music streaming service Rdio acquires recently shut down Dhingana; unveils plans to launch in India later this year.