Leander Kahney:

As my colleague Mike Elgan points out, the iPhone has changed the world in profound ways.

Now an ex-colleague, Brian Chen of Wired.com, has just published one of the first books to take an in-depth look at how, exactly, the smartphone world is shaping up.

Always On: How the iPhone Unlocked the Anything-Anytime-Anywhere Future — and Locked Us In is an excellent overview of how the iPhone is changing the computing landscape.

I follow Apple closely, yet I was surprised at how much I learned about the world of mobile from Chen’s well-reported book (Full disclosure: I provided a blurb).

Dylan Lowball McCain:

Players who use computers to cheat are a growing concern in the chess world. Now the developer of Rybka, the winner of the last four World Computer Chess Championships, has been accused of plagiarizing code to create the program.

Rybka has been stripped of its titles, and the developer, Vasik Rajlich, has been barred from entering programs in competitions.

The ruling on Rybka and Mr. Rajlich was made Tuesday by the International Computer Gaming Association, the group that organizes the championships. It concluded that Mr. Rajlich, who has American and Czech citizenship and lives in Poland, had used source code from programs called Crafty and Fruit.

“We are convinced that the evidence against Vasik Rajlich is both overwhelming in its volume and beyond reasonable question in its nature,” the association’s executive committee said in a statement.

Favid Streitfeld:

As millions of Americans struggle in foreclosure with little hope of relief, big banks are going to borrowers who are not even in default and cutting their debt or easing the mortgage terms, sometimes with no questions asked.

Two of the nation’s biggest lenders, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, are quietly modifying loans for tens of thousands of borrowers who have not asked for help but whom the banks deem to be at special risk.

Rula Giosmas is one of the beneficiaries. Last year she received a letter from Chase saying it was cutting in half the amount she owed on her condominium.

Ms. Giosmas, who lives in Miami, was not in default on her $300,000 loan. She did not understand why she would receive this gift — although she wasted no time in taking it.

Lawrence Lindsey:

Washington is struggling to make a deal that will couple an increase in the debt ceiling with a long-term reduction in spending. There is no reason for the players to make their task seem even more Herculean than it already is. But we should be prepared for upward revisions in official deficit projections in the years ahead—even if a deal is struck. There are at least three major reasons for concern.

First, a normalization of interest rates would upend any budgetary deal if and when one should occur. At present, the average cost of Treasury borrowing is 2.5%. The average over the last two decades was 5.7%. Should we ramp up to the higher number, annual interest expenses would be roughly $420 billion higher in 2014 and $700 billion higher in 2020.

The 10-year rise in interest expense would be $4.9 trillion higher under “normalized” rates than under the current cost of borrowing. Compare that to the $2 trillion estimate of what the current talks about long-term deficit reduction may produce, and it becomes obvious that the gains from the current deficit-reduction efforts could be wiped out by normalization in the bond market.

Phil Izzo:

Ahead of the Federal Reserve‘s policy-setting meeting tomorrow and the coming end this month of QE2, it’s worth taking a look at the latest figures from the Fed’s balance sheet.

Assets on the Fed’s balance sheet sit at around $2.811 trillion as of last Wednesday. That’s up from less than $1 trillion prior to the recession. During the recession the Fed expanded its balance sheet through several programs aimed at keeping markets functioning. As markets stabilized the Fed shifted out of emergency programs and into purchases of U.S. Treasurys, mortgage-backed securities and agency debt securities to drive down interest rates and encourage more borrowing and growth in two separate rounds of what is known as quantitative easing.

Though the overall size of the balance sheet is continuing to increase, the makeup is moving back toward the long-term trend. The MBS and agency debt holdings, which were part of the first round of quantitative easing, have steadily declined as loans are paid off or mature. The Fed still holds nearly $1 trillion in MBS and more than $1 trillion in agency debt, but now owns more Treasurys — over $1.5 trillion. As the latest round of bond-buying announced last year ends this month, the size of the balance sheet is likely to stabilize. The Treasurys holdings are likely to continue to rise, as the central bank purchases bonds with money reinvested from its shrinking MBS portfolio. If economic growth accelerates this year, as the Fed hopes, ending the reinvestment of maturing MBS is likely to be the first step toward eventually raising rates and paring down the central bank’s balance sheet.

Adam Davidson:

Livable cities draw creative people, and creative people spawn jobs. Some places you’d never expect—small cities not dominated by a university—are learning how to lure knowledge workers, entrepreneurs, and other imaginative types at levels that track or even exceed the US average (30 percent of workers). Here are some surprising destinations from the data of the Martin Prosperity Institute, directed by Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative class.

Case Study: Omaha, Nebraska
It’s only the 42nd-largest city in the US, but over the past two decades, Omaha has been transformed into one of the Midwest’s most vibrant cultural hubs. Here’s how the rebirth happened, starting in the ’90s.

Ben Doherty:

Tileshwar Prasad concentrates fiercely on every step, one foot in front of the other, staring at the wall ahead as he learns how to walk again.

At the end of his careful parade, he is asked how he feels with his new limb, a prosthetic foot built from rubber and wood, and a new knee made of nylon and a handful of bolts.

For the first time in a decade he is able to stand unaided, hands on hips and back straight.

Garry Trudeau:

As I’m old enough to recall the stereotypes that formed around Vietnam veterans, I’m well aware of this danger. The purpose of my stories has been to participate in the national conversation about the costs of war. JPWREL and VICTOR are correct that the majority of warriors return home without invisible wounds, but it is by no means an “overwhelming” majority. There are an estimated 600,000 veterans (out of 2.2 million who’ve served in OEF and OIF) who are suffering from either stress disorders, MST, or the effects of TBI. The proportion is considerably higher than in previous wars because of multiple deployments and the aggregate number of consecutive days that participants are in a high-conflict environment, thus in a rolling state of stress and hyper-vigilance.

Floyd Norris:

There is some reason, however, to think that the recent price declines may be overstated by the index. The figures are based on sales of the same home over time, but there is no way to measure changes in the quality of a home.

With many homes now being sold in distress, either because of foreclosure or as “short sales” in which the sales price is below the amount owed and all the proceeds go to the lender, it is likely that some of the homes were in poor condition. In addition, such sales are often made for lower prices than comparable homes could obtain if sold without time pressures. If and when nondistress sales become a larger part of the market, that could cause the index to rise even if the overall market is not getting stronger.