Week in review: U.S. government goes after Bitcoin

Here’s our roundup of the week’s top tech business news. First, the most popular stories that we published in the last seven days:

Forget piracy, U.S. government is going after Bitcoin — Two U.S. senators want to crack down on Bitcoin, an open-source digital currency.

Bethesda finally opens up Skyrim’s massive world — There are more than 300 books embedded in the game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It’s a reminder that the developers at Bethesda Game Studios see their job as creating an entire world —- a full-blown fictional universe.

Live coverage of Apple WWDC — Liveblogging from Apple’s big event on Monday, where the company unveiled a new version of its mobile operating system iOS.

Skype’s problems keep adding up, will prove a challenge for Microsoft — Early on Tuesday, popular Internet chat service Skype experienced a significant outage, with a large number of users not being able to sign in or make calls.

Hack lets anyone install iOS 5 —- oh, and it’s jailbroken already too — Just one day after Apple announced and released an early version of iOS 5 to developers, hackers proved that the mobile OS is just as susceptible to exploits as past versions.

And here are five more posts we think are important, thought-provoking, or fun:

First iPhone in space to launch with last shuttle mission — When the final space shuttle mission launches later this year, two iPhone 4s will be on board.

E3 Day One: A good day for gamers (poll) — Now that the E3 video game trade show is over, everyone can now start arguing about who won the battle of the press conferences. Was it Sony or Microsoft? Or Electronic Arts or Ubisoft?

MobileNotifier UI designer: Apple’s iOS 5 notifications sure look familiar — Nashville-based designer Kyle Adams spearheaded the user interface work for the MobileNotifier app since late January. So you can imagine his surprise when Apple unveiled its revamped iOS 5 notifications yesterday, which sported quite a few similarities.

500 Startups accelerates 21 new companies — 500 Startups, the early-stage investment firm created by “super angel” Dave McClure, just released the list of the second group of companies in its incubator program, the 500 Startups Accelerator.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is World of Warcraft for Star Wars fans — Let’s get this out there right now — Star Wars: The Old Republic probably won’t kill World of Warcraft. At least, not in terms of sheer gameplay.