Week in review: Sony’s PlayStation Network back online

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

And we’re back: Sony’s PlayStation Network is now online in U.S. and Europe — Parts of Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) finally came back online last weekend in certain areas around the world — including the U.S. and Europe — after hackers were able to break into the network, forcing the company to bring it offline for nearly a month.

Activision (finally) starts talking about Modern Warfare 3 — After months of speculation and leaks, video game publisher Activision Blizzard has finally released some official information about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the latest installment of the blockbuster combat franchise whose previous two releases were the biggest-selling video games of all time.

Sony offers free games after bringing PlayStation Network back online — Sony is offering two free games and a host of other goodies to PlayStation Network (PSN) users to compensate for bringing its online gaming network and store down.

Modern Warfare 3 game will reference SEAL team that got bin Laden — Call of Duty Modern Warfare games have immersed gamers in fictionalized yet seemingly realistic combat experiences that reference real world events. So it’s not surprising that the upcoming Modern Warfare 3 game refers to the Navy SEAL team that took out Osama bin Laden.

Google’s in-house philosopher: Technologists need a “moral operating system” — The technology industry needs to think long and hard about ethics, according to Googler Damon Horowitz.

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

LinkedIn’s $8B IPO — Silicon Valley, get ready for housing recovery — LinkedIn, the professional social network, began trading its shares publicly Thursday and immediately soared to a market value of more than $8 billion — almost double the value of the company’s pricing yesterday.

Are solar panel manufacturing component prices falling fast enough? — The price of polysilicon, a key component in manufacturing solar panels that capture sunlight and convert it to electricity, fell 5.1 percent to $74.4 per kilogram from $78.19 last month.

Seriously, Google? Android security flaw affects 99.7% of phones — It’s almost like we can’t go a week without a major mobile security flaw making headlines.

Quattro co-founder launches mobile-app tool startup Session M — Lars Albright, the entrepreneur whose technology now powers Apple’s iAds, has a new startup, and it just raised a $6.5 million round led by famed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Lawsuit: AT&T overcharging iPhone users by up to 300% — A class action lawsuit filed against AT&T is alleging that the company is routinely overcharging its 20 million iPhone and iPad users for data usage.