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Pre-caffeine tech: Mega zoom, mini smartphones and more

iPhone
Even though it's rather hot outside, you should probably not put your iPhone into the freezer.Rosa Golijan / NBC News

Our pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning.

A 3-D-printed rocket part passed a major NASA test.

Need to get a bit closer? Panasonic's got you covered with its latest super-zoom camera. The FZ70's massive lens provides a 60x optical zoom — the 35mm equivalent of a 1200mm lens.

If you love the HTC One but find that it's a wee bit too big, consider the HTC One Mini. It combines many of the One's best features in a considerably smaller package.

Dozens of companies, non-profits and trade organizations including Apple, Google, and Facebook sent a letter pushing the Obama administration and Congress for more disclosures on the government's national security-related requests for user data.

Security experts are stress-testing anti-theft measures designed to render stolen smartphones inoperable.

Apple's pushing out a software update for many MacBook Air models to fix some Wi-Fi connectivity issues.

Rumor is that Motorola's highly anticipated Moto X smartphone will launch on Aug. 26.

A monthly comic series based on the storyline introduced in "Halo 4" will hit shelves soon.

Honda built a ride-on lawn mower capable of reaching speeds of up to 130 mph. Unfortunately, the lawnmower is merely a one-off project and won't become available to consumers anytime soon.

You can now get a free year of Xbox Live Gold with the purchase of Office 265.

Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.