The number of industries that Apple is disrupting with the iPhone and iPad is growing by the day. Amtrak, the government-owned American passenger railroad company, has adopted the iPhone as a ticket scanner for its 1,700 conductors, reports the New York Times .

Google today announced its long-awaited Google Drive cloud storage service, providing users with 5GB of free storage integrated with Google Docs and other Google services.

As is customary Thursdays, a bevy of great iOS releases debuted on the App Store today, including several we've been waiting for. Here's a sampling of what you'll find out there (all prices are USD): If you just pick up one of these, MacGuffin's Curse should be it

TIME magazine today released its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and two of the selections have close ties to Apple: CEO Tim Cook and Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson . Each selection is accompanied by an essay by another prominent personality or close associate outlining why the person qualifies for inclusion in the list. The essay on Cook is written by former vice president Al Gore, who has served on Apple's board of directors since 2003

As documented by Corkipedia , four Greenpeace activists climbed to the roof of Apple's offices in Cork, Ireland today, posting signage and distributing leaflets in an attempt to push Apple to adopt cleaner energy sources for its data centers. The protest, which lasted approximately an hour, came a day after Greenpeace blasted Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft for relying heavily on dirty coal power for their data centers.

Earlier this week, we noted that Apple had offered royalty-free licensing of its proposed design for next-generation "nano-SIM" cards for use in devices connecting to cellular networks, on the condition that its design be selected and that other rights holders offer similar licenses to encourage adoption. Prototype of Apple's proposed nano-SIM design inside outline of a mini-SIM card (Source: The Verge ) But as reported by FOSS Patents , the European Telecommunications Standards Institutes (ETSI) has postponed any vote on selecting a standard as the various companies proposing designs continue to squabble over the issue. According to the report, the participating companies have failed to reach an agreement and decided not to hold the envisioned vote

The intersection of physical games and Apple's iOS platform is interesting -- the iPad and the iPhone are very good for abstracted interfaces, just because you're touching them directly rather than using a mouse or a keyboard, so it makes sense that they'd be ideal for interacting in a game-like fashion in real space. And Phrase Game , by Removem 's Matt Martel, basically does just that. It's a party game, similar to Taboo or even Pictionary, and you play it like one of those.

Microsoft on Thursday announced a new round of challenges for its “Smoked By Windows Phone” contest series. If users with non-Windows Phone handsets can perform a variety of tasks faster than a Microsoft Windows Phone, they can win a limited edition Hunger Games PC (HP Folio 13 Special Edition) valued at $1,049.00.

Social game-maker Zynga has agreed to acquire OMGPOP , the development house behind the incredibly popular Draw Something . The acquisition price is reported to be $180 million plus $30 million in employee retention payments, according to Peter Kafka at All Things D , though Zynga isn't confirming that number. OMGPOP brings to Zynga an incredible team of industry veterans and a community of highly engaged players.

Although we've already seen many stories about possible iPad 3 part leaks over the past few weeks, MIC Gadget has been able to get its hands on the rumored parts for the iPad 3 Front Glass, Rear Shell, and 3rd party cases.