Morning Roundup: High on tech edition

Good morning, Houston. The next time one of your friends from Seattle tells you how high-tech her hometown is, here's something to fight back with: a Forbes magazine survey that ranked Houston as the nation's No. 4 up-and-coming tech city — right behind Palm Beach County, Fla. (uh, is that really a city?). The rating doesn't necessarily mean that we'll all be hanging out with robot babies anytime soon; instead, it reflects the advances of companies like itRobotics, which is making robots that inspect boilers and pipelines, and Nanospectra Biosciences, which is working on using tiny particles to fight cancer. And yet we can't do citywide Wi-Fi?

>> Perry taps Magidson for DA: Gov. Rick Perry plans to appoint assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson as the new Harris County DA pending approval from the federal Justice Department, the Chronicle reports. Magidson, 59, served as an assistant county DA in the early 1980s; as an assistant U.S. attorney, he's made a name for himself prosecuting drug smugglers. "I worked with him long enough before I left to be very confident that he is a very good choice for the job," Dan Hedges, a former U.S. attorney, told the Chron. "He is a very hard worker and very disciplined but very pleasant to work with." Assuming he is appointed, Magidson will replace Chuck Rosenthal, who resigned earlier this year amid a controversy over e-mails he sent using his county-owned computer.

>> Man killed in skydiving accident: Rex Williams, a 59-year-old skydiving student from Tacoma, Wash., died Wednesday in Rosharon when a skydive went wrong. According to KHOU, Williams' parachute either failed to open or wasn't deployed in time; he was jumping as part of a group just after 2 p.m. when the accident occurred. His body was found in a field off FM 521, about a mile from Skydive Spaceland's facility, Channel 11 reports. It's the second death in six months at Skydive Spaceland: In November, maintenance worker Scott Bell's body was found in a field two days after he went out for a night jump and never returned.

>> Today's weather: We hope you enjoyed the perfect weather we had yesterday, because today might not be so great: Expect clouds, a chance of afternoon showers and a high in the mid-70s. Tonight the chance of rain will stick around as temps fall into the lower 60s.

>> In brief: Gang fight might have led to prison riot ... Shipley Do-Nuts settles discrimination suit ... Police rescue teen allegedly forced into prostitution ... Mayor: Uptown condemnation really isn't a land grab ... Woman attacks store clerk over lack of styrofoam cups