Apple combats scalpers with new lottery system for iPhone reservations in Hong Kong  —  Apple has implemented an interested system to fight those pesky scalpers who spoiled a recent iPhone 4S launch in Mainland China.  A newly set up page on the Hong Kong Apple online store has a lottery system …

Twitter's Dick Costolo on Ads, Censorship and Google (Video)  —  Twitter CEO Dick Costolo kicked off D: Dive Into Media with a bang on Monday, defending its ability to block tweets by country, rejecting the need for a stock offering and declaring 2012 to be the year of the Twitter election.

The Real Story of How Dick Costolo Kicked Investors Off Twitter's Board  —  The dribs and drabs of news about the shakeup of Twitter's board last year has produced a confusing picture.  The message I was hearing from sources while I was out on maternity leave amounted to: “Nothing to see here.

Facebook IPO will put public markets to shame  —  The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist.  The opinions expressed are his own  —  Facebook's imminent stock sale risks putting public stock markets to shame.  Investors will surely clamor for a piece of the social network.

Obama and Romney Campaigns Adopt Square for Funding  —  Social media was the game-changing technology that altered the course of the 2008 presidential election.In 2012, mobile payments could be the transformational technology, as millions of political supporters are given the ability to collect money on smartphones for candidates.

The Only Thing Less Stable Than Working at a Start-Up: Working at a Start-Up Co-Working Space  —  The city of Mountain View, Calif., is threatening to shut down Hacker Dojo, a co-working and events space for coders, because it isn't up to code.  —  Hacker Dojo already halted a planned expansion …

John Browett Joins Apple as Senior Vice President of Retail  —  Apple® today announced that John Browett will join the company as senior vice president of Retail, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook.  Browett comes to Apple from European technology retailer Dixons Retail, where he has been CEO since 2007.

Sky Will De-Couple Pay-TV Content From Satellite For OTT IPTV Era  —  BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is acting to head off rising City concerns about the threat from over-the-top connected TV services, by announcing it will launch, by the summer, its own such service that does not require a satellite subscription.

Angry Birds boss: ‘Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business’  —  Rovio's Mikael Hed tells music industry audience that embracing pirates can attract new fans  —  Rovio Mobile learned from the music industry's mistakes when deciding how to deal with piracy of its Angry Birds games …

Facebook launches Timeline Movie Maker  —  Summary: Facebook has launched Timeline Movie Maker, an app that creates a movie out of content on your new Facebook Timline.  Does the movie change your opinion of Timeline?  —  Facebook today launched Timeline Movie Maker, which creates a movie highlighting moments from your Timeline.

Three Founders Are Out At Demand Media  —  Demand Media is known for churning lots of content through its sites, but today it's notable for another churn, of the executive kind: three of the people who helped found and build up the company are leaving.  —  Larry Fitzgibbon, Joe Perez …

Obama's Google+ Hangout Didn't Change the Game, It Just Changed the Channel  —  The President of the United States held a Google+ Hangout today.  He fielded questions selected from over 130,000 submissions as well as from five lucky Americans selected to hang out with him live.

As Anonymous protests, Internet drowns in inaccurate anti-ACTA arguments  —  After the Internet's decisive victory over the Stop Online Piracy Act earlier this month, online activists have been looking for their next target, and a growing number of them have chosen the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement …

Node.js creator Ryan Dahl steps away from Node's day-to-day  —  Ryan Dahl, the hacker who brought the world Node.js, is turning over the reins to Joyent's Isaac Schlueter.  —  Dahl, who started working on the Node project in 2009, stated in a Google Groups post Monday …

Codecademy Becomes A Platform: Now Anyone Can Write Programming Tutorials  —  One of the most buzzed-about startups over the last few months has been Codecademy — a site that looks to make programming accessible to just about anyone, with a variety of interactive, web-based courses …

Feature Phones Now More Profitable Than Mid-tier Smartphones  —  For many handset vendors, the world has turned upside down.  Nokia's $40 feature phones are vastly more profitable than Sony Ericsson's $200 Android models.  This is not how the smartphone revolution was supposed to turn out.

German appeals court upholds Galaxy Tab 10.1 injunction — but on different legal basis than Apple's design right  —  This morning, the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court (an appeals court) announced that it has upheld a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and has confirmed …

Google launches official Android Developers page on Google+  —  In order to spread its message and keep developers in the loop, the fabulous Android development team launched an official Android Developers page on Google+.  The team said it is launching the new website to connect with developers …

Paying To Serve: Microsoft Offers Accelerator-Backed Startups $60,000* In Azure Cloud Usage  —  The perks of getting into a top startup accelerator just got a little better.  Microsoft is now offering startups in its new BizSpark Plus program $60,000 worth of costs for using its Azure cloud computing program.

Facebook tests ‘games only’ activity feed, might drop games ticker  —  Facebook is testing a games-only activity feed that groups all friends' game stories in one place.  The social network is also considering scrapping the games-only ticker that appears along side canvas apps.

Tablet Shipments To Reach 383.3 Million By 2017, 46% In Emerging Markets  —  Post-PC era?  Here we come: According to new data from NPD, tablet PC shipments are expected to grow from 72.7 million units in 2011 to 383.3 million units by 2017.  For comparison purposes, worldwide PC shipments …

SocialCam Is Growing, But It's The Latest Alum Startup Returning To Y Combinator Anyway  —  Having spun out of online broadcaster Justin.tv last year, SocialCam has managed to get a strong footing on iOS and Android.  It passed 3 million downloads in December, and it's now sending 3 million notifications …