Micron CEO Steve Appleton dies in airplane crash  —  Airport officials say the plane is described as an experimental fixed wing single engine Lancair.  The plane went down at about 8:58 a.m. Here's the full news release issued by the Micron Board of Directors: “We are deeply saddened to announce …

Apple: All iPad and iPhone Models Will be Back on Sale Online in Germany Shortly  —  That was fast.  —  Apple, which has spent the past day pulling older model iPhone and iPad inventory from the shelves of its online store in Germany, is now scrambling to restore it.

Analysis: A sobering look at Facebook  —  (Reuters) - It's the year's hottest initial public offering, but some wealth managers find themselves having a hard time recommending Facebook to their clients.  —  The world's biggest social network is expected to seek a $75 billion to $100 billion valuation …

First: Apple's rank in mobile phone profitability and revenues  —  Apple retained its top rank in profitability and regained the top spot in mobile phone revenues.  —  The relative shares of revenues and profits are shown below:  —  Individually, Apple's share of units, revenues and profits is chronicled below:

EU regulators want Google to halt new privacy policy  —  A group of European regulators has written to Google Inc calling on it to halt the introduction of its new privacy policy, saying it needs to investigate whether the proposals sufficiently protect users' personal data.

Verizon Galaxy Nexus removed from Google's developer support pages (update)  —  Google has seemingly eliminated the Verizon version of the Galaxy Nexus from the company's internally-supported “Nexus” program — a series of devices designed to showcase new versions of stock Android …

Anonymous spies on FBI / UK Police hacking investigation conference call  —  A recording of a confidential conference call between the FBI and UK law enforcement officers at the Metropolitan Police has been released by Anonymous on the internet.  —  And if you think that's bad enough news …

What is the mystery “entertainment device” Google is testing?  —  Google is asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to test a mysterious Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-enabled “entertainment device,” in employees homes in four U.S. cities.  So inquiring minds want to know, what exactly is it?

Why most Facebook users get more than they give  —  Half the adults and three-quarters of the teenagers in America use social networking sites (SNS) and Facebook by far is the most popular of these sites.  The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project fielded …

U.S. government, military to get secure Android phones  —  A U.S soldier checks his cell phone while on patrol in Iraq in December.  Smartphones are first being deployed to soldiers.  —  (CNN) — Some U.S. officials this year are expected to get smartphones capable of handling classified …

iBooks Author 1.01 out with updated EULA  —  An incremental release for iBooks Author has been released with changes to the program's EULA.  The update is 143.50 MB, which seems pretty hefty for a EULA change.  —  The change is an important one though, clarifying that Apple has rights over the format a book is in, not the content.

Xbox co-creator Seamus Blackley launches mobile-game startup with Atari arcade veterans  —  Seamus Blackley, the co-creator of the Xbox, passionately believes that gameplay will triumph in the game business.  That is why he and his new startup are relying on a team of famous designers …

The Dirty Little Secret Of Silicon Valley's Startup Boom...  In San Francisco cafes and bars, even on the street, I overhear people talking about their startup ideas, business plans, and goals.  And there are tons of incubators, Angels, wannabe Angels, VC firms, making investments in startups.

Smart phones overtake client PCs in 2011  —  Canalys today released its full, detailed Q4 2011 country-level smart phone shipment estimates to clients, so completing the picture for the year.  One notable result was that total annual global shipments of smart phones exceeded those of client PCs (including pads) for the first time.

Mozilla developing Web push notification system for Firefox  —  Mozilla is developing a push notification system for the Firefox Web browser.  It will allow users to receive notifications from websites without having to keep those sites open in their browser.

I switched to Bing on my iPhone and I kind of liked it  —  By the time that Microsoft announced its Bing search engine in 2009, Google had long since become a verb and several failed attempts at the search game were under the bridge.  But Bing was something different, a visually appealing …

Dropbox offers up to 5GB of free space to anyone willing to go beta  —  Here's some good news for all you Dropboxers out there: the company is offering a bundle of free storage space to anyone who tries the beta version of its new Experimental software.  It's really quite simple …

Tumblr now lets you highlight your posts, but it will cost you $1 each time  —  Just a day after the rather interesting announcement that Tumblr has hired a team to write about itself, they've announced a new feature for its users.  —  It reads: … The feature is now available when creating a brand new post.

After 3 Years Of A Crummy Checkin Experience, Foursquare Is Working On A Speedier Solution  —  This week we met with Foursquare's Head of Product, Alex Rainert.  —  We mostly asked questions about the company's incredibly social founder, Dennis Crowley, with whom Rainert founded Dodgeball in 2005.