Google hires a senior director at Apple for a top secret project (exclusive)  —  Google has pulled off a coup by hiring an Apple senior director of product integrity for a secret project, VentureBeat has learned.  —  The recruiting feat is historic since Google has never hired such a senior person away from Apple.

Where to watch the 2012 Super Bowl live online  —  Super Bowl weekend is upon us, and this year, the big game is going to be streamed live online for the very first time.  Who wants to see the game between the Giants and the Patriots on a tiny laptop screen, you might ask?

Why Apple's A5 is so big—and iPhone 4 won't get Siri  —  Why Apple's A5 is so big and the iPhone 4 won't get Siri Noise-reduction technology from a start-up called Audience accounts for the size of the iPhone 4S chip and keeps Siri off the iPhone 4, analyst Linley Gwennap concludes.

Windows 8 Start button removed by Microsoft in ‘Consumer Preview’  —  Microsoft has taken the bold step of removing the traditional Windows Start button from its Windows 8 “Consumer Preview.”  The Start button and menu were both introduced with Windows 95 over 15 years ago …

AT&T Starts Throttling Unlimited Data Users after 2GB of Monthly Usage  —  In October, AT&T announced that they would start throttling data usage amongst mobile Unlimited Data Plan users.  While AT&T no longer offers an Unlimited Data plan to new customers, many of the original iPhone purchasers are still grandfathered into that plan.

Toyota takes to spamming Twitter for Camry Super Bowl ‘promotion’  —  Twitter is a great platform to get people stoked about anything, if done right.  You can promote potato chips like @popchips does, and it could turn into a huge following for your brand and have fun doing it.

How Does Facebook Make Money?  —  Facebook's IPO filing this week confirmed what we already knew: Facebook makes the vast majority of its money by selling ads on its site.  —  But now we know just how much of its revenue comes from advertising: 85% in 2011, with the remaining 15% coming from payments and other fees.

LibreOffice stats: 400 total contributors, thousands of code commits every month  —  The Document Foundation (TDF), which launched in 2010 to develop LibreOffice, has published statistics that illustrate the project's rapid growth.  Approximately 400 total developers have contributed code to the project.

Motorola wants 2.25% of Apple's sales in return for license to standard-essential wireless patents  —  In my previous post (on Motorola's lawsuits against the German Apple Stores), I said that a statement by Apple's counsel at yesterday's Mannheim trial made me aware of a discovery request …

Facebook Is Using You  —  LAST week, Facebook filed documents with the government that will allow it to sell shares of stock to the public.  It is estimated to be worth at least $75 billion.  But unlike other big-ticket corporations, it doesn't have an inventory of widgets or gadgets, cars or phones.

Zuckerberg's Big Tax Bill May Benefit Facebook  —  Few billionaires are willing to reveal much about their taxes.  —  But the Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has indirectly done so in the documents for his company's public stock offering later this year.