Chrome for Android beta launches with place shifting, faster rendering, and card view  —  Chrome for Android — the long-rumored, oft-requested grand unification of Google's mobile and desktop browsing technologies — has just been announced today, and it's being made available immediately …

Those Millions on Facebook?  Some May Not Actually Visit  —  On the first page of Facebook's prospectus for its sale of stock to the public, it pegs the number of its “monthly active users” at a whopping 845 million people.  The social networking site arrives at an even more astounding number …

BlackBerry App World stats: six million daily downloads, higher profitability than Android  —  Alec Saunders, RIM's VP for Developer Relations, used the BlackBerry DevCon Europe stage today to “bust a few myths” about the state of the BlackBerry app ecosystem.

Rogers, BCE vying for a bite of Apple's iTV  —  Canada's largest telecommunications companies are squaring off in a fight about the future of television.  —  Rogers Communications Inc. RCI.B-T and BCE Inc. BCE-T are in talks with Apple Inc. AAPL-Q to become Canadian launch partners …

Amazon S3 Price Reduction  —  As you can tell from my recent post on Amazon S3 Growth for 2011, our customers are uploading new objects to Amazon S3 at an incredible rate.  We continue to innovate on your behalf to drive down storage costs and pass along the resultant savings to you at every possible opportunity.

IPad 3: Predictions and Challenges From iFixit  —  Kyle Wiens of iFixit, a Web site that provides free repair manuals and advice forums, has been a reliable prognosticator of everything Apple.  With the next iPad expected to come out in March, Wiens recently gazed into his crystal ball.

Apple in early discussions to open stores inside of Sam's Club locations  —  Apple and Walmart subsidiary Sam's Club are in early discussions to widen their already existing partnership.  Sam's Club currently sells Apple's iPhone, iPad, and iPod lines within its large retail chain …

Apple intern's thesis leaks secret project to port Mac OS X to ARM processors  —  An academic paper written by a former Apple intern who now serves as a Core OS engineer at the company has revealed that it was working on a secret experiment to port Mac OS X Snow Leopard to the ARM architecture.

Hackers wanted $50,000 to keep Symantec source code private  —  Symantec told a hacker group that it would pay $50,000 to keep the source code for some of the company's flagship security products off the Internet, the company confirmed to CNET this evening.  —  An e-mail exchange revealing …

Wolfram Alpha Pro democratizes data analysis: an in-depth look at the $4.99 a month service  —  On Wednesday, February 8th, Wolfram Alpha will be adding a new, “Pro” option to its already existing services.  Priced at a very reasonable $4.99 a month ($2.99 for students) …

Vice President of iPhone and iPod Engineering David Tupman left Apple at the end of last year  —  Last year Apple saw the loss of many executives ranging from its OS X chief, iAd chief, and Global Security chief, and 2012 has started off with another leave: the departure Vice President David Tupman.

New High-DPI UI Resources in 10.7.3  —  Have you noticed that Safari's hovering-over-a-link pointing-finger cursor looks a little different in Mac OS X 10.7.3?  It's not just that the finger is at a slightly different angle — it's a new UI resource that scales gracefully to larger sizes.

What's your X?  Amplifying technology moonshots  —  Last week, we ran an experiment.  We hosted a gathering, called “Solve for X,” for experienced entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists from around the world.  The event focused on proposing and discussing technological solutions to some of the world's greatest problems.

Charles Dickens' 200th Birthday Marks First Google Doodle as Promotional Vehicle  —  Google's latest Doodle marks the 200th Birthday of british novelist Charles Dickens but also marks the first time that the company has used their logo change to specifically promote a product or service.

Google to strip Chrome of SSL revocation checking  —  Google's Chrome browser will stop relying on a decades-old method for ensuring secure sockets layer certificates are valid after one of the company's top engineers compared it to seat belts that break when they are needed most.

Samsung reduces its LTE chip cost by half  —  For every new iteration of mobile phones, it's easy to assume that products are getting pricier because the insides are getting just as expensive.  —  A sample picture of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus' baseband chip.

Adobe Creative Cloud to be priced at $49.99 monthly, includes Creative Suite 6 and Lightroom 4  —  Later in the first half of 2012, Adobe will introduce Creative Cloud, an end-to-end service offering that will grant users access to its upcoming Creative Suite 6 apps and provide ancillary services starting …

Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux computer on track to launch later this month  —  The first model of the Raspberry Pi Foundation's low-cost Linux computer will likely be available for purchase later this month.  The organization announced today that manufacturing on the first batch is set to complete on February 20.

Verizon's Motorola DROID 4 launches on February 10th for $199.99  —  Verizon Wireless on Tuesday finally confirmed launch details for the latest addition to its popular DROID family of Android smartphones, the Motorola DROID 4.  The sleek QWERTY slider will become available later this week …

Picture Dims for Japanese Electronics  —  Over a span of three days last week, a trifecta of Japan's most-celebrated electronics companies—Sony Corp., Sharp Corp. and Panasonic Corp.—gave up hope for an annual profit, projecting combined losses of nearly $17 billion for the March-ending fiscal year.

Klout Acquires Local And Mobile Neighborhood App Blockboard  —  Flush with new capital, Klout, the startup that measures influence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, Google+ and other social apps, is making its first acquisition.  Klout is purchasing mobile and local neighborhood app Blockboard.

In Customer Service Push, Microsoft Invests In 24/7, Which Acquires Voxify  —  People who are forced to engage in online chats with virtual customer service agents-or who are passed from agent to agent without getting their problems solved-are likely to get highly frustrated and take their business elsewhere.

Exclusive: First Windows Store games for Windows 8 revealed  —  Microsoft is readying its Windows Store for a public preview and the “Consumer Preview” version of Windows 8 will provide access to a number of launch games for the company's latest operating system.

Judge Denies Initial Effort To Shut Down ‘Used’ Digital Music Seller ReDigi  —  The recording industry's lawsuit over what it believes to be a “clearinghouse for copyright infringement” continues after the defendant wins the first round.  —  ReDigi, an upstart digital company that sells …