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.

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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

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.

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) …

Judge denies EMI's bid to halt resale of digital music  —  ReDigi, a music marketplace for used digital tracks, will have its day in court.  —  EMI's The Capitol Records building in Hollywood.  Capitol Records is the EMI label represented in EMI's copyright suit against ReDigi.

Software apps have triggered half a million U.S. jobs, says study  —  The surge in mobile software and other apps has also led to a surge in jobs, almost half a million added just in the U.S., says a study out today from CEO network TechNet.  —  Dubbed the “app economy,” …

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.

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.

Inside Instagram: How Slowing Its Roll Put the Little Startup in the Fast Lane  —  The must-have app on the iPhone is not iMessage.  It's not iTunes or Safari or even Find My iPhone.  It's Instagram, the photo-sharing app that once described itself as “quirky.”  Cultish would be more appropriate these days.

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.

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.

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.

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 …

Acer sues former chief exec Lanci  —  Acer and its former chief executive Gianfranco Lanci may have parted ways for almost a year now, but it is apparently not quite water under the bridge between the two sides.  The Taiwanese company said on Tuesday that it has initiated legal action …