Apple Chief Unveils a New Product: Himself  —  When he was alive, Steven P. Jobs, Apple's former chief executive, treated investors as if they were biohazards, rarely deigning to meet with them.  The disdain was not mutual, as an Apple stock chart for the last ten years shows.

iOS apps and the address book: who has your data, and how they're getting it  —  Over the course of the past week, a firestorm has erupted in the world of iOS apps, thanks to the discovery that Path was uploading data from your iPhone's address book without asking for explicit permission.

Clear: Why This Simple To Do List App Has Everyone Talking  —  Clear, the heavily-anticipated touch-based to-do list app, is launching in the iTunes App Store tonight.  And by heavily anticipated, I mean this app was getting tech blog coverage based on demos, previews and teaser videos.

Exclusive: Proview says any ban of iPad exports hard to impose  —  (Reuters) - A Chinese technology firm seeking to ban all shipments of Apple's popular iPad tablet into and out of the country has been told that China's customs authorities are unlikely to intervene in the trademark battle.

Amazon Has Fewer Prime Subscribers Than Estimated  —  Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)'s Prime service, a linchpin of its effort to keep customers loyal and fuel long- term profit, has attracted fewer than half as many members as analysts estimate, three people familiar with the matter said.

Apple Slashes iAd Pricing Again as Mobile Ad Share Declines  —  Moves Are Reaction to Competition From Google and Realities of Mobile-Ad Market  —  Apple is once again slashing the minimum amount it charges advertisers to run a campaign on its iAd mobile ad system and boosting the amount …

Apple's Size Clouds Market  —  To Get a Picture of Corporate Health, Analysts Cut Tech Giant Out of the Frame  —  In analyzing U.S. corporate earnings and stock-market trends, apples-to-apples comparisons may now require tossing out the Apple.  —  Apple Inc.'s success selling consumer gadgets …

Download bots were the “well-known secret” of the app ecosystem  —  It's remarkable how widely-known the phenomenon of fraudulent download bots was throughout the iOS developer community.  Essentially, bots or automated programs have been used for well over a year to download apps until …

Exclusive: HTC rumored to be working on a streaming music service  —  HTC Corp., one of the earliest champions of Android-based smartphones seems to have fallen on hard times, thanks to growing power of Samsung and Apple.  But the Taiwanese phone maker isn't ready to call it quits …

Happy Valentine's Day, Tech Bloggers  —  There's been so much hate and self-righteous indignation in tech blog circles lately.  Name calling.  Ugly accusations.  Petty bickering.  It's even divided good friends, brother against brother.  Can't we all just get along?

Google vs. the World  —  Google is battling law enforcement in the U.S. and around the world on three different legal battlefronts: antitrust, privacy and property.  Why is it only Google that is under serious law enforcement investigation for so many different serious infractions in so many countries around the world?

Zynga lessens its Amazon dependency  —  Zynga, the newly public company behind Farmville, Mafia Wars and other games played by gazillions of people, is relying far less on Amazon's public cloud than it has in the past.  —  On the company's fourth quarter earnings call Tuesday …

Take that, Netflix: Hulu premieres Battleground series  —  Hulu launched its first original scripted series Battleground Monday night, just one week after Netflix started its foray into original programming with Lilyhammer.  —  New episodes of Battleground, a comedy about a Senate campaign in Wisconsin …

Jonathan Schwartz Launches CareZone, A Simple Caregiving Site With Big Plans  —  The problem that former Sun Microsystems chief executive Jonathan Schwartz is trying to fix with his new startup is clear enough.  —  More and more people are having to care for older relatives as the US population ages …

Siri leaks her own upcoming ability to speak Japanese  —  Siri is many things, but it seems she is not a good secret keeper.  A few tipsters reached out and told us that Siri now speaks Japanese.  Rumors earlier this month said Apple's AI speech recognition interface would gain Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and possibly Russian.

Sony Says Price of 2 Whitney Houston Albums Was Raised by Mistake  —  Updated  —  Sony Music has responded to accusations that it was exploiting the death of Whitney Houston by raising the prices of two of her albums just hours after her death on Saturday.

Why Would You Pay $12 a Month for Free TV?  Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia Explains.  —  If you want to watch TV that comes from one of the broadcast channels, you've got options: You can get it for free, using an old-fashioned over-the-air antenna.  Or you can pay for it as part of your cable TV package.

Exclusive: Yahoo Asia Deal Talks Off for Now  —  According to sources close to the situation, the discussions between Yahoo and its Asian partners have hit a potentially deal-breaking impasse over the efficacy of the centerpiece of the complex negotiations — a cash-rich split-off — and several other issues.