Protecting Your Passwords and Your Privacy  —  In recent months, we've seen a distressing increase in reports of employers or others seeking to gain inappropriate access to people's Facebook profiles or private information.  This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user's friends.

Rovio working on Angry Birds Space for WP -CEO  —  (Reuters) - Finnish gaming firm Rovio is working on getting its new Angry Birds Space game to Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform (WP7), its chief executive said on Friday, dismissing earlier media reports which said the top gaming firm was dumping the platform.

What Google Hasn't Done: Explained Why We as Users Would Want a Unified Online Identity  —  After years of providing us with many very good products — search, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome — Google is now on a mission to turn itself into one big product that understands each of us as one unified person.

Report: Nokia paying AT&T for exclusive employee use of the Lumia 900  —  We've heard numerous times that the Nokia Lumia 900 will be a “hero” device for AT&T, a term that is unfamiliar for many who are not in the business of smartphones.  Here, the usage refers to AT&T promoting the Lumia 900 …

Best Buy Is Selling Nearly as Many iPhones as Apple Itself  —  Apple's move to make Best Buy an outlet for the iPhone back in 2008 is proving a wise one — lucrative, too.  —  Over the past few years, the retail chain has become an increasingly important outlet for Apple, extending its reach and distribution via its 1,100 stores.

The Future of Apps and Web  —  A high-impact cover story in Wired magazine in 2010 asserted in its title: “The Web Is Dead.  Long Live the Internet.”  1 Authors Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff argued that the World Wide Web was “in decline” and “apps” were in ascendance.

Facebook Sets High Asking Price for Log-Out Ads: $700K a Day  —  Seeks to Tap Big Display Dollars on Eve of IPO  —  Facebook's new log-out ads are big, splashy and the closest thing to a traditional banner ad the social network has ever produced.  They're also pricey …

Insight: Samsung: “fast executioner” seeks killer design  —  (Reuters) - When Samsung Electronics rushed its first smartphone to market in a panicky response to the smash-hit debut of the Apple iPhone, some customers burned the product on the streets or hammered it to bits in public displays of disaffection.

Signs in Mountain Lion point to “retina” display MacBooks sooner than later  —  A new clue found within in the latest developer release of OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) suggests that 2012 may bring us the “summer of retina display Macs.”  A source with access to the latest Mountain Lion preview alerted Ars …

RIM to Give Developers Prototypes of New BlackBerry in May  —  Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) plans to give software developers prototypes of a new BlackBerry in early May, signaling RIM is a step closer to the debut of a handset it's betting on to revive slumping sales.

iPads keep charging for “up to” an hour after display shows 100%  —  iPad users who want to ensure they're getting a full charge every time they plug in should wait up to an hour after the device shows 100 percent.  That's according to Dr. Raymond M. Soneira, creator of DisplayMate and author …

Zynga: We Bought OMGPOP For $180M, Pincus To Sell 15 Percent Of Shares In Secondary Offering  —  Zynga has just released a new S-1 in connection with its secondary offering.  Among the details: a confirmation of the $180 million sale price for OMGPOP that we'd heard earlier this week …

Going Viral: How Codecademy Snagged 200,000 Users in Seven Days  —  At 3 a.m. one night in mid-December last year, Zach Sims, the 21-year-old CEO of Codecademy, took a break from answering emails and spent $8.95 on the domain name “codeyear.com.”  Sims, whose company offers interactive online lessons …

Spotify Is Raising At A Stunning $3.5 Billion Valuation, Multiple VCs Say  —  All-you-can eat music service Spotify is raising another big round of funding, and it is asking investors to value the company somewhere around $3.5 billion, multiple Silicon Valley investors tell us.

AT&T rubs salt in T-Mobile's wound after layoff announcement, slams FCC  —  AT&T has shown an enormous amount of swagger throughout the entire story arc of its merger attempt with T-Mobile USA, much of which has come directly from the mouth and pen of John Cicconi, AT&T's EVP of external …

Disconnect: Ex-Googlers Raise Funding To Stop Google, Facebook & More From Tracking Your Data  —  In the age of endless sharing, super cookies, social search results, and that ever-present social graph, it's comforting to know that there are some who are still prioritizing privacy.