Sparrow and Google  —  We're excited to announce that Sparrow has been acquired by Google!  We care a lot about how people communicate, and we did our best to provide you with the most intuitive and pleasurable mailing experience.  Now we're joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger vision …

“Yes, Keep Moving”: Marissa Mayer's First Memo to Yahoos (Natch!)  —  While I might abandon my internal memo-quest at Yahoo at some point soon, I wanted to make sure to post the very first one from newly installed — and extraordinarily well-paid — CEO Marissa Mayer.

Viacom Is Said To Get Over $600 Million A Year From DirecTV  —  Viacom Inc. (VIAB) will get more than $600 million a year from DirecTV (DTV) in programming fees under their new seven-year agreement, up at least 20 percent from the previous terms, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Kayak shares pop 14% to $30.10 in first trade (and climbing), online travel firm valued at $1b+ in IPO  —  The stock of online travel site Kayak.com just commenced trading on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol KYAK.  At its public debut, the share price promptly soared more than 14 percent to $30.10 …

Apple's new iPad launches in China with short queues and no chaos  —  Apple product launches in China are renowned for being chaotic and rowdy but today the company began selling its new iPad in the country under rather unusual circumstances.  Instead of being greeted by massive queues …

Where's Azure, and 4 other takeaways from Microsoft's earnings  —  For all of Microsoft's huge investment in the Azure cloud computing platform, there was scarcely mention of the multi-billion-effort on Thursday's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2012 earnings call.  Here are the top five takeaways from the call.

Apple Yanks Privacy App From The App Store  —  Apple Pulls Bitdefender's ‘Clueful’ Privacy App From The App Store  —  Back in May of this year, Internet security firm Bitdefender launched an App and service designed to help iOS users get a grip on what the apps installed on their mobile devices may be up to.

Fred Wilson is wrong about “Free”  —  Fred Wilson is one the smartest, most genuine people in the tech business.  He has a huge fan club that he has earned by being radically transparent and consistently engaging in public debate.  I have emailed with him a few times over the years …

Test Firefox OS on a desktop computer with new B2G nightly builds  —  The Firefox OS home screen running in the B2G nightly on Mac OS X  —  Mozilla is creating a new kind of mobile operating system that is aligned with standards-based Web technologies.  The platform, called Firefox OS …

World's first Android Jelly Bean carrier rollout halted due to emergency call problem  —  The expected rollout of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean to handsets on the Vodafone Australia network has been delayed as the update is not up to Australian regulatory requirements related to emergency calls.

YouTube restores Obama videos, refuses to explain takedown policies  —  Four YouTube videos that had apparently been taken down earlier this week due to dubious copyright claims by the music publisher BMG Rights Management have once again become available to American audiences.

Palo Alto Networks Up 31% Post-IPO  —  Network security firm Palo Alto Networks Inc.'s stock soared 31% in early trading Friday after the initial public offering priced above a boosted range.  —  The company's stock opened at $55.15 a share on the New York Stock Exchange, up from its initial public offering price of $42.

Here are the latest whisper dates for Microsoft's Windows Phone 8, Office 2013  —  Summary: What's the latest scuttlebutt on Microsoft's fall slate of product and services due out this fall?  —  Follow @maryjofoley  —  As we've known, or at least suspected, for a while now …

Nasdaq to Release Compensation Plan for Investors Hurt by Facebook IPO Mess  —  Nasdaq is looking to release next week the compensation plan for investors who lost out on the bungled IPO of Facebook, FOX Business has learned.  —  Sources say the deal being discussed will be all in cash …

California Starts Up a Privacy Enforcement Unit  —  Watch out, Silicon Valley, there's a new startup in town and its gunning for you.  California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced Thursday she's created a unit intended to actually enforce federal and state privacy laws.

Facebook Begins Testing Sponsored Results, Its First Search Typeahead Ads  —  Heads up, Google.  Facebook is testing a new format of search ads called Sponsored Results that lets advertisers show ads in the Facebook search typeahead to users looking for a particular Page, app, or Place.

Edmodo scores another $25M, adds NEA to roster of top investors  —  It looks like social learning platform Edmodo is on an upward swing.  In the past year the education startup has not only more than doubled its user base from 3 million to 8 million and expanded to 85 of the country's top 100 school districts …

Bipartisan Policy Center task force urges wiretap law restrictions removed  —  A committee of mostly former national security officials criticized current wiretap law for preventing Internet service providers from monitoring traffic transiting their networks for cyber threats.

Google nabs $12B for Q2, including a tidy billion from new subsidiary Motorola  —  Google has just released the details of its second-quarter earnings: $12.21 billion in total consolidated revenue, around $1.25 billion of which came from Motorola Mobility, now officially owned by Google.