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 …

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 …

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'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 …

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.

v1  —  As betaworks and Digg both announced on their blogs, we are taking over Digg and turning it back into a startup.  What they didn't mention is that we're rebuilding it from scratch.  In six weeks.  —  On August 1, after an adrenaline and caffeine-fueled six weeks, we're rolling out a new v1.

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 …

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.

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.

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.

Lenovo CEO distributes $3 million personal bonus to production-line workers, other junior-level employees  —  After Lenovo posted extremely healthy financials back in May, it provided CEO Yang Yuanqing with a $3 million bonus for doing such a good job.  There's nothing particularly notable …

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.

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 …

19% Of iOS Apps Access Your Address Book Without Your Permission... Until iOS 6 [Report]  —  Antivirus software specialist Bitdefender has found that nearly 19% of iOS apps access your address book without your knowledge — or your consent — when you're using them, and 41% track your location.

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 …

Google's Nikesh Arora: Larry Page lost his voice, but continues to run the company  —  During today's quarterly earnings call, Google was asked about CEO Larry Page's health.  This has been a topic of conversation for analysts and investors over the past few weeks, as Page skipped …