“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.

DirecTV and Viacom deal brings MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and the rest back on the air  —  After a week or so of increasingly contentious negotiations Viacom and DirecTV have come to some sort of agreement, returning the missing channels to satellite TV subscribers as of... now.

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 …

Don't Believe the Doomsayers: Microsoft's Q4 Results Are Good News  —  Despite notching its first-ever quarterly loss, Microsoft's fourth-quarter results beat analyst expectations, giving the software giant some breathing room as it heads into a year of major change.

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.

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 …

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 …

Apple building new, smaller data center in Maiden  —  Site plans gives details of construction, more potential growth  —  MAIDEN, NC — In addition to the world's largest private fuel cell installation and solar farm, Apple Inc. is building a new, smaller data center on its Maiden campus.

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.

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.

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 …

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.

Using the new Office with touch  —  Editor's note: Windows 8 provides a number of platform capabilities for enabling highly responsive touch support in applications, ranging from hardware accelerated graphics and improved touch targeting to the a new app platform that makes it easy to build touch-optimized Windows 8-style apps.

Apple Expands iTunes Movies in the Cloud to Over 35 New Countries [Updated]  —  In addition to today's iTunes Match expansion to Hungary and Poland, Apple has also undertaken a significant expansion of its iTunes in the Cloud feature, adding movies to the list of eligible items in the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

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.

Is Kickstarter selling dreams?  —  My theory, when it comes to buying lottery tickets, is that if you have disposable income to spare, then often the dreams and fantasies that accompany your lottery ticket purchase are in and of themselves worth $1.  This is true not because dreams and fantasies …

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.

Senators soften latest cyber security measure  —  Lawmakers remove regulatory aspects and add privacy protections for information sharing, in a bid to get Republican approval for legislation aimed at protecting critical infrastructure from cyberattacks.  —  Follow @elinormills