Square Acquires a New York Design Firm  —  Tech companies, in a high-stakes competition for engineers, are also chasing another highly prized kind of employee: designers.  —  Square, the popular mobile payments company, has proved just how important designers are by making a surprising acquisition.

3-D Printer Company Seizes Machine From Desktop Gunsmith  —  Cody Wilson planned in the coming weeks to make and test a 3-D printed pistol.  Now those plans have been put on hold as desktop-manufacturing company Stratasys pulled the lease on a printer rented out for Wiki Weapon …

White House confirms cyberattack  —  The White House confirmed but sought to downplay a report by a conservative website on Sunday that it had been the victim of a cyberattack, volunteering to POLITICO that no harm had been done.  —  The Washington Free Beacon reported that Chinese hackers …

Is Apple clamping down on third-party app promotion services?  —  Guidelines point to promo app update block Media attention may have been focused on the launches of iPhone 5 and iOS6 - including the subsequent ‘MapGate’ and ‘ScuffGate’ backlashes - but it appears Apple itself has turned its attention to the art of app promotion.

Google Passes Microsoft's Market Value as PC Loses to Web  —  Google Inc. (GOOG) has surpassed Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) to become the world's second-largest technology company, in another sign of the expanding ability of the Internet to facilitate computing tasks once completed on desktop machines.

Apple Removes Chomp Website and App, Shuts Down Existing App Installs  —  Following the introduction of the new Chomp-styled App Store layout in iOS 6, built upon Apple's acquisition of the app search and discovery platform earlier this year, Apple over the weekend shut down the standalone Chomp service.

Apple CEO Tim Cook thanks employees for an ‘incredibly successful’ 2012, Thanksgiving vacation to be extended  —  Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced in an email to employees that this year's Thanksgiving vacation will be extended with pay.  Cook also thanks all employees for an amazing 2012.

iPhone 5 carrier data leak bug might not be Verizon only … An update was delivered yesterday to Verizon iPhone 5 owners experiencing an issue where cellular data would be used even when the device is connected to Wi-Fi.  The carrier confirmed to 9to5Mac in a statement that customers …

Motorola reneges on Ice Cream Sandwich software update  —  Motorola regrets to inform you that your ICS request has been denied.  —  Motorola Atrix 4G owners will not get the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update the company promised them, according to a newly revised upgrade chart.

AT&T undercuts Verizon with $65 prepaid smartphone plan  —  AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) is introducing a new $65 prepaid plan with unlimited voice, texting and 1 GB of data, undercutting rival Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) and bringing its pricing closer to more traditional no-contract offerings.

Judge Koh dissolves sales ban on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1  —  Samsung has been pushing for the preliminary injunction on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to be lifted ever since Apple won its $1.049 billion victory, and today it got its wish: Judge Lucy Koh has dissolved the US sales ban on the tablet.

Hey, Apple: Mapping Takes More Work than You Think  —  Apple's apology suggests it may underestimate how much effort is needed to build a great map app.  —  In response to scathing criticism over its new Maps app for mobile devices, Apple CEO Tim Cook last week apologized and admitted that the company …

Facebook's new pitch to brand advertisers: forget about clicks  —  (Reuters) - Facebook Inc, stung by doubts that advertising on the social network delivers enough bang for the buck, is preparing to unveil data to counter its critics and show that “clicks,” the current metric of choice, tell only half the story.

WikiLeaks' And Pirate Bay's Web Host PRQ Raided By Swedish Police  —  PRQ owner Mikael Viborg in front of the Stockholm-based Web host's entrance.  —  The Stockholm-based web host PeRiQuito AB, or PRQ, has long attracted some of the most controversial sites on the Internet.

Poor pre-launch showing plagues Windows 8  —  Now five times less likely to be on a PC than early-adoption benchmark set by Windows 7  —  With just weeks before the public launch of Windows 8, users are five times less likely to be running the new OS than they were Windows 7 at the same point …

Judge decries “excessive” copyright and software patent protections  —  Richard Posner, the federal judge who threw out the entire Apple v. Motorola patent battle in June, has penned a new blog post complaining about the proliferation of patents.  “I am concerned that both patent and copyright protection …

Google Rivals in Kansas City Want the Same Incentives  —  To entice Google Inc. to build its ultra-high-speed fiber network there, Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo., offered the Internet company sweeteners including several free or discounted city services.

Apple and Virgin Mobile USA Planning to Launch iPhone 5, But Timeframe Unknown  —  While the three major U.S iPhone carriers launched the iPhone 5 on September 21 and prepaid carrier Cricket and a number of regional carriers followed suit on September 28, one U.S. brand has been curiously silent …

Where Facebook Is Looking to Grow: COO Sheryl Sandberg  —  For the first time since Facebook's IPO, COO Sheryl Sandberg sat down for an exclusive interview to talk about what's happened since the social network went public, and where she's taking the company next.  —  Facebook's IPO Disaster & Stock Slide

Intel Software Snag Said to Hamper Windows Apple Response  —  Intel Corp. (INTC)'s delayed delivery of software that conserves computer battery life is holding up development of some tablets running the latest version of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s Windows operating system, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Seattle Police Department Uses Twitter to Report Crime  —  SEATTLE — The business of policing, as cops have known since at least the first bobbies on the beat, is partly about being seen on the job, having a local presence, even if it is just twirling a baton down the avenue.

AOL Finally Lands on YouTube  —  Want to be big in online video?  It helps if people can see your stuff on the world's biggest video site.  —  So that's what Tim Armstrong is going to do: After years of keeping its clips off YouTube, AOL is finally going to start distributing its video on Google's site, via 22 branded “channels.”