One Billion People on Facebook  —  This morning, there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month.  —  If you're reading this: thank you for giving me and my little team the honor of serving you.  —  Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life.

Microsoft to launch Surface at midnight on October 26th  —  Microsoft has started sending out invites to a special “Surface Reception” event on October 25th.  Alongside a Windows 8 introduction, the software giant will launch its highly anticipated tablet at midnight on October 26th — according to a company spokesperson.

Sprint Said to Eye MetroPCS Bid to Rival T-Mobile Offer  —  Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), the third- largest U.S. mobile-phone carrier, is in the early stages of evaluating whether it should make a counter offer for MetroPCS Communications Inc. (PCS) to top Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE) …

Zynga Lowering Full-Year Results Again; Recording Huge Negative for OMGPOP  —  Zynga is reporting preliminary third-quarter results today, but it won't do much to comfort investors who were already growing wary of the company's prospects.  —  The social games company says that the third quarter …

Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages for links to increase Like counters  —  Yesterday I spotted a video submitted to Hacker News by the Polish startup Killswitch.me that clearly showed sending a link in a Facebook private message increases the Like counter on the link's originating third-party website.

HP smartphone not coming in 2013, says CEO Meg Whitman  —  But HP will need one within five years to avoid missing out on a big segment of the market, its CEO said  —  HP has no plans to launch a smartphone next year but will need to sell one eventually to avoid missing out on …

Google warns of more cuts at Motorola, third-quarter cuts to cost $340 million  —  (Reuters) - Google Inc said planned job cuts at its Motorola Mobility mobile phone unit will cost about $340 million in severance and other costs in the third quarter and it warned of further restructuring.

Street View comes to Google Maps on your Mobile Browser  —  To make Google Maps even more comprehensive, accurate and useful, today we're making Street View available on mobile browsers.  With access to Street View on your phone, you can use panoramic, street-level imagery to explore and navigate the places around you, even on the go.

Mozilla's First Preview Release Of Firefox Metro Arrives On Windows 8  —  With the official launch of Windows 8 just around the corner, Mozilla today unveiled its first preview release of Firefox Metro.  The Metro version of Firefox, Mozilla says, was “designed from the ground up for Windows 8″ …

TomTom navigation apps finally arrive on Android, incompatible with many popular devices  —  International Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, HTC One X, Galaxy S III, and Galaxy Note are all excluded  —  TomTom's popular offline navigation apps have finally made their way over to Android, right on schedule.

‘Big data’ startup Trifacta comes out of stealth with $4.3M in Accel funding  —  Trifacta is coming out of stealth mode today as the latest “big data” startup.  Accordingly, it has raised $4.3 million from Accel Partners' Big Data Fund.  Trifacta is creating productivity platforms that make data analysts more productive.

Acer Iconia W700 Windows 8 tablet launching on October 26th for $799.99  —  An 11.6-inch tablet with a 1080p display  —  It has been over four months since Acer first revealed its Windows 8 lineup, but now that the launch of Microsoft's next operating system is closer than ever …

Microsoft, Barnes & Noble joint venture finalized and named  —  Summary: The Microsoft-Barnes & Noble joint venture, formerly called NewCo, is now officially known as Nook Media LLC, and is a subsidiary of B&N.  —  The “NewCo” venture formed by Microsoft and Barnes & Noble back in April 2012 …

AT&T announces Nokia Lumia 920 exclusive, launches in November with Lumia 820  —  AT&T has revealed today that it plans to carry Nokia's latest flagship Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 handset as well as the mid-range Lumia 820.  The addition, alongside HTC's Windows Phone 8X …

Group says it hacked systems at 100 major universities  —  Harvard, Stanford, Penn among those hit; breached data mostly innocuous, analyst says.  —  A hacking group that calls itself Team GhostShell this week claimed credit for breaking into servers at 100 major universities from around the world …

Samsung Galaxy Camera marries Android and photography on AT&T, we go hands-on  —  Samsung's Android-powered Galaxy Camera is a bit of a wild card, marrying Google's Android Jelly Bean OS with a 16-megapixel camera — heck, it's even got a 4.8-inch 1,280 x 720-pixel (308 ppi) touchscreen display.

Microsoft buys authentication vendor PhoneFactor  —  Summary: Microsoft is positioning PhoneFactor as helping it to provide a broader range of authentication services to Microsoft's cloud customers.  —  Microsoft has purchased PhoneFactor, a provider of phone-based, two-factor authentication offerings …