Samsung rules out patent talks with Apple  —  Top smartphone maker Samsung Electronics Co. does not intend to hold talks with Apple Inc. to reach an agreement on their ongoing patent tussle, its mobile business chief said Wednesday, raising views the company will rely on legal means rather than settling the issue out of court.

Google TV: Now faster and easier  —  Last year, your Google TV received an update which added Google Play and simplified the entertainment discovery experience.  Our next update makes finding whatever you want on Google TV even faster and easier.  The update starts to roll out this week to LG devices and to other devices thereafter.

Skype plugs security hole letting anyone hijack accounts, says ‘small number’ of users affected  —  A number of hours after The Next Web revealed a flaw in the way Skype handled password resets, allowing third-parties to hijack accounts using just an email address, Skype has said that it has now fixed the issue.

Facebook Stock Price Up 10.3 Percent On The Day And Climbing As Biggest Lockup Expires, Irrational Changes Are Over  —  Facebook share prices are up today, with shares at 21.07, 6.1 percent above yesterday's level — and still climing.  Today the company is experiencing its biggest stock-lockup expiration …

Gartner: Android Accounted For 72% Of Smartphone Sales In Q3, Overall Sales Of Mobile Handsets Down 3%  —  Gartner has this morning published its numbers on the performance of the mobile handset industry in Q3.  The topline figure is that the mobile industry overall continues to see pressure …

Pinterest Removes Ban on Commercial Use as It Adds Business Accounts  —  On a site where people share pictures of stuff they want to buy, it makes sense that people who make stuff would want to share it themselves.  And so Pinterest is full of businesses posting their own content and products.

Facebook And Partners Launch Social Jobs App With 1.7M Listings  —  The Social Jobs Partnership — an initiative that includes The US Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), DirectEmployers Association, the National Association of State Workforce Agencies …

Papa John's faces $250 million spam lawsuit  —  NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Popular U.S. pizza chain Papa John's faces a $250 million class-action lawsuit for blasting customers with illegal text messages.  —  The plaintiffs allege that Papa John's ( PZZA) franchises sent customers a total of 500,000 unwanted messages in early 2010.

New BlackBerry Messenger will offer free voice calls over Wi-Fi, open beta starts today  —  RIM may be focusing most of its energy on the upcoming launch of the BlackBerry 10 OS, but it's also getting ready to roll out a major new feature to BlackBerry Messenger users.

TaskRabbit Acquires Kids' Clothing Startup One Jackson To Add Marketplace Expertise  —  TaskRabbit, the online marketplace that lets people outsource small jobs and tasks, has acquired One Jackson, an e-commerce site for kids' clothing.  —  Financial terms of the deal haven't been disclosed.

Panasonic prepares for “garage sale”, to axe 10,000 jobs  —  (Reuters) - About a fifth of Panasonic Corp's (6758.T) 88 business units are losing money and only half so far meet a target for at least 5 percent operating margin, the Japanese electronics group's finance chief said in an interview on Wednesday.

Yoga PC Flips and Bends, but as a Tablet, It's Clumsy  —  Windows 8 presents a dilemma for PC makers.  It contains two very different user interfaces: a touch-oriented, tablet-like one with clusters of tiles, full-screen apps and an on-screen keyboard; plus the traditional Windows desktop and apps …

Icahn vs. Hastings: The Fight for the Future of Netflix  —  Corporate raider Carl Icahn called Netflix Inc. Chief Executive Reed Hastings on Halloween with a message that no executive wants to hear: His company was about to be put in play.  —  During the brief call, Mr. Icahn told Mr. Hastings …

Google Fiber is live in Kansas City, real-world speeds at 700Mbps  —  Mike Demarais posted this to Twitter during the first few minutes that Google Fiber went live in his Kansas City home.  —  Mike Demarais  —  After months of fanfare and anticipation, gigabit home Internet service Google …

Understanding Like-gate  —  Several prominent people are up in arms about Facebook charging for access to users who have already Liked their page.  —  I believe this debate is missing the big picture, and what we are in fact witnessing is the unfurling of the full-fledged Facebook business model.

Class-action lawsuit filed against Uber by San Francisco taxi drivers for unfair competition  —  Uber is facing another challenge to its service and this time it's happening on its home turf.  Attorney Gary Oswald has just announced he's filed a class-action lawsuit against the transportation startup due …

Surveillance and Security Lessons From the Petraeus Scandal  —  When the CIA director cannot hide his activities online, what hope is there for the rest of us?  In the unfolding sex scandal that has led to the resignation of David Petraeus, the FBI's electronic surveillance and tracking …

Google opens up on seven years of its data center history  —  Google's head of data center operations provided a seven-year look at how the search giant's data center strategy has evolved during the 7×24 Exchange conference on Tuesday in Phoenix, Ariz.,providing a new look at the secretive search giant's operations.

Undercutting Startups, Walmart Launches Food Subscription Service, Goodies.co, For $7 Per Month  —  Walmart's experimentation with subscription-based commerce continues today, with the public launch of Goodies.co, a food subscription service featuring boxes of sample-sized treats shipped monthly.

Obama signs secret directive to help thwart cyberattacks  —  President Obama has signed a secret directive that effectively enables the military to act more aggressively to thwart cyberattacks on the nation's web of government and private computer networks.  —  Presidential Policy Directive …

Samsung reportedly denies iPhone and iPad processor price hike  —  A Samsung official has reportedly denied claims that the company has raised the price it charges Apple for its iPhone and iPad processors by almost 20 percent.  Speaking with Korean newspaper The Hankyoreh …

Google: No 4.2 Support For Nexus S and XOOM, Keep Using Android 4.1.2  —  A couple of hours ago, as 4.2 hit AOSP, Google's Jean-Baptiste Queru (JBQ) took to the Android Builders group and announced that there would be no official Android 4.2 support for either the Nexus S or Motorola XOOM.

Percolate Raises $9 Million to Help Marketers Use Twitter, Facebook  —  Publishing on social media is all about speed and simplicity: Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram et al are designed to let you push out a message with a couple clicks.  —  But even that process can be too cumbersome …

Google Foretells Big Switch to Networks of the Future  —  In the summer of 1998, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin were drafting an official business plan for the company they hoped to build around their Google search engine, they asked Guido Appenzeller for a little help.

Chinese Authorities Putting Pressure on Businesses to Help Censor the Web  —  BEIJING — As the Chinese cyberpolice stiffened controls on information before the Communist Party leadership transition taking place this week, some companies in Beijing and nearby cities received orders to aid the cause.

Internet ban on convicted sex offender ‘unreasonable’, rule judges  —  Court of appeal's decision to uphold complaint over internet restriction could set precedent in hacking and fraud cases  —  Banning anyone from the internet is an “unreasonable” restriction, two appeal court judges have ruled …