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.

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.

Spotify Attracts Investments From Coca-Cola and Fidelity  —  Coca-Cola is becoming a minority investor in Spotify, as part of a new round of financing that will bring in $100 million and value the streaming music service at about $3 billion.  —  Spotify has completed the financing round …

Facebook Finally Launches “Share” Button For The Mobile Feed, Its Version Of “Retweet”  —  Facebook has just confirmed with me that it is launching a retweet-style “Share” button for the mobile news feed.  The much-requested feature is now rolled out for the mobile site, and will soon come to the iOS and Android apps.

Powerful iOS photography app Camera+ updated with front flash, horizon level, live exposure and more  —  Popular (and powerful) iOS photography app Camera+ has been updated with a number of powerful new features, adding flash support for the non-flash wielding front-facing camera …

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.

Facebook stock jumps 12.6 percent as share lockup expires  —  (Reuters) - Shares of Facebook Inc jumped nearly 13 percent on Wednesday, as investors breathed a sigh of relief that expiring trading restrictions on a huge block of shares failed to trigger an immediate wave of insider selling.

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.

iPad Mini Creates More Demand Than It Cannibalizes  —  Now that the iPad mini has arrived at market and is evidently selling well, there's no doubt that the original iPad will suffer some cannibalization by its smaller sibling.  But according to a survey from Cowen and Co. it may turn out to be minor …

Owner of CyanogenMod Domain Shutting Down Sites After Asking Team for $10,000  —  The CyanogenMod team took to their blog and Facebook page a few minutes ago to explain some shocking news to the Android community.  Back in the day, before CyanogenMod was the huge name that we know of it today …

RIM's Chief Is Confident of BlackBerry 10 Success  —  Thorsten Heins, the chief executive of Research In Motion, visited The New York Times readily tells his employees, developers and customers, BlackBerry 10, the name for the new phones and the software platform running it, is a very big bet for RIM.

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.

Apple co-founder Woz to star in iOS game with ‘Machete’ actor  —  Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has been on TV numerous times, and is branching out into video games now too.  —  Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is set to appear as a playable video game character alongside the likeness of …

Ex-Windows Chief Seen as Smart but Abrasive  —  On a warm night in late October, Steven Sinofsky stood on a platform in New York's Times Square, smiling as a huge crowd roared at the unveiling of a Microsoft retail store, where Windows 8 and the company's new Surface tablet were about to go on sale.

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 …

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 …

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 …

Lawyer sues Microsoft over Surface tablet storage  —  LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California lawyer is suing Microsoft Corp., claiming the Surface tablet he bought doesn't have all the storage space the company advertised.  Andrew Sokolowski, a lawyer in Los Angeles, claims that he bought a Surface with 32 gigabytes of storage last week.

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 now allowing Google+ users to install Android apps directly from the stream  —  Google has begun serving direct links to Android apps in timelines on Google+, providing an easy way for users to share their favourite apps and games, and allow other users to download them directly to their Android devices.

Big Data App Platform Continuuity Raises $10M From Battery, Andreessen Horowitz And Others  —  Continuuity, a company that provides a big data platform as a service for developers, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Battery Ventures and Ignition Partners.

Microsoft updates its Windows Embedded roadmap; Embedded 8 Handheld is alive  —  Summary: Microsoft has provided yet another update to its Windows Embedded roadmap.  Many products have been renamed.  And a new version of Embedded Handheld is coming.  —  Mary Jo Foley

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.

Facebook confirms dedicated ‘Pages Feed’ section rolling out, shows you only content from pages  —  Facebook is today rolling out a new product called Pages feed that will allow you to see only content from the pages you follow in your main feed.  This section was discovered earlier in the month in testing …

LTE 4th-gen iPads arrive at U.S. Apple Stores, not yet for sale  —  While shipments have begun of the LTE variants of the new fourth-generation iPad and iPad mini, Apple has begun stocking its U.S.-based retail stores with LTE versions of the fourth-generation iPad.

Heads Up: The IDF Is Live-Blogging Its Attack On Hamas [Video]  —  We've never seen anything quite like this.  The verified social media accounts of the Israeli Defense Forces are providing live updates on a concerted military effort against Hamas.  Using the hashtag #PillarOfDefense …

PayPal Tests QR Codes In Shop Windows; Mobile Check-Ins At Stores For Personalized Service  —  PayPal is rolling out a number of payments pilots this week in international markets, showcasing the company's mobile payments technologies.  We've seen PayPal test payments technologies before larger rollouts …

Groupon promotes Raman to COO  —  Groupon Inc. said Wednesday that Kal Raman, the company's senior vice president of global sales and operations, has been named chief operating officer.  —  Raman, who joined Groupon in April, fills an executive role that has been left vacant since September 2011.