Google Inc. Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2012 Results  —  Google Inc. reported consolidated revenues of $14.42 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2012.  Consolidated revenues would have been $15.24 billion had Motorola Home been included.

Apple Pulls 500px's Mobile Apps From The App Store, Claiming It's Too Easy To Search For Nude Photos  —  Toronto photo-sharing startup 500px is reporting today that both of its applications, 500px for iOS and its recent acquisition ISO500, have been pulled from the Apple App Store due to concerns about nude photos.

Microsoft Grows Surface Family  —  Announces Surface Windows 8 Pro availability, market expansion and new accessories.  —  Microsoft Corp. today announced that its Surface family of PCs is growing.  Its newest model — Surface Windows 8 Pro — will be available for purchase on Feb. 9 …

Announcing the Firefox OS Developer Preview Phone!  —  Firefox OS is a new mobile operating system built entirely using open web standards.  In Firefox OS, HTML5 apps can do “phone things” - they can make the phone vibrate, make a phone call or send a text message.

Microsoft Might Kick In $1-$3 Billion To Help With The Dell Buy Out  —  Microsoft is in talks to participate in the deal to take Dell private, CNBC's David Faber reports.  According to his sources, Microsoft might invest $1-$3 billion with the group looking to take Dell private.

As Obama heads back to office, a battle rages over the tech that got him reelected  —  Programmers and politicians spar over sharing the campaign-winning code with the public  —  The tech team behind the 2012 Obama campaign has probably received more attention than any political programmers in history.

SIRI RISING: The Inside Story Of Siri's Origins — And Why She Could Overshadow The iPhone  —  The world got its first inkling of the quick wit that would make Apple's Siri an icon during a packed press conference held before an auditorium of tech elite.  “Who are you?” an Apple executive asked the assistant.

A word on cryptography  —  The cloud storage market is dominated by players that do not take advantage of cryptography beyond HTTPS and server-side encryption.  Since we set out to improve this rather dissatisfying situation three days ago, some news outlets have made attempts to dismantle our crypto architecture.

A close look at how Oracle installs deceptive software with Java updates  —  Summary: Oracle's Java plugin for browsers is a notoriously insecure product.  Over the past 18 months, the company has released 11 updates, six of them containing critical security fixes.

AMD suffers Q4 loss: A rough end to a rough year  —  Summary: AMD tumbles to the end of the 2012 fiscal year with yet another poor result for its fourth quarter.  —  Zack Whittaker  —  Chipmaker AMD suffered yet another brutal knock to its financials as it came crashing to the end …

An update to embedded Tweets  —  Tweets bring you closer to what's happening around the world, from breaking news to global conversations.  With embedded Tweets, you can see and interact with Tweets across the web.  We often embed Tweets here on our blog to highlight great Tweets …

If, Why, and How Founders Should Hire a “Professional” CEO  —  20 years ago, the classic startup model was to have young founders start a breakthrough company, then bring in “grey hair” in the form of experienced executives once it was time to scale the business.

The End of an Era: Intel's Desktop Motherboard Business to Ramp Down Over Next 3 Years  —  Today Intel made a sobering, but not entirely unexpected announcement: over the next 3 years Intel will be ramping down its own desktop motherboard business.  Intel will continue to supply desktop chipsets …

Announcing Release of Windows Azure Media Services  —  I'm excited to announce the general availability (GA) release of Windows Azure Media Services.  This release is now live in production, supported by a new media services dev center, backed by an enterprise SLA, and is ready to be used for all media projects.

Etsy Acquires Mixel for Mobile Team  —  Craft marketplace Etsy has acquired mobile photo app maker Mixel as part of its efforts to beef up native mobile app development.  —  Mixel launched in November 2011 as a hyped collage creation app for the iPad, and later pivoted to be more of a simple photo manipulation tool for the iPhone.

Not-So-Ephemeral Messaging: New SnapChat “Hack” Lets Users Save Photos Forever  —  Even as SnapChat leaves tech reporters and people over 25 scratching their heads — is it the next Instagram, or a massive sexting conspiracy? — the app has succeeded in bringing ephemeral (or self-destructive …

Company offers scholarship to Dawson student who exposed security flaws  —  Dawson stands by its decision to expel student  —  The Dawson College computer science student who was expelled after discovering a security breach in a system used by students across Quebec has been offered a scholarship by the company behind the software.

Yahoo Buys Snip.it, The Pinterest-Meets-News Startup, For $10 Million Plus Earnouts  —  With Marissa Mayer at the helm, Yahoo is continuing to flex its M&A muscles, with a special focus on startups with smart teams that have made well-designed apps.  The latest target: Snip.it …

Hot email app Mailbox launches reservation system to handle demand, arrives for free in a few weeks  —  Mailbox, an app that is attempting to change the way that we manage our inboxes, has managed to garner a significant amount of hype over the past few weeks.

Global LTE Subscribers Set to More Than Double in 2013 and Exceed 100 Million  —  Just three short years after the technology's original deployment, worldwide subscribers to the 4G wireless standard known as Long Term Evolution (LTE) are projected to surpass the 100-million mark this year