Einhorn to Sue Apple Over Plan to Discard Preferred Stock  —  David Einhorn has long been known as a fervent fan of Apple Inc. But the hedge fund magnate is making an unusually public stand to oppose a move by the maker of the iPad: a lawsuit.  —  His hedge fund, Greenlight Capital …

Microsoft Attacks Gmail Over Privacy In Latest “Scroogled” Campaign  —  If at first you don't succeed, get negative once again, seems to be the game plan at Microsoft.  Having attacked Google Shopping with a “Scroogled” campaign last November, Microsoft is back again.

Here's our pick of the most promising companies from 500 Startups' fifth batch  —  500 Startups is hosting its latest session of Demo Day this week, and TNW was there to watch the proceedings in Mountain View on Wednesday.  That's the first port of call before the startups and their pitches …

Silicon Valley job growth has reached dot-com boom levels, report says  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW — Silicon Valley's job growth has returned to dot-com boom levels and San Francisco has emerged as a major new tech hub.  But good times have not returned for all area residents and ethnic groups.

800 million Android smartphones, 300 million iPhones in active use by December 2013, study says  —  By the end of this current year, 1.4 billion smartphones will be in use: 798 million of them will run Android, 294 million will run Apple's iOS, and 45 million will run Windows Phone, according to a new study by ABI Research.

Ubuntu Smartphone Shipping in October  —  Smartphones running the open source Ubuntu operating system will be available to customers beginning in October 2013, according to Mark Shuttleworth, founder and CEO of Canonical Ltd. Canonical provides services for corporate customers using Ubuntu open source software.

Online learning goes official as five Coursera courses get approved by the American Council on Education  —  Coursera announced a big milestone today: the first big step towards credit options.  The American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE CREDIT) …

Opera: Android devices were served most ad impressions in Q4 2012, but iOS still top for engagement  —  Opera has released its latest quarterly State of Mobile Advertising report and the findings from Q4 2012 show a sizable growth in the number of impressions served to Android devices, but Apple users remains the most engaged.

FreedomPop Raises Another $4.3 Million In Funding, Finally Lets Users Share Their Data  —  Freemium wireless service provider FreedomPop has been pumping out its fair share of hardware lately, and its momentum seems to have been received favorably by its backers.

Facebook isn't making its own phone, but it's pre-loading its software into millions of devices  —  Facebook wants to ensure that billions of people in emerging markets have access to its mobile apps when they buy their first phones.  The social networking giant found an easy solution to that problem …

iPads (Thanks To The Mini) Were 1 In 6 ‘PCs’ Shipped, Tablets One-Third, And Windows RT Didn't Even Break 1M: Canalys  —  The PC market is fast shifting into a touchscreen world, and Apple is leading the charge.  Some new numbers from the analysts at Canalys note that in Q4 of 2012 …

Kim Dotcom's Mega gets a new CEO: Entrepreneur and open Internet advocate Vikram Kumar steps in  —  Kim Dotcom's Mega has today announced that it has appointed entrepreneur and open Internet advocate Vikram Kumar as its new CEO, to replace interim chief Tony Lentino.

Evernote rolls out Evernote Business to 26 new markets in Europe and names new COO to oversee growth  —  Evernote has expanded its Evernote Business product in Europe, adding 26 new markets where companies can now leverage the cumulative knowledge and contribution of every employee.

Sprint Q4: Loss widens, 1 million subscribers jump ship  —  Summary: The cellular giant saw its quarterly loss widen as more than 1 million subscribers left the company, thanks to the Nextel side of the business.  —  Zack Whittaker  —  Continuing its running streak of weak performance …

The LinkedIn Rampage Will Be Tested Today  —  On the surface, today's LinkedIn earnings report is about revenue and profits, like any other quarterly filing.  At bottom, though, investors are looking for the answer to a question that gets well beyond accounting: Can the market support a second social network roughly as big as Facebook?

Hands on with Google's new Chrome message center  —  The tech world's been a-buzzin' this week with word of a new Chrome-based message center from Google.  Signs of the system first showed up in a Chrome OS screenshot captured by developer François Beaufort and shared on Google+.

Netflix Promises To Make Its Open Source Cloud Management Tools More Portable  —  Over the last several years, Netflix has put a lot of work into building a cloud-based architecture off of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to run its video streaming and DVD rental services.

Coming Soon to Yahoo: Ads From Google  —  Remember when Google and Yahoo were talking about an ad alliance last year?  —  Maybe they worked something out, after all: Sources say Google is set to begin running some of its AdSense display ads on Yahoo sites, and will become …

Google Joins JPMorgan in Seeking Software Patent Limits  —  Google Inc. owes its creation in part to a patented software algorithm for ranking documents in a database, issued to company founder Larry Page and owned by Stanford University.  —  The world's largest search-engine company contends …

Apple & Samsung capture 103% of handset profits as rivals lose money  —  Together, Apple and Samsung accounted for 103 percent of mobile phone profits in 2012, a number made possible because of losses incurred by rivals Motorola, Sony and Nokia.  —  Apple took a commanding 69 percent …

Tumblr Adds Real-Time Notifications To Its Dashboard And It Feels A Lot Like Facebook's Ticker  —  Today on its staff blog, Tumblr shared that it is rolling out real-time notifications to people's dashboards, so that you can have even more cat- and fashion-related content thrown in your face.

Judge Sides With Wi-Fi Patent Troll Over Cisco  —  Purveyors of public Wi-Fi networks beware.  The federal case that was supposed to bring a halt to patent troll Innovatio IP Ventures LLC's ongoing shakedown of hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and the like took a strange turn this week …

Wii Street U hands-on: Google Maps comes to Wii U with motion control  —  DON'T MISS ANY STORIES FOLLOW THE VERGE  —  Nintendo's delayed Google Maps app for Wii U is finally out in Japan.  As demonstrated late last year, Wii Street U is based around Street View, and lets you use …

Microsoft's new Xbox will include improved Siri-like speech recognition  —  DON'T MISS ANY STORIES FOLLOW THE VERGE  —  Microsoft will greatly improve its speech recognition technology inside the next Xbox, The Verge has learned.  Sources familiar with Microsoft's Xbox plans have revealed that Durango …

Movie industry not entitled to Usenet piracy profits, UK high court rules  —  A copyright infringer is more akin to a trespasser than to a coin thief, the judge said  —  The movie industry has no rights to the profits made by the owner of Usenet-indexing website Newzbin2 by infringing on copyrights …

In Big Shift, Google Aims To Boost Mobile Ad Campaigns - And Its Own Revenues  —  It's no secret that the rapid shift of online activity from computers to smartphones and tablets presents a big challenge to online advertising leaders, from Google to Yahoo to Facebook.