Apple: Google Now hasn't been submitted to our App Store  —  The company has confirmed to CNET that the app was never brought to the App Store's submission service, despite Eric Schmidt indicating it might have been.  —  Google Now has not been submitted yet to Apple's App Store, the iPhone maker has confirmed to CNET.

Google chairman: Chrome, Android operating systems to stay separate  —  Google Inc's Chrome and Android operating systems will remain separate products but could have more overlap, Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said, a week after the two came under a single boss.

Apple beefs up iCloud, Apple ID security with two-step verification  —  Today, Apple has rolled out a new two-step verification service for iCloud and Apple ID users.  This functionality greatly enhances the security of Apple accounts because it requires users to use a trusted device and an extra security code.

Apple looks to protect dropped iPhones by shifting their orientation mid-flight  —  An Apple invention discovered on Thursday describes a system that could potentially save the most fragile components of an iPhone, such as the glass screen, by detecting when a device is falling and shifting …

New OS X trojan injects ads into pages browsed by Chrome, Firefox, and Safari; even targets Apple's website  —  A new trojan specifically for Macs has been discovered that installs an adware plugin.  The malware attempts to monetize its attack by injecting ads into Chrome, Firefox, and Safari …

Google quietly pulls plug on Frommer's print travel guidebooks  —  The first edition of “Europe on $5 a Day” alongside “Frommer's Belize,” which is the last title in the series that has a cover image on Amazon.com.  —  » Get your daily dose of Skift: subscribe to our newsletter, RSS, Twitter orFacebook.

Celebrating #Twitter7  —  There's an old English saying, “Keep a thing seven years, and you'll always find a use for it.”  Today is Twitter's 7th birthday, which we observe on the day @jack first tweeted.  Since then, we've seen breathtaking velocity in Twitter's growth, which is due entirely to your many uses of it.

Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself  —  Google today launched Keep, an app that allows you to save things, clip stuff from the web, hoard notes and what not and put them all onto your Google Drive.  Yup, you guessed it — it is an imitation to Evernote and many other such applications.

Strategy Analytics: iCloud, Dropbox and Amazon top cloud media in the US  —  We often focus on market share for hardware, but cloud media services increasingly dictate our lives after the devices have reached our bags and pockets.  Wouldn't it be nice to know who rules the online media landscape?

Sapphire Could Replace Gorilla Glass in the iPhone and other Smartphones  —  Your Next Smartphone Screen May Be Made of Sapphire  —  Manufactured sapphire is incredibly strong and scratch resistant.  Now falling costs and technology improvements could make it competitive with glass.  —  WHY IT MATTERS

An Open Letter to Google: Google Alerts Broken, Now Useless To Financial Marketers  —  For years, you maintained one of the simplest, most powerful tools on the internet: Google Alerts.  Anyone with a Google account could just sign in and create an email alert for any subject that interested them.

Apple data centers now 100 percent renewable-powered, but emissions rise 34 percent  —  Apple's data centers are 100 percent powered by renewable energy, and its corporate facilities are increasingly green, but a new report from the company shows that its greenhouse gas emissions actually increased by 34 percent in 2012.

Defense spokesman says DoD not dumping BlackBerry  —  A U.S. Department of Defense spokesman on Thursday said a report suggesting the defense agency is dumping BlackBerry devices was inaccurate, and that BlackBerry is still part of ongoing DoD mobile device deployment plans.

Pandora now available on Windows Phone 8 with ad-free listening through the end of 2013  —  In October of last year, Microsoft pledged that Pandora would soon arrive on Windows Phone 8 and that when it did, WP8 users would be treated to a year of ad-free listening.

Facebook Managing Editor Steps Down, Says Site 'Doesn't Need Reporters'  —  This piece is co-authored by Justin Runquist.  Both Kaitlin Gillepsie and Runquist are with the Murrow News Service.  Facebook managing editor Dan Fletcher announced Wednesday that he will be leaving the social media giant next month.

Preview of New Google Play Version 4.0  —  The Google Play store is an ever-evolving marketplace that has seen its fair share of changes throughout the last few years.  It was once incredibly fussy and difficult to navigate while lacking features, but over time, has become much more polished …

Microsoft Releases Report on Law Enforcement Requests  —  BERLIN — Microsoft on Thursday disclosed for the first time the number of government law enforcement requests it had received for data on its hundreds of millions of customers around the world, joining the ranks of Google …

Exclusive: Live demo of Fresh Paint app for Windows Blue, plus more Windows Blue mentions  —  After digging up a Microsoft job ad for Windows Blue and Windows Phone Blue from the Fresh Paint team recently, I've now stumbled upon the next best thing to having the actual app in-hand …

BlackBerry World catalog now boasts 100,000 BlackBerry 10 apps; 30,000 added in last 7 weeks  —  BlackBerry, formerly known as Research in Motion, today announced that its app catalog has grown by more than 30,000 apps for BlackBerry 10 in seven weeks, recently hitting a total of 100,000 applications.

Apple No 1 for 9th consecutive time for smartphone customer satisfaction  —  If there's one thing J.D. Power & Associates semi-annual report on customer satisfaction can agree upon, it's that Apple is - and has been for quite some time - the best in smartphone customer satisfaction.

A Dongle Joke That Spiraled Way Out Of Control  —  In an age of blogs, tweets, Hacker News, Reddit and Anonymous, an off-the-cuff joke can spin wildly out of control.  —  At least it appears that's what happened with PyCon this week when a sexual joke led to some very public firings …

Intel conducting TV trials with employees in three markets  —  Eric Free, vice president and general manager for content and services at Intel Media, also tells CNET he believes 2013 is the year over-the-top video service really takes off.  —  Intel employees will be the first people to test …