Looking Back and Springing Ahead  —  The following is a post from Frank X. Shaw, Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications at Microsoft.  —  Last week was the official start of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere.  While some folks were out doing “spring cleaning,” …

Global internet slows after ‘biggest attack in history’  —  The row centres on the blocking of a web-hosting company alleged to be hosting spam websites  —  The internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack in history.

At Y Combinator, Social is Out, Revenue is In  —  Y Combinator, the best-known “incubator” of technology startups in Silicon Valley, is showing further proof that the social-networking craze has died down and more founders are tackling “boring” problems that generate cash.

One in Five BlackBerry 10 Apps Is Really an Android App  —  One of BlackBerry's key goals is getting developers to write apps designed to take advantage of its all-new operating system.  —  But, knowing that not all developers are ready to bet on a native app, the company has offered …

Apple in court in China over ‘Siri’ claim  —  SHANGHAI — Apple appeared in a Shanghai court on Wednesday, accused by a Chinese firm of copying software used for the “Siri” personal assistant on its hugely popular iPhones.  —  The Californian company's products are big sellers in China …

How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing  —  This story was co-produced with NPR.  —  Imagine filing your income taxes in five minutes — and for free.  You'd open up a pre-filled return, see what the government thinks you owe, make any needed changes and be done.

Apple's broken promise: why doesn't iCloud ‘just work?’  —  Frustrations mount as developers deal with Apple's inability to manage another cloud service  —  iCloud, perhaps more than any Apple software product, is meant to “just work.”  When Apple introduced iCloud, it made clear its hopes …

FBI Pursuing Real-Time Gmail Spying Powers as “Top Priority” for 2013  —  For now, law enforcement has trouble monitoring Gmail communications in real time  —  Despite the pervasiveness of law enforcement surveillance of digital communication, the FBI still has a difficult time monitoring Gmail, Google Voice, and Dropbox in real time.

Samsung Received The Most Mobile Patents In 2012, Now Leads The World Overall  —  Samsung lost out big to Apple last year in a mobile patent blowout in the U.S., but it's been slowly building up an arsenal of patents that potentially will keep it from falling into the same situation again.

Netflix Goes Sci-Fi With Its Next Original Series, Sense8  —  Hot on the heels of Netflix's original series House Of Cards, the company has announced that it will release a new sci-fi TV series to the platform called Sense8.  —  The show is being developed under the guidance of the Wachowskis …

Here's Why Marissa Mayer Is About To Spend ~$200 Million On A YouTube Wannabe  —  Last week, Amir Efrati and Sam Shechner of the WSJ reported that Yahoo is close to acquiring a controlling stake in the YouTube-of-Europe, Dailymotion, at a valuation somewhere around $300 million.

Amazon expands its X-Ray movie information service to cover TV shows on Instant Video  —  Amazon has expanded its X-Ray for Movies feature, which enables Kindle users to tap on an actor and see the other films they've starred in, by adding support for TV shows today.

Ericsson Said to Discuss Buying TV-Software Unit From Microsoft  —  Ericsson AB (ERICB) is in talks to buy Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s IPTV business, which makes software used by phone companies such as AT&T Inc. (T) to deliver television over the Internet, people with knowledge of the matter said.

New Flipboard: News and Posts Handpicked and Shared  —  One of the best ways of following topics that are interesting to you is Flipboard, a popular app for Apple and Android mobile devices that automatically turns social-network posts and news from online publications, into beautiful, magazine-like pages you “flip” through by swiping.

Research Firm Boosts Twitter Ad Sales Estimate to $950 Million for 2014  —  Twitter Inc. is growing up faster than expected.  —  Research firm eMarketer Inc., whose advertising forecasts are closely tracked, is set to revise higher its estimates of advertising revenue for Twitter …

New Amazon CloudHSM service vows enterprise-grade security  —  Amazon Web Services runs on tons and tons of shared hardware.  That's a huge benefit in terms of cost but also spooks customers with strict regulatory requirements that prevent them from running their applications on shared infrastructure.