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April 1, 2013, 8:30 PM

Top News

Ron Amadeo / Android Police:

[APK Teardown Exclusive] The HTC Myst Facebook Phone - The Facebook App Is Now A Launcher, Looks Like They're Planning A Play Store Release, Too — We've managed to score a system dump of the Facebook phone! There's nothing in it that's too earthshattering, and you could probably guess …

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Phone Leak Points To Budget HTC Device, Homescreen App For All Androids

More: Businessweek and ReadWrite

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Apple CEO Tim Cook announces changes to warranty policies, apologizes to customers in China following smear campaign — Following controversy in China with state-controlled media outlets going after Apple over its warranty policies, Apple CEO Tim Cook today addressed the issue in a letter published to the company's website in China.

More: Fortune, New York Times, Mercury News, GigaOM, Tech Trader Daily, iMore, Business Insider, VentureBeat, Engadget, StreetInsider.com, Neowin, Pocket-lint, AppleInsider, ABCNEWS, NBC Bay Area, Ars Technica, PC Magazine, Bloomberg, Guardian, MacRumors, DealBook, Reuters, iLounge, Fortune, The Verge, ZDNet, The Next Web, LoopNote and CNET. Tweets: @jyarow

Paul Mozur / Wall Street Journal:

Tim Cook Apologizes for China Customer Service — BEIJING—Apple Inc. issued an apology letter signed by Chief Executive Tim Cook that vowed to revamp aspects of its customer-service policies in China after more than two weeks of pointed attacks by government-run media.

More: The Atlantic Wire, ReadWrite, Digits, Forbes, Global by Design, Betabeat and iClarified

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

No joke: Amazon hires Windows Phone vet Charlie Kindel for ‘something secret’ — Charlie Kindel, the Seattle tech veteran who left his job as a Microsoft Windows Phone general manager in 2011 to join the startup world, has now been hired by Amazon.com as the director of an undisclosed project inside the company.

More: cek.log, AllThingsD, CNET, Computerworld, The Next Web and Windows Phone Central

Biz Stone / Jelly HQ:

What is Jelly? — People are basically good—when provided a tool that helps them do good in the world, they prove it. — Jelly is a new company and product named after the jellyfish. We are inspired by this particular animal because neurologically, its brain is more “we” than “me.”

More: GigaOM, Computerworld, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Domain Name Wire and AllThingsD. Tweets: @stevekovach

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Amazon's Cloud Drive adds file syncing, moves closer to a viable Dropbox replacement — When Amazon launched its Cloud Drive app for Mac and Windows back in May, we noted that a lack of proper file syncing prevented the service from becoming a full-blown Dropbox and SkyDrive replacement.

More: Ars Technica, TechHive, AppleInsider, CNET, Engadget, 9to5Mac and Lifehacker

Kashmir Hill / Forbes:

Google's Privacy Director Is Stepping Down — When Alma Whitten was tapped to be Google's first director of privacy in 2010, CNet declared hers the “hardest job at Google.” A long time engineer at the company with expertise in computer security, she was put in charge of a program overseeing products …

More: VentureBeat, Marketing Land, TechCrunch, Dennis Fisher, The Verge, AllThingsD and ZDNet

T.C. Sottek / The Verge:

Aereo wins major court battle against TV networks — A remarkably tech-savvy decision — The United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals just rejected an appeal from TV networks against web-television company Aereo by a 2-1 vote, concluding that Aereo's system does not infringe the broadcaster's copyrights.

More: New York Times, VatorNews, Ars Technica, Reuters, CNET, Techdirt, Computerworld, dailywireless.org, 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, Engadget, Reuters, Hillicon Valley, GeekWire, Betabeat, Gotta Be Mobile and VentureBeat. See also Mediagazer

Andrew Harris / Bloomberg:

Facebook Must Face Trademark Trial Over ‘Timeline’ — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers a keynote address during the Facebook f8 conference on September 22, 2011 in San Francisco, California. Zuckerberg kicked off the conference introducing a Timeline feature to the popular social network.

More: AllFacebook, Business Insider, The Verge and CNET

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:

Windows Phone sees big gains at the expense of BlackBerry and Symbian — Alright, so Microsoft is in no danger of toppling iOS or Android anytime soon. But the analytics firm Kantar has seen significant growth for Windows Phone, largely at the expense of BlackBerry.

More: Kantar Worldpanel, Business Insider, WMPoweruser, BGR, VentureBeat, Kantar Worldpanel, TechCrunch, Pocketnow, iDownloadBlog.com, TG Daily, TruTower, PhoneArena, WMPoweruser, Windows Phone Daily, PC Magazine, TechSpot, IntoMobile, Yahoo! News and Windows Phone Central

Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:

“Can I resell my MP3s?” redux—federal judge says no — In Capitol Records v. ReDigi, the Boston digital music startup loses. — For years, many a music fan has wondered what we first posited back in 2008: “Can I resell my MP3s?” — After all, as we've pointed out in the past …

More: AllThingsD, Wired, Engadget, The Register, AppleInsider, VentureBeat, New York Times, Techdirt, Bloomberg and Electronista. See also Mediagazer

Brad Molen / Engadget:

AT&T to begin HTC One pre-sales this week, starting with 32GB for $250 — True to form, carriers won't stop being so coy about the HTC One. We still haven't received any official information regarding the flagship's pricing or specific availability, but thanks to one of our eagle-eyed tipsters …

More: Android Phone Fans, BGR, Redmond Pie, AndroidHeadlines.com, LaptopMemo, Pocketables, Ubergizmo, Gotta Be Mobile and AndroidGuys

Mary Ellen Gordon / The Flurry Blog:

Size Matters for Connected Devices. Phablets Don't. — Flurry now detects about 1 billion smartphones and tablets in use around the world every month. In the last 30 days, we saw activity on more than 2,000 unique device models. As the device base grows, we're seeing an increasing variety …

More: Electronista, BGR, PandoDaily, AppleInsider, MacDailyNews, PadGadget and TechCrunch

New York Times:

E-Commerce Companies Bypass Middlemen to Build Premium Brand — When the founders of a start-up that sells eyeglasses online, Warby Parker, began investigating why designer glasses cost several hundred dollars, they discovered that everyone in the process was taking a cut: designers, manufacturers, brands, wholesalers and retailers.

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:

YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley announces MixBit video collaboration site — YouTube founder Chad Hurley is gearing up to launch a new video site, MixBit. On Twitter today, Hurley poked fun at a Google April Fools' joke proclaiming that “Since YouTube is ending, we're launching a new video site.”

More: CNET, GigaOM, Mashable, WebProNews, Electronista, TechCrunch, SlashGear, Pocket-lint, VentureBeat and The Next Web. Tweets: @chad_hurley. See also Mediagazer

Andrew E. Kramer / New York Times:

Russia Begins Selectively Blocking Internet Content — MOSCOW — The Russian government in recent weeks has been making use of a new law that gives it the power to block Internet content that it deems illegal or harmful to children. — The country's communications regulators have required Facebook …

More: CNET, PC Magazine, Fast Company, DailyTech, Daily Dot, Betabeat, TechNewsWorld, TechSpot, SiliconANGLE and VentureBeat

Agustino Fontevecchia / Forbes:

Icahn Unveils 9.3% Stake In Nuance, Voice-Recognition Firm Reportedly Behind Apple's Siri — Carl Icahn just won't sit tight. In a filing released after market hours on Monday, the billionaire investor revealed a 9.3% passive stake in Nuance Communications, a voice-recognition company reportedly behind Apple's Siri.

More: Reuters and ParisLemon

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

eBay relaunches shopping.com as the eBay Commerce Network, a product listings platform for publishers — eBay relaunched its price comparison website shopping.com today as the eBay Commerce Network, putting greater emphasis on its API that allows external publishers to promote its product listings elsewhere on the Internet.

More: TechCrunch and internetretailer.com

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Windows 8 now up to 3.31% market share as Vista finally falls below the 5% mark — With the first quarter of 2013 already over, Windows 8 continues its slow but steady growth. Windows 7 meanwhile posted minor growth and Windows Vista has finally fallen below the 5 percent mark.

More: Computerworld, CNET, ZDNet, Ars Technica, Datamation.com, Softpedia News, Electronista and SlashGear. Thanks:@alex

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Michael Dell lays out his plan — Michael Dell tells Dell employees what may come next. — FORTUNE — Last month I was critical of Michael Dell for not explaining his plans for a privately-held Dell Inc. (DELL), were he and Silver Lake to successfully purchase the company.

More: ZDNet

Kimiko De Freytas-Tamura / New York Times:

Box, a Data Storage Company, Prepares to Compete in Europe — LONDON — Box, an online business data storage and management company, plans to expand its sales force and team of developers by opening offices in Germany and France in coming months, building on its first overseas foray last summer in Britain.

More: Venture Capital Dispatch

Derrick Harris / GigaOM:

Facebook builds a database benchmark for a graph-powered world — If you're doing any sort of social-media application, you might want to take note of what Facebook just built. The company has created a benchmarking tool called LinkBench that measures the performance of databases tasked …

More: Facebook and ZDNet

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