Apple to Begin iPhone Production This Quarter  —  Apple Inc. plans to begin production of a new iPhone similar in size and shape to its current one in the second quarter of the year, according to people familiar with the device's production, teeing up a possible summer launch for the next version of its flagship device.

iTunes URLs Appear To Be Losing Rank In Google Search  —  Google search is making it more difficult to surface iOS applications using typical user queries, like “Whatsapp iTunes,” “Whatsapp iPhone,” or searches by app name, for example.  In the past, this would return a page of search results …

Microsoft's Windows Blue looks to be named Windows 8.1  —  Summary: The Windows Blue operating system update is likely to be named “Windows 8.1” when it hits later this summer, according to sources.  —  Microsoft officials supposedly have decided on the final name for Windows Blue.

The Silent Partner  —  Jason Goldman helped build Google and Twitter into what they are today — but few outside of tech's inner circle know his name .  On shunning the spotlight in a star-obsessed industry.  —  Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey, Ev Williams and Jason Goldman accept the award for “Best Blog” on behalf of Twitter at SXSW 2007.

Mobile app deep-linking and new Cards  —  Twitter Cards are being used by more than 10,000 developers, mobile apps and websites to richly represent content on Twitter, including article summaries, user-posted photos, videos, songs, and more.  Today, through those Cards …

T-Mobile Sending Out Carrier Update Enabling LTE For Unlocked iPhone Devices On April 5th  —  As T-Mobile customers using unlocked AT&T or unlocked iPhone devices have had some lingering questions regarding their current device and LTE capability, we're happy to finally provide an answer.

Verizon, AT&T could partner to take over Vodafone — report  —  The deal would see Verizon buy back the value Vodafone owns in its company, while AT&T would acquire all non-U.S. assets.  —  Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead  —  Verizon and AT&T could be teaming up to make a huge bid …

Downtown Project Buys 100 Teslas To Launch Project 100, A Car-Sharing Service In Las Vegas  —  Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's Downtown Project just announced a new venture called Project 100, a complete transportation system for Las Vegas.  For a monthly subscription fee, users will be able to borrow a car …

Google engineers find a way to filter robocalls the way Gmail filters spam  —  Two Mountain View employees were among the winners in the FTC's crowdsourced challenge  —  The anti-robocall solution proposed by two Google engineers.  —  The Federal Trade Commission just announced the three winners …

Zynga's Big Bet on Real-Money Gaming to Launch This Week in the U.K.  —  It's about time Zynga doubled down.  —  The company will roll out two real-money versions of its casino and poker games in the next few days, marking the gaming giant's first offerings in the online gambling space.

OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter Departs Zynga; Will Be Replaced by VP of Mobile Sean Kelly  —  Mr. Porter and Ghostface Killah (Photo: Twitter)  —  Dan Porter, the former CEO of New York-based gaming company OMGPOP which was purchased by Zynga in March of last year, has left the company, according to a release obtained by Betabeat.

Facebook Photo Phenom Instagram Gets a Business Lead to Scale Its Operations (and Presumably Revenue)  —  According to sources, Facebook has moved well-regarded exec Emily White to a new job as director of business operations at its Instagram mobile photo-sharing unit.

Firefox 20 arrives with per-window private browsing, new download manager, separate plugin closing, and more  —  Mozilla on Tuesday officially launched Firefox 20 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.  The improvements include per-window private browsing, a new download manager in the Firefox toolbar …

Yahoo Mail adds support for Dropbox attachments to web client  —  Yahoo just announced a new partnership with Dropbox that lets you attach files stored with the popular cloud service to outbound emails.  The company is touting the integration as yet another way it's making the email experience simpler for customers.

Microsoft launches special Chinese version of Surface Pro aimed at home users  —  Microsoft is hoping to build momentum behind its Surface Pro tablet in China by launching a special edition including Office Home & Student 2013—but with Windows 8 Standard, rather than Windows 8 Pro.

Following iPad release, Google rolls out free Android and iPhone versions of Quickoffice for Apps customers  —  Google on Wednesday announced the release of Quickoffice for Android and iPhone, available gratis for all its Apps for Business customers.  If you fit the bill …

Has Facebook Lost Faith in Social Ads?  —  After Once Vowing to Transform Online Advertising, It's Increasingly Embracing Standard Offerings  —  Has Facebook lost faith in the potential of social ads and its mantra of “word-of-mouth marketing at scale”?  —  The company once publicly …

Elissa Murphy, One of Yahoo's High-Profile Tech Execs, Heads to Go Daddy as CTO (Memo Time!)  —  One of Yahoo's top women execs, Elissa Murphy, who is VP of engineering for cloud services, is departing the Silicon Valley Internet giant to become CTO and head of platform efforts at Go Daddy, said sources.

Baidu Reportedly Working on Google Glass-Like ‘Baidu Eye’  —  Where Google goes, so too goes Baidu?  It certainly seems the company may have been inspired by Google Glass if Sina Tech's report that the company is working on a new wearable tech product called Baidu Eye (pictured) is correct.

YC-Backed Payments Startup Balanced Raises More Money From Andreessen Horowitz, CollabFund, And Others  —  Y Combinator-backed payments startup Balanced has closed out a total $3.4 million seed round, thanks to the addition of $2 million in new funding from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, CollabFund, and a bunch of angels.