Samsung fined $340,000 for faking online comments  —  After being caught paying for false praise and negative comments about competitors, Samsung has been fined just over $340,000.  The issue first arose internationally in April, when Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) announced it was opening an investigation into the allegations.

YouTube preparing a $10/month premium on-demand music service, may come this year  —  YouTube Close to Launching Subscription Music Service (Breaking)  —  YouTube is preparing a premium on-demand music service — akin to a Spotify, but with video — to launch later this year, according to several sources familiar with the plans.

Patent Filing Shows Samsung Preps Electronic Eyewear  —  Samsung Electronics Co. appears to be creating a Google Glass of its own.  —  A design patent registered with Korean authorities in October shows an electronic device in the form of spectacles.  It has been categorized as a type of “sports glasses.”

Former Apple CEO Sculley mulls BlackBerry bid  —  John Sculley, the former Apple Inc. CEO who famously clashed with Steve Jobs, is exploring a bid for beleaguered BlackBerry Ltd. with Canadian partners, sources have told The Globe and Mail.  —  Mr. Sculley said he could not comment on the matter …

Mac App Store bug allows iWork trial users to update the entire suite for free (Update: Aperture, too)  —  Users who have previously downloaded the free 30-day iWork trial and kept it on their systems found themselves able to update to the latest version of Apple's productivity suite …

Blackberry's Android BBM app drawing lots of suspicious 5-star ratings  —  Blackberry's standalone BBM messaging app debuted on Android yesterday, and it has already received more than 150,000 reviews on the Google Play Store.  However, as first pointed out on Twitter by Matt Baxter-Reynolds …

Vine Update Lets Users Edit Videos, Save Multiple Drafts  —  Vine, Twitter's six-second looping video app, has just released an update to the app that brings two new big features to the video sharing platform: Sessions and Time Travel.  —  Time Travel essentially lets you edit videos …

Pinterest Does Another Massive Funding — $225 Million at $3.8 Billion Valuation (Confirmed)  —  According to several sources, Pinterest has completed another enormous funding, this time nabbing $225 million with late-stage investor Fidelity Investments in the lead.

Microsoft erects a giant Surface tablet in the center of London  —  Microsoft has a fascination with big screens.  The software giant has demonstrated Windows 8 on its 82-inch Perceptive Pixel PC and created giant displays with Kinect built-in.  Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates even uses a giant 80-inch Windows 8 display occasionally.

Microsoft slashes Surface Pro's price by another $100: 64GB for $699, 128GB for $799, and 256GB for $999  —  Microsoft has slashed the price of its original Surface Pro by $100.  While the tablet has been largely dropped from the broader Surface product line, it's still available on the Microsoft Store …

Flash Player now sandboxed under Safari on Mac OS X  —  Adobe has worked with Apple to sandbox Flash Player under Safari in Mac OS X, restricting the ability of attackers to exploit any vulnerabilities they might find in the browser plug-in.  —  “With this week's release of Safari in OS X Mavericks …

Hewlett-Packard Said to Be Seeking to Sell Mobile Patents  —  Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) is seeking buyers for some of its mobile-computing patents, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, as Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman tries to bolster the company's financial position.

Amazon's set-top box runs into further delays  —  Amazon has been been rushing to finalize and release a set-top box in time for the holidays, designed to compete directly with the Apple TV and Roku.  However, The Verge has learned that the company recently made the decision to delay the device, possibly beyond the holiday season.

Why would anyone buy an iPad 2 now?  —  For $399, Apple's iPad mini with Retina display is a far better choice  —  Yesterday, Apple announced two new iPads: the iPad Air, and the iPad mini with Retina display.  Both carry Apple's speedy new A7 processor, and both come with high-resolution screens.

The Boss Is Watching: Tracking Technology Shakes Up Workplace  —  Dennis Gray suspected that workers in his pest-control company were spending too much time on personal issues during the workday.  So the general manager of Accurid Pest Solutions in southern Virginia quietly installed a piece …

App monitoring service New Relic unveils its vision for analytics, updates its mobile SDK and more  —  Application performance monitoring (APM) service and platform New Relic is making significant efforts to scale its mission in helping developers better understand who is using their apps.

Here's Carl Icahn's Letter To Tim Cook Saying He Wants Apple To Buyback $150 Billion In Stock Immediately  —  Yesterday Carl Icahn tweeted that he sent a letter to Tim Cook, and would put it on a new website he was launching called Shareholder's Square Table — now the site is live.

Proposed bipartisan bill increases risks and costs to patent trolls, has chance of passing  —  Finally, a bill to end patent trolling  —  Congressman Bob Goodlatte, breaking ground in patent law reform.  —  VaDOT  —  The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte …

Netflix needs to invest in content to gain subscribers, but that hurts profit growth  —  The Netflix Conundrum  —  The company needs to spend money on content to continue growing its subscriber base.  But the cost of content is hurting its profit growth.  —  Orange Is the New Black promotional poster.