Court strikes down FCC's net neutrality rules, agency may appeal  —  An appeals court in Washington on Tuesday ruled that the FCC's “net neutrality” rules, which forbid prevent companies like Verizon from favoring some type of internet traffic over others, are invalid.

Google to acquire Tony Fadell's smart home startup Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in cash  —  Google to Acquire Nest  —  Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has entered into an agreement to buy Nest Labs, Inc. for $3.2 billion in cash.  —  Nest's mission is to reinvent unloved …

Foxconn Ships Over 1 Million iPhone 5Ss to China Mobile  —  Apple's major iPhone assembler Foxconn has shipped about 1.4 million iPhone 5Ss to China Mobile last week, according to a person familiar with the matter, ahead of the mobile giant's launch this Friday.

Apple begins hiring iPhone/iPod manufacturing design engineers for Mesa, Arizona plant  —  Back in November, the State of Arizona announced that Apple had chosen the city of Mesa to create a new manufacturing facility and in the process 700 new permanent manufacturing jobs.

In 2013 the number of Windows PCs sold was only 1.18 times the number of Apple devices sold  —  When Apple reached parity with Windows  —  In 2013 there were 18.8 times more Windows PCs sold than Macs.  This is a reduction in the Windows advantage from about 19.8x in 2012.

Startups analyze phone location data, sell lifestyle profiles of owners, often with no consent  —  What Secrets Your Phone Is Sharing About You  —  Businesses Use Sensors to Track Customers, Build Shopper Profiles  —  Fan Zhang, the owner of Happy Child, a trendy Asian restaurant in downtown Toronto …

Datacenter startup Nutanix raises $101m with eye on IPO  —  Summary: New round of investment will help finance commercial expansion and boost analytics development at converged infrastructure specialist Nutanix.  —  Toby Wolpe  —  Nutanix says the $101m funding anounced this week will enable …

Sony grows its Xperia line by two with the 6-inch T2 Ultra and Walkman-centric E1  —  You'd think a company that very recently announced two new flagship smartphones at CES would slow its roll and hold off on the product announcements for a bit.  But no, Sony's introducing two more handsets …

AOL Sells Winamp And Shoutcast For $5-10M To Radionomy, Takes 12% Stake In Belgian Digital Audio Company  —  Returning from the brink of death, music services Winamp and Shoutcast are now officially with a new owner: Digital audio business Radionomy has acquired the both media player and radio platform from AOL.

Yandex Adds Facebook Posts And Big Data To Its Search Results In Russia, Other Home Markets  —  Yandex and Facebook had a notable run-in last year when a team of developers from the Russian search giant created a social search app called Wonder, which Facebook promptly blocked, leading to it shutting down.

U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear shopping cart case between Newegg and patent troll Soverain  —  U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Internet shopping patent case  —  (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it would not take on an Internet technology patent case that pitted …

YouTube Launches New Comments Management Tool  —  YouTube today launched a new tool for managing comments on its site that gives video creators a central inbox for all the comments their videos receive.  —  When YouTube made the controversial switch to Google+ comments, it also added a number of new tools for managing these comments.

The Hacker Who Cracked the Code in Iron Man and The Social Network  —  British programmer John Graham-Cumming recently noticed something unusual as he watched the movie Elysium: a piece of code that he recognized, flashing across the monitors as the film's characters interacted with a futuristic computer.

Valve's VR-friendly Steam UI launches in beta prior to its headset reveal  —  If Oculus Rift's new “Crystal Cove” prototype is anything to go by (it's seriously guano, if you hadn't heard already), then gamers are really going to appreciate the virtual reality revival.