Apple combats scalpers with new lottery system for iPhone reservations in Hong Kong  —  Apple has implemented an interested system to fight those pesky scalpers who spoiled a recent iPhone 4S launch in Mainland China.  A newly set up page on the Hong Kong Apple online store has a lottery system …

The Real Story of How Dick Costolo Kicked Investors Off Twitter's Board  —  The dribs and drabs of news about the shakeup of Twitter's board last year has produced a confusing picture.  The message I was hearing from sources while I was out on maternity leave amounted to: “Nothing to see here.

How Americans used their phones to assist with purchasing decisions this holiday season  —  Main Findings  —  How Americans used their phones to assist with purchasing decisions this holiday season  —  More than half of adult cell phone owners used their cell phones while they were in a store during …

Verizon shared data plans show up in employee training materials, still on track?  —  Verizon said it was working on a shared data solution for 2012, and according to an anonymous tipster, the new packages could be rolling out soon.  We've been told that training material for an update …

Costolo: Twitter Isn't Looking to Censor Anyone  —  Twitter CEO Dick Costolo on Monday tried to clarify his company's position regarding censorship, saying that Twitter will only censor tweets when it is legally required to do so.  —  The company said last week in a blog post that it is now able …

Obama and Romney Campaigns Adopt Square for Funding  —  Social media was the game-changing technology that altered the course of the 2008 presidential election.In 2012, mobile payments could be the transformational technology, as millions of political supporters are given the ability to collect money on smartphones for candidates.

Three Founders Are Out At Demand Media  —  Demand Media is known for churning lots of content through its sites, but today it's notable for another churn, of the executive kind: three of the people who helped found and build up the company are leaving.  —  Larry Fitzgibbon, Joe Perez …

Codecademy Becomes A Platform: Now Anyone Can Write Programming Tutorials  —  One of the most buzzed-about startups over the last few months has been Codecademy — a site that looks to make programming accessible to just about anyone, with a variety of interactive, web-based courses …

Node.js creator Ryan Dahl steps away from Node's day-to-day  —  Ryan Dahl, the hacker who brought the world Node.js, is turning over the reins to Isaac Schlueter.  —  Dahl, who started working on the Node project in 2009, stated in a Google Groups post, “After three years of working on Node …

Apple Releases iOS-like AirPort Utility 6.0 for Lion  —  Earlier today Apple pushed a series of updates for its AirPort Utility software, as well as a firmware update for AirPort Base Station and Time Capsule.  —  AirPort Utility has been updated to both version 5.6 (latest one was 5.5.3) …

At Sundance, Kickstarter Resembled a Movie Studio, but Without the Egos  —  One night last week there was a late-night party at Sundance — one of many — this one hosted by an outfit that had helped finance 10 percent of the festival's slate, 17 movies in all, including four that were in competition.

Obama's Google+ Hangout Didn't Change the Game, It Just Changed the Channel  —  The President of the United States held a Google+ Hangout today.  He fielded questions selected from over 130,000 submissions as well as from five lucky Americans selected to hang out with him live.

As Anonymous protests, Internet drowns in inaccurate anti-ACTA arguments  —  After the Internet's decisive victory over the Stop Online Piracy Act earlier this month, online activists have been looking for their next target, and a growing number of them have chosen the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement …

Angry Birds boss: ‘Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business’  —  Rovio's Mikael Hed tells music industry audience that embracing pirates can attract new fans  —  Rovio Mobile learned from the music industry's mistakes when deciding how to deal with piracy of its Angry Birds games …

Google launches official Android Developers page on Google+  —  In order to spread its message and keep developers in the loop, the fabulous Android development team launched an official Android Developers page on Google+.  The team said it is launching the new website to connect with developers …

Microsoft Office 15 technical preview kicks off  —  Summary: Microsoft is making available to select testers the technical preview of Office 15 client, server and services as of January 30.  —  Microsoft is kicking off the technical preview for its Office 15 client, servers and cloud services today, January 30.

Facebook launches Timeline Movie Maker  —  Summary: Facebook has launched Timeline Movie Maker, an app that creates a movie out of content on your new Facebook Timline.  Does the movie change your opinion of Timeline?  —  Facebook today launched Timeline Movie Maker, which creates a movie highlighting moments from your Timeline.

Facebook: Over 5 billion songs have been shared since September's f8  —  Whether you like the idea of “frictionless sharing” or not, Facebook has made a strong case for the service on stage at the Midem conference.  Dan Rose, the VP of Partnerships for the company, says that over 5 billion songs …

Paying To Serve: Microsoft Offers Accelerator-Backed Startups $60,000* In Azure Cloud Usage  —  The perks of getting into a top startup accelerator just got a little better.  Microsoft is now offering startups in its new BizSpark Plus program $60,000 worth of costs for using its Azure cloud computing program.

T-Mobile to institute domestic roaming data caps starting in April  —  T-Mobile's customers have traditionally not experienced any data usage restrictions while roaming on the carrier's partner networks, but it sounds like that'll come to an end this April.  According to TmoNews …

Responding To Feedback, Microsoft Makes Changes To Windows 8 File Management  —  On last week's Windows Weekly, I raised a topic that I've been wondering about for some time: How much user feedback does Microsoft take into account while developing Windows 8?  After all, so much of the OS design seems to have been created in secret.

Apple Topples HP for Lead in Q4 ‘Client PC’ Sales, Says Canalys  —  Market research firm Canalys this afternoon offers its update on the PC market in Q4, in which the firm groups together tablet computers such as Apple's (AAPL) iPad among “client PCs,” as they term it.

AT&T to launch Samsung Galaxy Note on February 19th for $299.99 [video]  —  AT&T announced Monday that the Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone will be available in stores on February 19th for $299.99 on contact, a day after we recently reported.  Pre-orders are set to begin this weekend …

Pre-IPO Filing, Facebook Trading Privately At $84 Billion Valuation  —  As everyone waits for Facebook to file for its IPO this week, one of the big questions is what will its valuation be.  Will it hit the magic $100 billion?  —  Well, we are not going to find out this week because IPOs …

Apple Puts New Engineers On Fake Products Until It Can Trust Them  —  Apple is so obsessed with secrecy, it sometimes puts new hires on fake products until they can be trusted.  —  Adam Lashinsky reported this tidbit in his new book “Inside Apple,” and a former Apple employee confirmed …