Why Has Andreessen Horowitz Raised $2.7B in 3 Years? … Since Marc and I founded Andreessen Horowitz three years ago, we have raised $2.7 billion.  That statement begs a few questions.  The two most obvious are:  — Why did such a new venture capital firm raise so much money?

Facebook's Sandberg in Spotlight En Route to IPO  —  Facebook Inc.'s Sheryl Sandberg recently threw a fundraiser for President Obama, dining with Lady Gaga and the president himself.  Last week, she was a highly visible co-chair of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Changing our privacy policies, not our privacy controls  —  Last week we heard from members of Congress about Google's plans to update our privacy policies by consolidating them into a single document on March 1.  Protecting people's privacy is something we think about all day across the company …

Apple hires former Dixons CEO John Browett as retail chief  —  Apple announced today that it has appointed John Browett, former Dixons CEO, as Senior Vice President of its retail operations, responsible for the company's retail efforts worldwide.  Browett, who previously held the position …

Antitrust: Commission opens proceedings against Samsung  —  The European Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Samsung Electronics has abusively, and in contravention of a commitment it gave to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) …

The Coming Tech-led Boom  —  Three breakthroughs are poised to transform this century as much as telephony and electricity did the last.  —  In January 1912, the United States emerged from a two-year recession.  Nineteen more followed—along with a century of phenomenal economic growth.

Twitter's Dick Costolo on Ads, Censorship and Google (Video)  —  Twitter CEO Dick Costolo kicked off D: Dive Into Media with a bang on Monday, defending its ability to block tweets by country, rejecting the need for a stock offering and declaring 2012 to be the year of the Twitter election.

Salesforce launches Desk.com, slick social customer support software based on Assistly  —  Enterprise cloud powerhouse Salesforce has launched Desk.com, a savvy customer support application that connects agents with e-mail, phone calls, and social channels, the company announced Tuesday.

Thousands Line Up For Foxconn's Jobs in Zhengzhou (video)  —  On the 30th of January, thousands of hopefuls stood for hours outside a labour agency located in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou.  The lines stretched more than 200 meters along the road, and the people who were waiting in line …

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.

Feds: We obtained MegaUpload conversations with search warrant  —  One of the most curious aspects of the U.S. government's case against MegaUpload is the large number of the company's internal communications acquired by the FBI.  —  Kim DotCom  —  In one exchange, MegaUpload managers …

Amazon S3 Reports Staggering Growth in 2011  —  Amazon Web Services just reported jaw-dropping growth in the number of objects stored in Amazon S3 year over year.  —  “As of the end of 2011, there are 762 billion (762,000,000,000) objects in Amazon S3.  We process over 500,000 requests per second …

German appeals court upholds Galaxy Tab 10.1 injunction — but on different legal basis than Apple's design right  —  This morning, the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court (an appeals court) announced that it has upheld a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and has confirmed …

Unannounced HTC Ville with Android 4.0 and Sense 4.0 shown off in leaked video  —  HTC's upcoming smartphone code-named the HTC Ville just stared in a leaked video ahead of an official announcement, which is expected to come at next month's Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain.

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 …

Apple updates Final Cut Pro X with multicam, broadcast monitoring  —  Apple updates Final Cut Pro X with multicam, broadcast monitoring  —  Apple on Tuesday updated its professional workflow application, Final Cut Pro X, adding a number of significant features.

Country-Specific Blogger URLs  —  Google found an interesting trick to defend Blogger blogs against local laws: redirect readers to country-specific domains and only remove those URLs if required.  —  “Over the coming weeks you might notice that the URL of a blog you're reading has been redirected …

Verizon's Tangled Web  —  As Phone Giant Battles Cable in FiOS Fight, Wireless Unit Supports Comcast  —  As Verizon Communications Inc. pushes for more cable-television and high-speed Internet subscribers, a new competitor is emerging: its own subsidiary, Verizon Wireless.

Mexicans overcharged billions for phone, web: study  —  (Reuters) - Mexicans have been overcharged $13.4 billion a year for phone and internet services as the industry dominated by billionaire Carlos Slim gouges customers and keeps the economy from growing, a study released on Monday said.

Visa leads $40M in TrialPay's alternative payments business  —  Visa has led a $40 million investment round in TrialPay, one of the leaders in alternative payments known as offers.  —  Mountain View, Calif.-based TrialPay will use the money to expand into new markets and innovate in “transactional advertising.”

The Only Thing Less Stable Than Working at a Start-Up: Working at a Start-Up Co-Working Space  —  The city of Mountain View, Calif., is threatening to shut down Hacker Dojo, a co-working and events space for coders, because it isn't up to code.  —  Hacker Dojo already halted a planned expansion …

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.

EFF Launches MegaRetrieval To Help Users Save Their Megaupload Data  —  How many users see the Department of Justice's copyright-fueled takedown of Megaupload.  —  While the U.S. Department describes Megaupload and its recently arrested founder as copyright scofflaws, many users see the site differently …