Facebook readies to file US$5bn IPO, could grow  —  Facebook is expected to file to raise US$5bn in a preliminary IPO prospectus on Wednesday morning, which while less than anticipated could be increased to ultimate investor demand, according to sources close to the deal.

Amazon.com Announces Fourth Quarter Sales up 35% to $17.43 Billion; Kindle Device Sales Nearly Triple During the Holidays  —  Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced financial results for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2011.  —  Operating cash flow increased 12% to $3.90 billion …

Exclusive: First Image of a BlackBerry 10 Superphone!!  —  BOOM!  Last week's leaked 2012 BlackBerry Roadmap slide deck brought with it a ton of goodies for the new year, but one thing that was missing was a fresh look at a BlackBerry 10 [Smartphone] Superphone.

Congratulations Crunchies Winners!  Dropbox Is The Best Overall Startup  —  This year's fifth annual Crunchies Awards has just finished up at the classy Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and it was a smashing success.  We poked fun #humblebraggers, got cussed at by Siri …

Say hello to Bootstrap 2.0  —  Six months ago we open-sourced Twitter Bootstrap, an extensive front-end toolkit for developing web sites and applications.Since then, Bootstrap has grown to be one of the most popular projects on GitHub, the largest open source code host in the world, with over 16,000 watchers and 3,000 forks.

Neil Young and the Sound of Music  —  You know what the biggest problem with music today is?  —  Sound quality.  —  That's Neil Young's take on the issue, anyway.  For years, the musician has been obsessed with improving the way modern music sounds, sonically speaking.

The Front Line  —  So, Yahoo messed up today.  They've messed up other days, too, but this was an especially red-letter day amongst other red-letter days, and this is one that has me ticked off.  —  For reasons I don't know, Yahoo laid off the highest level of Flickr's customer support …

ITC throws out Barnes & Noble's antitrust claims against Microsoft ahead of trial: no signs of wrongdoing  —  Barnes & Noble's primary line of defense against Microsoft's allegations of patent infringement by the bookseller's Android-based devices has collapsed in its entirety.

Firefox Adds Powerful New Developer Tools  —  Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux adds powerful built-in developer tools and delivers smoother updates by making add-ons compatible by default.  —  Firefox adds a number of new built-in developer tools that let developers change the look and feel of websites in real-time.

Pricing Paradox  —  As Apple's extraordinarily low valuation is being more widely noted, explanatory hypotheses are proliferating.  Everyone seems to have an opinion.  Some explanations come in and out of fashion.  Others are reliable old clichés.  We've seen liquidity issues …

New Identified Research Reveals Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies  —  In our latest edition of the “Revenge of the Nerds” white paper research series, Identified has discovered that a growing number of company founders and CEOs today are far more likely …

Boxee officially pulls the plug on PC client  —  Want to run Boxee on your PC or Mac?  Then hurry up; Boxee is removing all copies of its PC-based app from its servers by the end of the day Tuesday to fully concentrate on the Boxee Box.  —  The company announced the move late last year …

Nokia chief hints at Lumia phones with NFC  —  Exclusive: Marko Ahtisaari interview points towards new designs of Lumia phones without tab on USB charger slot  —  • Marko Ahtisaari: smartphone evolution is only just beginning  —  Nokia is working on a Windows Phone model that incorporates NFC …

Introducing the iFactory  —  Apple reinvented gadgets.  Now it should reinvent how gadgets are manufactured.  —  Last week, Apple reported one of the most amazing earning results in corporate history.  During the last three months of 2011, the company made $13 billion in profit …

Filing: Without Itanium Chip, HP Is “Strategically Screwed”  —  Last night, a California judge made some key rulings in the ongoing litigation between Hewlett-Packard and Oracle over the latter's decision to stop supporting Intel's Itanium chip.  —  One thing Judge James Kleinberg did was dismiss …

YouTube could introduce a subscription service of its own  —  At the D:Dive Into Media conference Tuesday, YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar gave his views on how the video marketplace is evolving both online and off.  While much of the company's efforts have been based on advertising …

Jack Dorsey Defends Twitter's Tweet-Level Censorship  —  After Twitter creator, executive chairman, and product lead Jack Dorsey accepted the company's award for Biggest Social Impact at the Crunchies, TechCrunch's Alexia Tsotsis asked him about a recent, controversial decision to block individual tweets on a country-by-country basis.

Sony confirms Kazuo Hirai as new President and CEO, replacing Howard Stringer  —  Sony has just confirmed Kazuo Hirai as its new CEO and President, validating rumors that have been swirling for a few weeks now.  Outgoing CEO Howard Stringer, meanwhile, has been appointed Chairman of Sony's Board of Directors.

The Trouble With Popularity  —  Way back in 2008, we had Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, the founders and co-creators of Reddit, on the Stack Overflow podcast.  We chatted about a bunch of stuff, but one of the things they said that always stuck with me was that Reddit always took an explicitly hands-off …

EXCLUSIVE: WikiLeaks to move servers offshore, sources say  —  Prince Michael Bates of Sealand stands atop the helipad on his World War II era “micronation” — a possible future location for Wikileaks' servers.  —  Julian Assange's investors are in the process of purchasing a boat …

Redbox Puts the Kibosh on WB's 56-day Waiting Period  —  While Netflix is happy to kowtow to Warner Brothers Studio's title-delaying demands, Redbox is having none of it.  The curbside video rental chain just let its contract with WB expire over the issue—allowing Redbox to rent its WB catalog ahead of the competition.

Google to give closed-door briefing on policy changes  —  Google CEO Larry Page won't be testifying before Congress this week.  In response to an invitation last week from Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., who asked Page to appear and explain the company's user policy changes, two other Google execs will appear.