2012 Update from the CEO  —  Velocity, execution and focus Sergey and I founded Google because we believed that building a great search experience would improve people's lives and, hopefully, the world.  And in the decade-plus that's followed, we've been constantly delighted by the ways …

Shutting down spammers  —  Twitter continues to grow at a record pace — we now have 140 million active users and more than 340 million Tweets each day.  As our reach expands, we become a more attractive target for spammers.  While spam is a small fraction of the incredible content you can find on Twitter …

Facebook Picks Nasdaq for I.P.O.  —  Facebook, which is preparing for its highly anticipated initial public offering, has picked a home.  —  The social network will list its shares on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol “FB,” according a person familiar with the matter, who demanded anonymity because the discussions were private.

Apple's Highest Priority Is Obviousness  —  Good piece from Sebastiaan de With, riffing on my bit last week regarding the tension between simplicity and obviousness.  But I gently disagree with this: … Apple has started using gestures more widely, but they're not requiring them.

Amid Worries About Strategery, Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson Tries to Soothe the Savaged Troops (Memo Time!)  —  Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson, who has developed a tough-talk reputation within Yahoo of late, went all sweet — well, less crabby, I guess — the day after the layoffs in which 2,000 employees were fired.

Security hole exposes Android, iOS to Facebook identity theft  —  Summary: A new security vulnerability discovered in Facebook for Android and Facebook for iOS means your Facebook identity can be stolen if you use an Android phone, Android tablet, iPhone, and/or iPad.

Android Device Makers Are Mutinying, Says Insider  —  Amazon showed device makers that they don't need Google to succeed.  —  Google's Android device makers aren't happy.  They're tired of making commodity devices that are merely vehicles for Google's Android OS, each indistinguishable …

Wall Street Examines Fine Print in a Bill for Start-Ups  —  Wall Street is examining whether it will benefit from a little-known section of a broad new law that President Obama is expected to sign on Thursday.  —  Provisions tucked into the so-called JOBS Act, or the Jumpstart Our Business Startups …

Jobs's Biographer to Page: What Part of “I'm Going to Destroy Android” Didn't You Understand?  —  Google CEO Larry Page's revisionist approach to Steve Jobs's infamous ire over the company's Android operating system isn't sitting well with the late Apple CEO's biographer, Walter Isaacson.

Actually, Arianna Huffington Has Been Demoted  —  Despite a story in today's New York Times headlined: “Huffington Gains More Control in AOL Revamping,” Arianna Huffington has in recent weeks seen a “narrowing” of her job at AOL, a source close to AOL tells us.

Spotify's subscriber growth disappoints  —  Spotify's US performance has been less than rocking, according to sources who say the digital music service has been under-delivering in terms of subscribers.  —  It has been nine months since Spotify debuted in the US and was hailed as a coming music revolution …

Bragging rights go to Apple as per-share price now tops Google  —  If you're keeping score — and who doesn't these days? — it now costs more to buy a share of Apple than to purchase a share of Google.  —  To be sure, this is more about bragging rights than anything else as the market capitalization …

Samsung: We're still not into 3D smartphones  —  By now you may have already seen a handful of “leaks” on Samsung's imminent Galaxy S III, but if you ask us, they all smell like a cruel prank on anticipating fans.  As far as we're concerned, the only reliable tidbits so far are the GT-i9300 …

Apple investigating new iPad WiFi issues, tells AppleCare to replace affected units  —  According to an internal AppleCare document, Apple is actively investigating a series of WiFi-related issues affecting the third-generation iPad.  Since the new iPad's launch, many users have been complaining …

Red Hat, IBM sign on for OpenStack  —  Two tech powers — IBM and Red Hat — are ready to officially bless OpenStack's open source cloud project.  —  The news — which should come next week or the week after at the OpenStack Spring Conference — is a big boost to OpenStack …

Wikipedia's Mobile Apps Drop Google Maps for OpenStreetMap  —  In the world of online mapping, it feels like things aren't quite going in Google's direction these days: Apple switched away from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap when it launched iPhoto for iOS.  Foursquare, too, announced …

New York State Attorney General Announces Purge of Sex Offenders From Online Games  —  New York State Attorney General Erik Schneiderman announced a sweeping purge of registered sex offenders from online worlds Thursday.  In what's being called Operation: Game Over, his office is cooperating …

Keeping Instagram up with over a million new users in twelve hours  —  On Tuesday we launched Instagram for Android, and it's had a fantastic response so far.  The last few weeks (on the infrastructure side) have been all about capacity planning and preparation to get everything in place …

Stolen Samsung AMOLED technology sold to rival, 11 suspects arrested  —  Nearly a dozen suspects have been arrested and charged with crimes related to the theft and sale of AMOLED display technology under development at Samsung.  Yonhap News Agency on Thursday reported that 11 suspects either currently …

Facebook e-commerce: the next big thing?  —  (Reuters) - A group of e-commerce start-ups, backed by some of the tech world's most pedigreed financiers, are betting that Facebook Inc can become an e-commerce powerhouse to rival Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc.  —  As the world's largest social …

Google: No more e-books for indie booksellers  —  Google is ending the program that allows independent booksellers to sell Google e-books through their websites.  It is a big blow for small bookstores seeking to compete against Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  —  The full letter that the American …