Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin  —  Exclusive: Threats range from governments trying to control citizens to the rise of Facebook and Apple-style ‘walled gardens’  —  The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation …

Samsung sends out event invites to “come and meet the next Galaxy” on May 3 in London.  Galaxy S III incoming?  —  Update: The event has been confirmed by Samsung.  —  Samsung could be just weeks away from unveiling its next flagship Android smartphone — the Galaxy S III …

How the Tech Parade Passed Sony By  —  THE lights dimmed.  The crowd hushed.  The teleprompters flickered.  —  Kazuo Hirai stepped up and flashed a winning smile: it was show time.  The scene was oddly upbeat inside the Sony Corporation last Thursday as Mr. Hirai, the company's new chief executive, faced the cameras.

Hands-on: getting work done with Google's new Aura interface for Chrome OS  —  Google attempted to introduce a new approach to computing when it first launched Chrome OS in 2010.  The operating system consists of little more than a fullscreen Web browser perched atop a rigorously-hardened Linux environment.

Netflix never used its $1 million algorithm due to engineering costs  —  Netflix awarded a $1 million prize to a developer team in 2009 for an algorithm that increased the accuracy of the company's recommendation engine by 10 percent.  But today it doesn't use the million-dollar code …

In Silicon Valley, designers emerge as rock stars  —  (Reuters) - Five years ago, Justin Edmund arrived at Carnegie Mellon University, a floppy-haired freshman, with artistic talent and dreams of joining a venerable design firm like IDEO or Frog.  But during his sophomore year …

FCC Clears Google Over Wifi Eavesdropping But Fines It $25,000 For “Noncompliance” With Requests  —  The US Federal Communications Commission has cleared Google of any legal wrong-doing over its Street View cars that intercepted wifi transmissions.  That's the good news for the company.  The bad news?

Netflix CEO calls out Comcast on net neutrality  —  When most Comcast subscribers complain, it's a blip.  When the CEO of Netflix vents to his 120,000 subscribers on Facebook, it's a salvo.  Reed Hastings doesn't agree with Comcast's approach to net neutrality and caps — and he wants everyone to know it.

What Amazon's ebook strategy means  —  It seems to me that a lot of folks in the previous discussion don't really understand quite what makes Amazon so interesting—and threatening, for that matter—to the publishing industry.  —  So I'm going to take a stab at explaining.

Steve Jobs movie starring Ashton Kutcher to cover Apple from 1971 to 2000, filming starts next month  —  We've got a few more details on the recently-revealed Steve Jobs movie starring Ashton Kutcher, thanks to a Neowin interview with the producer, Mark Hulme.

The Mobile Paradox  —  Google's stock declined by over 4% yesterday.  Many have put this down to the company's decision to create a non-voting class of stock as part of a control-retention exercise as the founders sell shares.  But more is going on here.  In the same week as Facebook acquired Instagram …

Confirmed: Redpoint Leads $40M Funding Round for Path  —  Path, the mobile social networking start-up, is planning to announce it has raised Series B funding as early as tomorrow, according to sources.  —  Redpoint Ventures led the $40 million round, which values Path at $250 million.