Microsoft, Facebook Announce Patent Agreement  —  Microsoft Corp. and Facebook announced today a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will assign to Facebook the right to purchase a portion of the patent portfolio it recently agreed to acquire from AOL Inc. Facebook has agreed to purchase this portion for $550 million in cash.

Making personal cloud storage for Windows available anywhere, with the new SkyDrive … Over the last year we've been hard at work building SkyDrive alongside Windows 8, setting out a unique approach to designing personal cloud storage for billions of people by bringing together the best aspects of file, app, and device clouds.

Facebook's Amended S-1: 901 Million Users, 500M Mobile, Paid $300M Cash + 23M Shares For Instagram  —  Facebook has just filed a fourth amendment to its S-1 to IPO that notes that it now has 500 million mobile users, 901 million monthly active users, and that it paid 23 million shares at $30.89 …

Netflix Posts An In-Line Quarter, But Investors Balk  —  First look at Netflix numbers: A loss of $0.08 a share on revenue of $870 million.  Wall Street was expecting revenues of $855 million and a loss of $0.27 a share.  The crucial number: 23.41 million domestic streaming subscribers.

Share your stuff with a link!  —  We're super excited to announce a whole new way to share: now you can send a link to the files or folders in your Dropbox!  —  Sharing with friends and family is easy!  Once you've saved that video of your niece's birthday party to Dropbox …

The Intel Ivy Bridge (Core i7 3770K) Review  —  The times, they are changing.  In fact, the times have already changed, we're just waiting for the results.  I remember the first time Intel brought me into a hotel room to show me their answer to AMD's Athlon 64 FX—the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition.

Justice Department Bites Apple  —  The 30% revenue-share model is the company's standard practice, not the product of a conspiracy.  —  'I don't think you understand.  We can't treat newspapers or magazines any differently than we treat FarmVille.  With those words, senior Apple executive Eddy Cue stuck …

Frustration, Disappointment And Apathy: My Years At Microsoft  —  Editor's Note: This Guest post is written by Max Zachariades, who spent the last five years at Microsoft in various roles.  He blogs under the name Max Zografos.  —  I first used Windows on a TULIP portable computer, some twenty years ago.

Obama to target foreign nationals' use of new technologies in human rights abuses  —  President Obama will issue an executive order Monday that will allow U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions against foreign nationals found to have used new technologies …

NimbleTV Aims to Stream TV on Devices  —  In a move that could hasten the slow pace of so-called TV Everywhere, a technology start-up is introducing a way to move a whole subscription's worth of TV onto the Web, with or without the subscription company's permission.

Current status of the “Browser Wars”  —  In this report we will examine the current status of what is often referred to as the “Browser Wars.”  How popular are the various web browsers around the world right now?  As you'll see, there are significant regional differences in web browser usage.

Viddy, a Video-Sharing App, Attracts Biz Stone and Shakira as Backers  —  After photo-sharing apps like Instagram, will the next big thing in social media be video-sharing apps?  —  The people behind Viddy, a video-sharing app, certainly hope so.  The application, which is currently available …