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.

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 has 26 million streaming customers worldwide, prepared to do battle with HBO  —  Calling itself the “world's leading Internet TV network,” Netflix has announced $870 million in revenue for its fiscal Q1 2012.  The company also added almost 3 million subscribers to its streaming service …

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.

Android chief Andy Rubin said java.lang APIs are copyrighted in 2006 email  —  Andy Rubin, Google's senior vice president of mobile  —  As the second week of the Oracle-Google trial got underway Monday, Andy Rubin, the man behind the Android platform, took his turn on the witness stand.

Near-final Version of Windows 8 Due in Early June  —  A near-final “release preview” version of Windows 8 is due in the first week of June, Microsoft confirmed late on Monday.  —  Windows unit president Steven Sinofsky made the announcement at a Windows Developer Days event in Japan.

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.

Microsoft's Mobile Comeback Is Looking Terrible  —  Microsoft ruled the PC market for decades with utter dominance.  But today, as the future shifts toward mobile devices, things are not looking good for Microsoft.  It's not that it's not trying: Microsoft is spending a lot of money and effort …

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.

Apple Predicted to Discontinue 17-Inch MacBook Pro  —  Research analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has in the past offered accurate information on Apple's Mac product roadmap, recently took on a new position with KGI Securities and has published a new report today indicating that Apple may be preparing …

Hurt Locker Makers Return to Sue 2,514 BitTorrent Users  —  After being honored with an Oscar for Best Motion Picture in 2010, the makers of The Hurt Locker went on to sue thousands of people who allegedly shared the film online.  —  Movie studio Voltage Pictures was not only one of the first studios …

Inside YouTube's complex, crazy German court defeat  —  Google says it's determined to “find a solution” to YouTube's German difficulties, after the country's music rights collection society GEMA won a lawsuit against the web giant.  —  But understanding what exactly it's trying to find …

Quora: We're Not Just About Tech and Silicon Valley Anymore (Chart)  —  Quora today released a breakdown of its users' answers from the past three months that was designed to prove that the site is no longer just about the inside stories and ruminations about technology start-ups in Silicon Valley.

The Two-Horse Smartphone Race  —  Apple, Samsung Use Different Playbooks in Battle for Supremacy; For Rivals, It's Specialty vs. Scale  —  Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. should make it abundantly clear this week that the smartphone industry is increasingly dividing into the haves and have-nots.

U.S.'s first smartphone rail ticketing service headed for Boston  —  Boston rail commuters will soon have a mobile alternative to traditional paper tickets, allowing them to use their smartphones to buy and display their train tickets.  The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) …

InMobi: Android & iOS Eat Away At RIM's Share In North America; Globally, Nokia Devices Dominate  —  Independent mobile ad network InMobi released its Q1 2012 Ad Data report for North America this morning, covering the mobile ad landscape for the first part of the year.