Insanity: CISPA Just Got Way Worse, And Then Passed On Rushed Vote  —  Up until this afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be tomorrow.  Then, abruptly, it was moved up today—and the House voted in favor of its passage with a vote of 248-168.  But that's not even the worst part.

comScore: Amazon Kindle Fire is 54.4% of US Android tablets  —  comScore shows Kindle Fire propping up Android  —  Amazon's Kindle Fire now makes up the absolute majority of the Android tablet platform in the US, comScore found in a fresh study.  The e-reader and tablet crossover represented 54.4 percent …

Evernote approaching 30 million users, funding reports are ‘premature’: CEO Phil Libin  —  Evernote CEO Phil Libin took the stage at The Next Web Conference earlier today.  —  We took notes and will have a longer post for you later on, but here are some interesting tidbits about Evernote that Libin shared at the end of his talk.

Precise Pangolin rolls out: Ubuntu 12.04 released, introduces Unity HUD  —  The developers behind the Ubuntu project have announced the availability of Ubuntu 12.04, codenamed Precise Pangolin.  The new version of the popular Linux distribution brings updated software, several major user …

Amazon's Q1 2012: Revenue Up 34 Percent To $13.2B, Net Income Down 35 Percent  —  Amazon just reported earnings for the first quarter of 2012.  Net sales increased 34% to $13.18 billion in the first quarter, compared with $9.86 billion in first quarter 2011.

Revealed: How Twitter's secret offer for Instagram made Facebook pay $1B  —  The secret details of the $1 billion deal between Facebook and Instagram are more convoluted than anyone thought.  VentureBeat has learned that Instagram chief executive and co-founder Kevin Systrom first got an offer …

Google Street View Investigation by U.S. Declared Closed  —  Google Inc. (GOOG) said the U.S. Justice Department closed an investigation last May into the company's use of specially equipped autos that collected wireless data for its Street View project.  —  Google's disclosure about the inquiry …

Occupy protester's tweets fair game for prosecutors: judge  —  An Occupy Wall Street protester has lost his bid to quash a subpoena seeking his Twitter records from last fall, when he was arrested during a mass protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.  —  Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. …

‘Pivoting’ Pays Off for Tech Entrepreneurs  —  Technology entrepreneurs of past eras took two years to build a product, hire a staff and figure out whether there was any real market for their service.  But today all that typically takes only a few months as founders cycle quickly through different ideas until they find one that sticks.

Best Buy Connect no longer accepting new activations, service to end June 1st (update: confirmed)  —  Remember Best Buy Connect?  If so, you'll soon have a few more megabytes of humanized DDR3 freed up, as it appears that the retail giant is ready to put the kibosh on its own branded mobile …

Former Sun CEO says Google's Android didn't need license for Java APIs  —  Jonathan Schwartz (Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz took the stand here today as a witness for the defense, and disputed Oracle's claim that Java APIs were proprietary code from Sun.

Samsung Ends Nokia's 14-Year Run as World's Biggest Phone Maker  —  Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) overtook Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) as the world's biggest vendor of mobile-phones last quarter, ending the Finnish company's 14-year run as the global industry leader, according to researcher Strategy Analytics.

Viddy Is Raising $30M At A $370M Valuation  —  Someone wise once said “If Instagram for video were to happen it would look nothing like Instagram” but, because it was on Twitter, I briefly saw that tweet before it got lost in the ether and now I can't find it, dammit.

Samsung reports record $4.46b profit for Q1 2012, thanks to smartphones and tablet panels  —  If you wanted to know how much cash Samsung made last quarter, you didn't have to wait until today.  Just like in the fourth quarter of last year, the company's early guidance was right on the money …

Most of the Internet's Top 200,000 HTTPS Websites Are Insecure, Trustworthy Internet Movement Says  —  Ninety percent of the Internet's top 200,000 HTTPS-enabled websites are vulnerable to known types of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) attack, according to a report released Thursday …

Dropbox adds automated photo uploading from PCs and Macs, new Photos page  —  While the week has been dominated by cloud storage news in the wake of Google Drive's launch, Dropbox has dropped in with its second new feature of the week: automated photo uploading from its PC and Mac clients and a new Photos page.

Rumor: First BlackBerry 10 Phone To Launch in October  —  According to reports from multiple sources, RIM may announce the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone by mid-August, and launch it by October-with just enough lead time for the dwindling smartphone platform maker to get a jump on the holiday season.

Samsung sends protesting flashmob to Sydney Apple Store, tells customers to ‘Wake Up’  —  Samsung's marketing machine appears to have gone into overdrive with reports that advertising agencies working on its behalf sent a bus full of protesters to the Apple Store in Sydney, Australia to tell customers to ‘Wake Up’.

Google X founder takes Charlie Rose's picture from Project Glass headset  —  Google's Project Glass heads-up display was announced weeks ago, but nobody is sure whether the glasses are actually functional or if, as Sergey Brin has said, “you really just see [them] reboot.”

“Gangbang Interviews” and “Bikini Shots”: Silicon Valley's Brogrammer Problem  —  For startups like Path, recasting geek identity with a frathouse swagger is a dangerous game.  —  Quora (left and right); Geeklist (center)  —  At the South by Southwest Interactive festival in March …