Google Agrees to Change Its Business Practices to Resolve FTC Competition Concerns In the Markets for Devices Like Smart Phones, Games and Tablets, and in Online Search  —  Landmark Agreements Will Give Competitors Access to Standard-Essential Patents; Advertisers Will Get More Flexibility to Use Rival Search Engines

Apple, Waze, and the expectation of rumors  —  There are some rumors going around that Apple is considering the purchase of crowd-sourced mapping app Waze.  Apple has a ton of cash, and can certainly buy Waze if that's what both parties want, the way Apple bought Chomp, Color, Polar Rose, Siri, and other companies over the years.

The future according to Google's Larry Page  —  Google CEO Larry Page envisions a future in which computers plan your vacations, drive your cars, and anticipate your whims.  Audacious?  Maybe.  But Page's dreams have a way of coming true.  —  FORTUNE — When Sir Martin Sorrell …

Pinterest Acquires And Will Shut Down Recipe Discovery Site Punchfork  —  Pinterest has just made its first acquisition - the two-and-a-half-year-old recipe discovery and sharing site Punchfork.  Rather than operate it independently, Punchfork will continue to run shortly but then its site …

Sprint Will Begin Pay As You Go Service On January 25th, But Standard Sprint Phones Aren't Invited To The Party  —  If you want to use Sprint's network without signing a contract, there are a lot of options out there, including its subsidiary Boost Mobile, the American MVNO Virgin, and hybrid provider Republic Wireless, among others.

YouTube Makes Your Phone A Remote Control By Pairing Its Mobile Apps With TVs From LG, Panasonic, Sony, And Others  —  So YouTube wants to have an app on every device, especially TVs.  That way users can watch all of its content from their living room, just like regular TV.

Samsung to Sell Tizen-Based Handsets After Google-Motorola Deal  —  Samsung Electronics Co. (005930), the world's largest seller of mobile phones, said it will start selling smartphones this year featuring the Tizen operating system backed by Intel Corp.  —  “We plan to release new …

Life After The iPhone: How AT&T's Bet On Apple Mobilized The Company  —  AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, who took over just as the iPhone was launched, talks about the fame, pain and change that's taken place under his leadership.  (Photo credit: Matthew Hawthorne)  —  Steve Jobs needed some advice.

All T-Mobile Stores To Carry The Nexus 4 Beginning This Month  —  If you're still on the hunt for a Nexus 4 and we imagine you are since they are next to impossible to find then we've got some good news.  T-Mobile stores are hoping to resolve the Nexus 4 inventory black hole …

Qualcomm CEO: Apple rejected our radio for the Newton, so we struck a deal with Palm  —  Here's a bit of pre-smartphone era history for you: Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs told Charlie Rose tonight that he tried to convince Apple to put a Qualcomm radio in the Newton PDA during the 90s but was shot down.

eBay Tries Two New Ways to Sell: Drop-Off Points and Home Pick-Up  —  Gail Weber had never sold anything on eBay, but she was interested in the concept after inheriting a number of antique vases, platters and plates.  —  “I'm not intimidated by going on eBay, but I don't know how to sell, and PayPal is another deterrent,” she said.

Apple Killed the Netbook  —  And we're all better off for the demise of the $400 future of computing.  —  Netbooks are dead.  Good riddance!  Just a few years ago, these small, underpowered, ultracheap laptops were considered the future of the computer industry.

The Ubuntu phone has a speed problem, and I'm not talking about lag  —  If your hardware roadmap is measured in years rather than months, you may have a problem  —  As software launches go, yesterday's announcement of Ubuntu for phones was quite the success for parent company Canonical.

Google Requires People to Use the Google+ Social Network, Gains Ground Against Facebook  —  Google Inc. is gaining ground against Facebook Inc. thanks to a controversial tactic: requiring people to use the Google+ social network.  —  Google over the past year has boosted the Google+ operation …

Reading Twitter's Tea Leaves: At $11 Billion Valuation, IPO Prep May Start In Late 2013  —  The dismal performance by newly public tech companies—looking at you, Zynga and Groupon and Facebook—may not clip Twitter's wings after all.  —  A report by Greencrest Capital …

A Little Sleuthing Leads Nexus 4 Enthusiasts To Estimate About 400K In Sales Of The Device  —  Google and LG's Nexus 4 has been such a coveted item this past holiday season, that it's been in and out of stock since its release in mid-November.  Because Google doesn't publicly comment on device sales …

Barnes & Noble's bad holiday: Nook, store and BN.com sales down  —  As it had warned investors last week, Barnes & Noble announced disappointing holiday sales Thursday.  For the nine-week period ending December 29, 2012, Nook device sales, in-store sales and BN.com sales were all down from the same period last year.

Andrew Sullivan's Ad-Free Publishing Experiment Sees Six-Figure Revenue In First Six Hours  —  When political blogger Andrew Sullivan announced this morning that he's leaving The Daily Beast and launching an independent company called Dish Publishing, the most provocative bit of news was his intended business model.

Buzzfeed Raises $19.3 Million to Make LOL Content for the Social Web  —  Building a Giant War Chest That Signals Greater Ambitions  —  Buzzfeed set out to re-invent the notion of content for the social web by allowing pictures of cute animals to co-exist with serious political coverage.