Introducing Graph Search Beta  —  Facebook's mission is to make the world more open and connected.  The main way we do this is by giving people the tools to map out their relationships with the people and things they care about.  We call this map the graph.  It's big and constantly expanding with new people, content and connections.

Apple Retail VP Jerry McDougal Resigns  —  Jerry McDougal, Apple's vice president of Retail and a potential candidate for the company's now-vacant SVP of Retail position, has left the company, Apple confirmed to AllThingsD.  —  McDougal, who resigned earlier this month, is to be replaced by Jim Bean, formerly Apple VP of Finance.

iPhone 5 orders have been cut, but it's not due to demand woes  —  According to analysts, the iPhone 5 is not experiencing weak demand, and the recently announced cuts could simply be due to improved yields on components.  —  Apple's iPhone 5  —  All of that talk that Apple …

Lawmakers slam DOJ prosecution of Swartz as ‘ridiculous, absurd’  —  House lawmakers blasted federal prosecutors on Tuesday for pushing aggressive hacking charges against Internet activist Aaron Swartz, who killed himself on Friday.  —  Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) says his Oversight panel …

New MySpace opens to the public alongside new Justin Timberlake single  —  MySpace this week quietly opened up its redesigned site to the public.  The so-called “New MySpace” entered internal beta testing in July, and was previewed in September.  Thus far, however, it has only been accessible …

News outlets improperly used photos posted to Twitter: judge  —  (Reuters) - A judge has found that two news organizations improperly used images that a photojournalist had posted to Twitter in one of the first big tests of intellectual property law involving social media.

Demand For Samsung Smartphones Jumps To 23% For Early 2013, iPhone Interest Down 21 Points From Last Quarter  —  ChangeWave has released its quarterly consumer smartphone report, which tracks North American demand for devices and satisfaction with handsets.  The survey covers planned purchases during …

Microsoft goes public with its plan to manage Windows, iOS and Android devices  —  Summary: Microsoft takes the official wraps off its newest version of its Windows Intune management service and its System Center 2012 platform for managing Microsoft and non-Microsoft mobile devices.

California To Hit Startup Founders with Big Retroactive Tax Bills  —  California is a great place to live and work, but it is not a particularly friendly place to start and run a small business.  —  In 1999, I co-founded Sagient Research Systems, an enterprise-focused data company in San Diego.

OkCupid Wants to Send Members on a ‘Crazy Blind Date’  —  OkCupid, the dating site, has spent the last few years experimenting with ways to appeal to increasingly tech-savvy and pressed-for-time singles.  In 2011, the company rolled out a “locals” feature that showed other singles nearby …

GoBank: It's a Real Bank, and It's Made by Real Internet People  —  Green Dot today launches the smartphone-based GoBank, which will have no overdraft or penalty fees, no minimum balance and a “pay what you feel is right” monthly membership fee.  —  Let's take a step back to set this up.

AT&T Exempts Itself From Its Data Cap, Violates (at least) the Spirit of Net Neutrality  —  Last year, Comcast started exempting its own online video service from the data cap it imposed on consumers.  When consumers streamed online video (say, because they were thinking about cutting the cord …

FAA to pilots: Turn off personal devices in the cockpit  —  It's akin to not texting while driving, airline safety expert and former pilot John Cox says. … WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration is proposing to prohibit pilots from using personal wireless devices in the cockpit …

Wikimedia Launches Its Crowdsourced Wikivoyage Online Travel Guide  —  The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit parent organization of Wikipedia, just officially launched its twelfth official project: Wikivoyage.  The new site, which was already in beta for a while and has a bit of a tumultuous history …