Never Mind Facebook; Winklevoss Twins Rule in Digital Money  —  The Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler — Olympic rowers, nemeses of Mark Zuckerberg — are laying claim to a new title: bitcoin moguls.  —  The Winklevii, as they are known, have amassed since last summer what appears …

Twitter's New Music App Launches Friday  —  Next up on the jukebox — Twitter Music.  —  The microblogging service plans to launch its new, standalone music application on Friday, according to sources familiar with the matter.  —  Update 7:59 pm PT: Of note — another source claims the app …

Yep, LinkedIn Acquires Newsreader Startup Pulse for $90 Million  —  LinkedIn announced on Thursday it has acquired mobile news aggregation startup Pulse, as Kara Swisher reported last month that it would, signaling another step by the massive professional network toward becoming an online content powerhouse.

France threatens EU action over Apple App Store ban  —  (Reuters) - France plans to ask the European Commission for tighter regulation of Internet companies following Apple's decision to remove a French-designed app from its App Store.  —  Last Friday, Apple banned AppGratis …

Apple and Universal Music agreement on streaming iRadio service imminent  —  Apple is expected to sign the largest record label perhaps as soon as next week, sources say.  Warner Music is right behind.  —  Apple is expected to sign its first internet radio licensing agreement …

Apple Agrees to Pay $53M to Settle iPhone Warranty Lawsuit  —  Apple is agreeing to pay $53 million to settle a class action accusing the company of failing to honor warranties on iPhones and iPod Touches, according to an agreement obtained today by Wired.  —  The settlement, (.pdf) …

Letter To Jennifer Allen Regarding False And Defamatory Statements  —  The following letter from my attorneys was delivered to Jennifer Allen this afternoon, in response to her previous claims.  I believe the letter speaks for itself.  —  Eric M. George  —  Browne George Ross  —  Via E-Mail and U.S. Mail

The promise of Ripple  —  This is a chart of the value of bitcoin yesterday, Wednesday.  It's hardly a secret that bitcoins are a highly volatile asset class, so relatively few eyebrows were raised when the price soared from an opening level of $230 all the way to a high of $266.

Google Secures YT.be Domain, For Even Shorter URLs  —  Google has secured a new domain name, YT.be, which it started forwarding to its goo.gl URL shortening service today.  —  Presumably, Google will use the domain name for shortened links to YouTube videos.

Production Challenges to ‘Delay’ Launches of iPhone 5S, Lower-Cost iPhone and New iPad Mini?  —  Back in January, reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo laid out a thorough roadmap of his expectations for Apple's product launches in 2013, pointing to a very busy third quarter for the company …

Mark Zuckerberg's political wingman: Fwd.us founder Joe Green  —  Joe Green is founder and president of Fwd.us, a new political advocacy group funded by Mark Zuckerberg and other prominent Silicon Valley executives.  (Peter DaSilva / For The Times)  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Joe Green …

Trends in 160+ locations  —  Today, we're introducing Trends in more than 160 new locations.  Included in that list are a number of countries that will be getting Trends for the first time: Belgium, Greece, Kenya, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Ukraine, plus more than 130 new cities in countries that already have Trends.

Bing Delivers Five Times as Many Malicious Websites as Google  —  Searches on Bing returned five times more links to malicious websites than Google searches, according to an 18-month study from German independent testing lab AV-Test.  Though search engines have worked to suppress malicious results …

BlackBerry 10 launch by the numbers: Over 50% returns, 71% of people don't want under any circumstances, 83% of Americans unaware it even launched (Updated)  —  Six years after Apple took the smartphone industry by surprise with its release of the iPhone, former market leader BlackBerry Limited …

If Netflix Were on TV, It Might Be the Biggest Network on Cable.  But About That New Show ...  Good news for Netflix!  The company streamed more than 4 billion hours of video in the first three months of the year, according to a Facebook post from CEO Reed Hastings.

Google's New Inactive Account Manager Gives You Control Over Your Digital Afterlife  —  What will happen to your Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive and Google+ accounts after you die?  That's probably not something you really want to think about, but as more and more of our data now lives online …

Apple, Google Not Interested in Settlement, Judge Says  —  Apple Inc. and Google Inc. (GOOG)'s Motorola Mobility unit are more interested in using litigation as a business strategy than in resolving disputes over the use of patented technology, a federal judge in Florida said.