Facebook announces it's testing its own ad network for third-party mobile apps  —  Testing a new way for developers to monetize mobile apps  —  Monetization is a difficult problem for mobile app developers, particularly as people move toward downloading more free apps and advertising dollars lag behind time spent on mobile.

U.S. court finds Samsung to infringe one Apple patent, declares one Samsung patent invalid  —  In a summary judgment order entered late on Tuesday (January 21, 2014), Judge Lucy Koh, the federal judge presiding over two Apple v. Samsung patent cases in the Northern District of California …

Netflix's momentum continues with 2.33 million new US customers in Q4  —  Netflix revealed its fourth quarter earnings today, capping off a banner year that saw the streaming service surpass HBO in subscriber count and earn critical acclaim for its original programming.

Icahn says Apple “doing great disservice to shareholders,” increases AAPL investment to $3B … Following a precatory proposal from billionaire investor and Apple shareholder Carl Icahn urging Apple to vote on a larger buyback, Icahn today announced on Twitter that he thinks Apple …

Chinese Internet Traffic Redirected to Small Wyoming House  —  In one of the more bizarre twists in recent Internet memory, a large portion of Internet traffic in China was redirected to a small, 1,700-square-foot house in Cheyenne, Wyo. on Tuesday.  —  A large portion of China's 500 million …

Chrome Bugs Allow Sites to Listen to Your Private Conversations  —  By exploiting bugs in Google Chrome, malicious sites can activate your microphone, and listen in on anything said around your computer, even after you've left those sites.  Even while not using your computer - conversations …

Snapchat Makes You “Find The Ghosts” To Keep Hackers From Stealing Your Phone Number  —  Snapchat now verifies new users aren't robots by making them choose its ghost mascot within images.  It's an attempt to keep out hackers who could steal phone numbers by exploiting a leaked database of details on 4.6 million accounts.

Pinterest CEO Lays Out Growth Plan, Sees Revenue in 2014 … In less than four years, Pinterest Inc. Chief Executive Ben Silbermann has expanded his quirky site for online scrapbooking into a social-media tool used by one-fifth of online adults in the U.S.  —  For his next act …

Fast-growing database startup MemSQL raises $35M  —  MemSQL, the database startup founded by former Facebook employees Eric Frenkiel and Nikita Shamgunov, has raised a $35 million series B round of venture capital.  Accel Ventures led the round — which brings MemSQL's total funding …

Windows 8.1 Update 1 Preview: Now with More Integration  —  More Windows 8.1 Update leaks help a clearer picture emerge  —  A newly leaked set of shots from a prerelease version of Windows 8.1 Update 1 suggests that Microsoft is going to further integrate the Metro and desktop worlds in this important coming update.

VMware buys AirWatch for $1.54 billion, acquires mobility strategy  —  Summary: VMware's acquisition of AirWatch will give it a foothold in mobility as well as its end-user computing strategy.  —  VMware will acquire AirWatch, a mobile device management company, in a $1.17 billion cash deal …

Here Are 24 Countries Where Windows Phone Outsells The iPhone (And Why It Does)  —  Statistics may say Windows 8 is a flop but, contrary to popular opinion, Windows Phone is far from down and out in the battle for our mobile affections.  In fact in many parts of the world sales are rocketing past the iPhone.

Yahoo Makes Secure Search The Default  —  Yahoo has now joined Google in making all searches people do automatically go through a secure server, to help prevent eavesdropping by outsiders.  Unlike Google, however, Yahoo has failed to make an important change to how “referrer” data is passed along …

Verizon publishes first transparency report, reveals 320,000 total law enforcement requests  —  As promised, Verizon has released a tally of the requests it receives from law enforcement at all levels, counting a total of 321,545 requests for customer subscription information, phone numbers, or content like text messages and emails.

Why Bitcoin Matters  —  Editor's note: Marc Andreessen's venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has invested just under $50 million in Bitcoin-related start-ups.  The firm is actively searching for more Bitcoin-based investment opportunities.  He does not personally own more than a de minimis amount of Bitcoin.

HootSuite Buys uberVU To Add Analytics To Its Enterprise Social Media Management Platform  —  HootSuite — a platform for enterprises to manage their presence on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and many more — is ramping up its product offering with more big data.

With Trove, Ex-WaPo Labs Team Takes Another Try at Social Reading  —  How do you get your daily news?  —  It's a question that any 21st century news organization is asking itself — a question all too familiar for a guy like Vijay Ravindran.  As the chief digital officer of Graham Holdings …

Microsoft offers overseas data storage in response to NSA concerns  —  Today, Microsoft announced an unpredecented response to concerns of NSA data access, offering customers in foreign countries the option of having their data stored outside US borders.  According to a Financial Times report …

Docker Raises $15M For Its Open-Source Platform That Helps Developers Build Apps In The Cloud  —  The shift to scale out architectures and an app-centric culture has turned out well for Docker and its lightweight open-source “container” technology designed for developers to quickly move code to the cloud.

Russian Spy Nodes Caught Targeting Anonymous Facebook Users  —  Somewhere in Russia an eavesdropper is operating a network of wiretapped nodes at the edge of the Tor anonymity network.  And he's particularly interested in what you're doing on Facebook.  —  That's the conclusion of two researchers …