Marissa Mayer named Yahoo CEO and President

($YHOO) Yahoo on Monday named Marissa Mayer the company’s new president and CEO. Mayer was one of the earliest employees with Google, joining the Internet giant in 1999 and becoming the company’s first woman engineer. “I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users,” Mayer said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the Company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.” Yahoo’s co-founder David Filo said, “Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting strategists in technology development.” Mayer will begin her new job on July 17th.

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Next generation iPod Touch measure in at 4.1 inches diagonally

MacRumors has just posted photos, which they claim are of the front panel of the next generation iPod touch.According to the supplier who sent MacRumors these photos, the front panel part suggests that the next generation iPod touch will sport a taller 4.1 inch display.

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Privacy Lawsuit Seeks $15B In Damages From Facebook

Facebook is officially a public company as of Friday morning shortly after 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and what better way to celebrate the milestone than with a fresh privacy lawsuit? Led by Stewarts Law and Bartimus, Frickleton, Robertson & Gorny, a class action lawsuit has been filed in San Jose, California alleging that Facebook unlawfully continued to track users’ Web browsing after they logged out of the service. The suit seeks more than $15 billion in damages. “This is not just a damages action, but a groundbreaking digital privacy rights case that could have wide and significant legal and business implications,” said Stewarts Law partner David Straite.

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Nokia sells New York headquarters to Histogenetics for $12 million

Nokia has sold its New York headquarters, located north of Manhattan in the industrial town of White Plains. Purchased six years ago for $30 million, the struggling Finnish vendor sold the building to biotechnology firm Histogenetics for $12 million. ”It’s a great deal for 12 million bucks,” Michael Rao, president of the realtor representing Histogenetics, told LoHud.com. “The building is gorgeous. It’s so spectacular.” Nokia’s move comes as its struggles in the global mobile market continue; the company posted a huge $1.7 billion loss in the second quarter after losing $1.2 billion in the first quarter. Excluding the White Plains office, Nokia currently has 27 U.S. office locations listed on its website in addition to its North American headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.

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General Motors plans to stop advertising on Facebook

General Motors, the world’s largest automaker and third biggest advertiser in the U.S., plans to stop advertising on Facebook, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. After meeting with Facebook managers to address concerns, the company’s marketing executives were left unconvinced of the effectiveness of the site’s advertising methods, claiming its paid ads had little impact on consumers. GM will thus pull its $10 million ad spend, although the automaker will continue to use the social networking site to display free content on its own Facebook page. GM is only skeptical about Facebook, and not about digital advertising as a whole; the company spends almost $300 million each year on digital brand advertising. The news comes at a bad time for Mark Zuckerberg and company, who are on the verge of their initial public offering.

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Apple upgrade iCloud to Add Photo-Sharing And Video Syncing to iCloud With iOS 6

Wall Street Journal briefly reports that Apple planning to add photo-sharing feature and video syncing capabilities to its iCloud service, which will be available in iOS 6.

The new features, expected to be announced at Apple's world-wide developer conference beginning June 11, will allow iCloud users to share sets of photos with other iCloud users and to comment on them, these people said. Currently, users can only store one set of photos in iCloud through a feature called Photo Stream, which is designed to sync those photos to other Apple devices, not share them.

Apple is also working on a new feature that will allow iCloud users to sync their personal videos via iCloud, these people said, as well as allow users to access "Notes" and "Reminders"—two of its apps for jotting down quick thoughts—through iCloud.com. Currently, those items have to be accessed via apps for those features.

iCloud's beta site had already revealed Apple's plan to add Notes and Reminder web app to iCloud.com with iOS 6 last week.

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Apple Renames New iPad WiFi + 4G To New iPad WiFi + Cellular

9to5Mac made the discovery just a few moments ago, pointing out that the one time named ‘iPad Wi-FI + 4G’ tablet model has been renamed to ‘iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular’ in Apple’s online store…

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MasterCard introduces PayPass Wallet Services, Online and API at CTIA 2012

MasterCard's PayPass is certainly one of the bigger players in the contactless payment scene. But, simply putting a few thousand branded payment terminals in stores across the nation isn't enough. The next step is expanding that empire, not only in terms of locations and handsets, but by turning the phone into just an accessory in a larger ecosystem. PayPass Wallet Services is a new umbrella product that includes an online payment system, a branded service and an API that allows developers to integrate PayPass into their own proprietary offerings. Simply put, PayPass is no longer a product, but a platform. The service remembers not only credit cards, but shipping addresses and other identifying info that streamlines the shopping process, while the API means that others can build value added offerings around PayPass. There's even a dedicated Android app.

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Samsung prices 55-inch Super OLED TV at over $9,000

The Associated Press has the first word on pricing for Samsung's 55-inch OLED HDTV and it's going to be a steep hill for most of us to climb: $9,000. A Samsung spokesperson has informed the news agency that the company's Super OLED TV will cost "over 10 million won," which roughly converts to the $9,000 mark, when it launches in its home market of South Korea later this year. The release window of the second half of 2012 for Korea was already announced alongside the launch of this newfangled TV at CES 2012, so developments behind the scenes seem to be keeping to the established roadmap.

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Apple bid $16m for Chinese iPad trademark but Proview holds out for at least $400m

A report shared by Sina (via the Beijing Times) states that Apple offered 100 million yuan ($16 million) for rights to the mark in China but cash-strapped Proview would not agree terms. Proview is thought to be looking for at least $400 million in order to appease its creditors, eight of which are Chinese banks.

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Apple Blocks iOS Apps with Dropbox integration

The Next Web reports that Apple has rejected a number of apps with Dropbox integration. Apps with Dropbox integration can either authenticate through the installed Dropbox app or opens a webpage to let users log in to their Dropbox account.

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Nokia releases Browser 2.0 update for Series 40 handsets

Nokia announced earlier today the release of Browser 2.0 for its Series 40 devices, which of course includes the colorful Asha lineup. The update promises an overall speedier and easier browsing experience, this in large part due to the application condensing data by up to 90 percent. In addition to these enhancements, there's also a novel Download Manager in the refresh, giving users the ability to choose where they'd like to save content without leaving the app. Also included in the update is a new multitasking-while-browsing feature (finally!), as well as a social-sharing bit that lets you push out page URLs to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Sina Weibo and RenRen. Browser 2.0 will be native on future Series 40s, but for now those whom already own a small chunk of the 1.5 billion can grab the goods from the Nokia Store or wait for the OTA package to hit your device.

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Redesigned next-generation iPhone parts leak to Chinese vendor

To start off what will undoubtedly be a long series of part leaks ahead of Apple’s next-generation iPhone launch, China-based parts retailer TVC-Mall has made what it claims to be “iPhone 5″ home buttons available for purchase on its site. “Are you interested in the iPhone 5 which will come out soon?” the company wrote on its website. “Different from iPhone 4S 4, the iPhone 5 home button is round in the centre and square outside as the pictures show.” The home buttons are available for purchase in both black and white, and no other information regarding the next-generation iPhone was made available. TVC-Mall has sold authentic iPhone parts ahead of official Apple launches in the past. BGR reported last December that Apple plans to launch a redesigned iPhone this coming fall.

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Chitika: iOS Users Surf The Internet More On Their Devices As Compared To Android Users

The Android versus iOS debate is one of the most fiercely contested within the smartphone and tablet spectrum. Google’s comparatively new mobile OS trumps Apple’s offering in terms of reach and activations, but according to research compiled by ad network Chitika, iOS users are a lot more active on the Web than their Android-toting friends.

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Samsung Galaxy S III possibly revealed in leaked images

Newly leaked photos of what appear to be the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S III published by Gizmodo Brasil on Wednesday evening. Apparently taken by an iPad, the shots aren’t of the best quality, but they do potentially give us a sneak peak at the handset that Samsung is set to announce in the first week of May. Gizmodo Brasil’s source states that the model number of the phone is i9300, model number of the Galaxy S III — and the device pictured reportedly features a 12-megapixel camera. The Galaxy S III is expected to feature a 4.8-inch 1080p HD Super AMOLED display, a quad-core 1.5GHz Exynos processor, 4G LTE, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and an ultra-thin case made of ceramic, and Samsung will likely announce the new flagship smartphone during a press conference on May 3rd.

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Samsung has stopped the production of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, upgrade it with a Quadcore Processor

The fine folks over at Netbooknews are reporting that Samsung has ended production on the GT P5100 -- better known as the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. The story comes courtesy of an unnamed "Korean Samsung insider" who claims the device is getting upgraded to a quad-core CPU. Whether the chip in question is the much lauded 32nm Exynos 4412, which packs not only four Cortex A9 cores, but four Mali 604 GPU cores as well, is unknown. It's also not clear how this is going to affect US launch plans. Rumors are the Galaxy Note 10.1 will be getting a similar brain transplant before hitting the market. Sadly, all we can do right now hold our breath and wish real hard that both will hit shelves sooner rather than later and with an extra pair of cores in tow. Sammy better get a move on too if it's gonna have to give Uncle Sam another crack at this slate.

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Samsung and Apple CEOs agree to meet and discuss patents

Samsung and Apple’s CEOs have finally agreed to meet to discuss a possible settlement to the companies on-going legal battle, Reuters reported on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh referred the companies to a San Francisco-based magistrate judge who will mediate the talks, which have a 90-day deadline. The two battling companies have been in a bitter patent war since last April that includes more than 20 cases in 10 countries. A trial between the two is scheduled for July in the United States.

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Facebook Buys Instagram For $1 Billion

Facebook is acquiring Instagram for $1 billion, and Instagram’s team will be joining Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg announced the deal in a Facebook post:

I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.
For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.
We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.
That’s why we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.
We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.
These and many other features are important parts of the Instagram experience and we understand that. We will try to learn from Instagram’s experience to build similar features into our other products. At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.
This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.
We’re looking forward to working with the Instagram team and to all of the great new experiences we’re going to be able to build together.

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First Google tablet delayed until July

Google’s first Tablet may be pushed back until July, Unnamed sources informed The Verge on Friday that Google pushed back its planned release so it could tweak the device, however. The 7-inch tablet is supposedly equipped with a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Wi-Fi connectivity. The device would reportedly cost $249 in its current state, but Google and ASUS are both looking to reduce the price. Earlier rumors indicted that the Mountain View-based company was attempting to offer the tablet for as little as $149. It has also been speculated that Google could be delaying the planned release in order to pre-load its tablet with the next version of Android — Jelly Bean. The Verge claims this scenario is unlikely though, as the current product is designed for Android 4.0.

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Research in Motion lose more senior-level executives

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, Alistair Mitchell, RIM’s vice president of the BlackBerry Messenger instant-messaging platform, is among several executives who have left the company according to the report. A company spokeswoman confirmed to the Journal that Mitchell is “no longer with RIM.” The spokeswoman also confirmed that Alan Brenner, a senior vice president of the BlackBerry platform, would be “leaving the company after a transition period.” RIM posted disappointing fourth quarter sales last week, leading to the departure of company co-founder Jim Balsillie, chief technology officer David Yach and chief operating officer Jim Rowan. The struggling company said it is facing significant challenges, and it is currently reviewing strategic opportunities and potential partnerships.

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