Already expected to be the largest-ever initial public offering for an Internet company, Facebook is making its IPO even bigger.

Half of Americans think Facebook is a passing fad, according to the results of a new Associated Press-CNBC poll. And, in the run-up to the social network's initial public offering of stock, half of Americans also say the social network's expected asking price is too high.

Despite the explosive innovation around digital picture-taking, the end result has actually changed very little. A photo is still a photo. And a poorly focused photo is still as bad as ever. Ren Ng aims to fix that.

Yahoo's dysfunctional turnaround efforts have morphed into a Silicon Valley soap opera, one that has taken another strange twist with the Internet company's ousting of CEO Scott Thompson just four months after his arrival.

Hoping to get in on Facebook's hotly anticipated public stock offering? You'll need Facebook friends at very high levels — or a lot of money.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Shares in South Korea's Samsung Electronics recovered from a more than two percent loss on Thursday morning and were trading flat at on the day by 00:26 a.m. EDT. The world's largest electronics company by revenue had been hit by a newspaper report that Apple Inc had given a large chip order to a rival, losing 6.2 percent on Wednesday. (Reporting by David Chance; Editing by Joseph Radford)

Australian police warned Thursday that paedophiles were using Internet live-streaming sites to order "bespoke" child sex crimes for real-time viewing, from countries including the Philippines.

LG on Wednesday announced a new user-interface skin for its Android-powered devices running Ice Cream Sandwich. The South Korean company’s Optimus UI 3.0 is said to be designed with convenience and speed in mind, and is being labeled as both unobtrusive and simple. “With smartphone hardware becoming more and more similar, it’s important for manufacturers to differentiate their products from the competition through the user interface,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Both carriers and customers tell us that they want LG phones to look and feel unique and the UI plays a big part in that. LG is really going to push the boundaries of what is possible in user interfaces starting with

Similar to Apple’s iTunes program, Google Music only allows a certain number of devices to be connected to the service at one time. Google allows users to upload up to 20,000 song for free, which can then be accessed by up to 10 “authorized” devices. Once the limit is reached, a user can “deauthorize” a device to allow another a different phone or tablet to take its place. The problem, however, is that Google has limited device deauthorizations to just four per year. While Google’s limit may not affect the average Joe, rooters, ROMers, enthusiasts and even bloggers may run into some trouble. Custom ROM users in particular may run into trouble — Google Music often has difficulties handling custom

(Reuters) - Activision Blizzard Inc and arch rival video game company Electronic Arts Inc have settled a lawsuit in which Activision accused two former executives of breaking their employment agreements to develop games for EA. "Activision and EA have agreed to put this matter behind them," the companies said on Wednesday in a joint statement. Neither company disclosed details of the settlement. Two former Activision executives, Jason West and Vincent Zampella, developed the original "Call of Duty" game and several others in the series. ...

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - General Motors Inc's decision to stop advertising on Facebook may be a wake-up call for the No. 1 social network, but Top advertising executives say it's far too early to know if the site will take off as an advertising platform. "There's a lot of potential but it's not a slam-dunk," said Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Plc, the world's largest advertising agency. "Showing the impact of branding on Facebook is going to take a long time," he added. Facebook is due to begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday in an initial public offering that will raise about $15. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors who want Facebook Inc shares when the No. 1 online social network goes public later this week may have lost the opportunity. TD Ameritrade and Fidelity's brokerage arm both stopped accepting orders of Facebook shares as of Tuesday evening, according to representatives for each of the companies. Morgan Stanley & Co did the same, according to three advisers at the firm who declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the press. E*Trade Financial also stopped accepting orders as of 4 p.m. ...

Despite some vendors seeing record smartphone sales, worldwide sales of mobile phones declined 2% year-over-year to 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012, according to research firm Gartner. The decline represents the first of its kind since the second quarter of 2009. “Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia – which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.” In the smartphone market, Android accounted for more

The legal battle between gaming giants Activision Blizzard Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. is over, with the companies announcing they have settled a case that accused EA of improperly recruiting two executives who oversaw the creation of the smash videogame "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2."

(Reuters) - Viacom Inc, the parent of MTV and Comedy Central, has settled lawsuits with Time Warner Cable Inc over whether cable subscribers may watch shows on mobile devices such as Apple Inc's iPad. The accord means Viacom programs such as "Jersey Shore," "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "South Park" will become available over the TWC TV app over the next several weeks. ...

Facebook will go public hacker style with an all-night software bending bash to culminate with co-founder Mark Zuckerberg remotely ringing the Nasdaq opening bell on Friday, reports said.

One year ago, less than 40% of mobile subscribers in the United States had a smartphone. That number has increased dramatically, however; according to Nielsen, one in two mobile subscribers now owns a smartphone. Driven mostly by the rise of Android and iOS, which account for more than 80% of the U.S. smartphone market, 2012 has turned into the year of the app. The average number of apps installed on each smartphone has jumped 28% in 2012, an increase from 32 apps to 41. Smartphone owners are also spending increasingly more time using apps than using the mobile web, roughly 10% more than last year. Nielsen notes that the top five most active apps continue to be Facebook, YouTube, Android

MORE TO OFFER: Facebook is responding to extraordinary demand and says more stock will be offered in the company's initial public offering.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless is planning to force customers to give up their unlimited data plans when they move to its high-speed wireless service, a top executive for parent company Verizon Communications Inc said on Wednesday. For now, Verizon Wireless customers who move to the company's highest-speed fourth generation (4G) network from its older network can still use the company's unlimited wireless data plan for a flat monthly fee. But that will change after Verizon Wireless launches a new shared data plan offering this summer, according to Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo. ...

Sprint’s costly $15.5 billion gamble on Apple’s iPhone won’t pay off until 2015, according to CEO Dan Hesse. At that time, however, the iPhone will be “quite profitable,” and the company is “very happy” with the deal despite conflicting reports, AllThingsD said. Hesse sees the iPhone as a long-term investment that will slow subscriber defections and attract new customers. “We believe in the long term,” the CEO said. “And over time we will make more money on iPhone customers than we will on other customers.” Sprint sold 1.5 million iPhones in the first quarter of 2012, and while the number doesn’t approach AT&T or Verizon’s sales, 44% of Sprint’s iPhone sales were made to new customers. Read

Discovered: Gaydar is 80 percent real, today's forest fires are different than ancient ones, baby galaxies grow up too fast, and the success gene is real. Gaydar is 80 percent real. That makes it 20 percent fake and 80 percent prejudice, right? That's what this sounds like to us. No matter, science says it exists. When shown flashes of black and white photos for 50 milliseconds, some lie detection experts could tell if a face they saw for less than one second was of a gay person or of a straight one. ...