Federal Trade Commission  has announced on Thursday that it has reached a settlement agreement with Google, bringing the FTC’s antitrust investigations against to a conclusion. “The changes Google has agreed to make will ensure that consumers continue to reap the benefits of competition in the online marketplace and in the market for innovative wireless devices they enjoy,” said FTC Chairman [...]

Pinterest bought Punchfork, a 2-year old recipe sharing and discovery website, for an undisclosed sum according to Punchfork’s founder and CEO Jeff Miller  in an e-mail to the website’s community. Punchfork will soon shut down its website, app and API. Here’s the full e-mail Miller sent to Punchfork’s users: Dear Punchfork Community, Today we are excited to share the news that [...]

WhatsApp had tweeted that they have processed 18 billion messages in one day on New Year’s Eve, out of which 7 billion messages were inbound and 11 billion messages outbound. WhatsApp surpassed 1 billion messages sent in a single day in November, 2011. Last August, it was handling 10 billion messages per day.

Out of  123.3 million people in the U.S. using smartphones in November 2012, 53.7% people used Android according to a study by ComScore,  26.9% of them are using Samsung devices. Apple’s iPhones accounted for 35% of all smartphone subscribers, with overall mobile share of 26.9%. “Smartphone Platform Market Share 123.3 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (53 percent mobile market [...]

Instagram lost almost a quarter of its daily users a week after it rolled out and then withdrew policy changes that incensed users who feared the photo-sharing service would use their pictures without compensation. Instagram, which Facebook bought for $715 million this year, saw the number of daily active users who accessed the service via Facebook bottom out at 12.4 million as of Friday, versus a [...]

Facebook article on Wikipedia has become the most viewed English article of the year, according to statistics from Wikimedia’s Toolserver. The next highest viewed page, Wiki, is a surprising one with 29.6 million views – it’s this page that explains how sites such as Wikipedia function – while the third place is taken by the list of deaths in 2012 (25.4 million views). Here’s [...]

Apple has agreed to drop it’s patent claims against Samsung Galaxy S III Mini after Samsung said it was not planning to sell the product in the U.S. market.

328 million apps were downloaded on Christmas Day, along with  17.4 million new iOS and Android device activation according to Flurry Analytics. “More iOS and Android devices are activated on Christmas Day than on any other day of the year. This year was no exception. On this Christmas Day 2012, more iPhones, iPads, Galaxy’s, Kindle Fires, and more, were activated than on any other day [...]

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s earned total compensation of $4.17 million in 2012, down from $378 million in 2011, Apple said in an SEC filing today. Bloomberg reports that Steve Jobs successor’s  annual payment included $1.36 million in base salary and $2.8 million in incentive plan compensation. The total compensation for the four senior Apple executive offices, other than CEO Tim Cook, in 2012 thus [...]

Google has released its selection  for the best Android apps of 2012. Google merchandising manager Tavares Ford provided more details on the top 12 picks of 2012 ” These are some of the best apps available in Google Play. Some launched in 2012 while others issued updates that achieved a great combination of utility, beauty and accessibility. Almost all of them are available globally and offer [...]