Google announced today that it has finalized its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, which was first announced in August of 2011. The deal, worth $12.5 billion, required approval from the European Commission, United States, and China (among other countries) before being finalized.

As part of the deal, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha will be stepping down from his position and will be replaced by Dennis Woodside.

Sanjay Jha, who was responsible for building the company and placing that big bet on Android, has stepped down as CEO. I would like to thank him for his efforts and am tremendously pleased that he will be working to ensure a smooth transition as long-time Googler Dennis Woodside takes over as CEO of Motorola Mobility.

Popular music streaming service Spotify launched in two new locations today - Australia and New Zealand. The service, which launched in the United States back in the summer of last year, is available in Australia and New Zealand beginning today. It allows users to stream music (over 16 million tracks) for free. Subscription plans are available for users looking to ditch the periodic ads and limits on music streaming per month.

Today, Facebook announced that the share price of its initial public offering that will be launching on the NASDAQ tomorrow morning will be $38. As a result, the company will be placed at a $104 billion valuation and will raise around $16 billion, both of these numbers are significantly higher than expected. Facebook will be offering a total of 421,233,615 shares of common stock. This IPO will be the largest in technology history.

The full press release follows:

Facebook Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering

MENLO PARK, Calif., May 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 421,233,615 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $38 per share. The shares are expected to begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on May 18, 2012, under the symbol “FB.” Facebook is offering 180,000,000 shares of Class A common stock and selling stockholders are offering 241,233,615 shares of Class A common stock. Closing of the offering is expected to occur on May 22, 2012, subject to customary closing conditions.

In addition, Facebook and the selling stockholders have granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 63,185,042 additional shares of Class A common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.

Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Goldman, Sachs & Co., BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Allen & Company LLC, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank Securities are serving as book runners for the offering. RBC Capital Markets and Wells Fargo Securities are serving as active co-managers.

The offering will be made only by means of a prospectus. Copies of the prospectus related to the offering may be obtained from: Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10014, Attention: Prospectus Department (Tel: +1 866 718 1649; e-mail: prospectus(at)morganstanley.com); J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, (Tel: +1 866 803 9204); or Goldman, Sachs & Co., 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, Attention: Prospectus Department (Tel: +1 866 471 2526, e-mail: prospectus-ny(at)ny.email.gs.com).

A registration statement related to these securities has been filed with, and declared effective by, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

Today, Google introduced a new feature to its search engine that is dubbed "Knowledge Graph." The technology takes user input as a whole, rather than separate words and strings like it has been in the past. Knowledge Graph will allow users to narrow their search results down to exactly what they're looking for, get a summary of information on the right-hand side of the page, and pick out small details related to search queries.

The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.

Google has already begun rolling out Knowledge Graph to users, and it will soon be available on mobile devices as well.

Earlier today, the SEC released Facebook's seventh (7) amendment to its initial public offering filing. In the new filing, Facebook readjusted the projected share price from the previous $28-$35 to $34-$38, bringing the company's valuation well above the prior projected value of $100 billion. In addition, Facebook has upped the amount of shares it will be trading to 337 million.

In addition, Facebook has confirmed previous rumors that its $1 billion acquisition of Instagram has been delayed. The social network was planning to complete the deal sometime in the second quarter of this year, but the new documents point to the deal closing sometime in 2012.

Facebook's stock will appear on the NASDAQ under the ticker "FB." The company's IPO is expected to launch this Friday, May 18, 2012.

Yahoo has just announced that it will be naming Ross Levinsohn as interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company following word earlier this morning that Scott Thompson had stepped down from the position. Thompson was accused earlier this month of lying on his resume when he was hired as Yahoo CEO in January of this year. In addition, Yahoo has named Fred Amoroso as Chairman of the Board of Directors, replacing Roy Bostock.

As a part of the settlement agreement, Third Point, which owns an aggregate of 70,545,400 shares, or 5.8% of Yahoo! common stock, has agreed to withdraw its previous Board nominations for consideration at the annual meeting and vote its shares in support of Yahoo!'s nominees. Yahoo!'s slate of director nominees for election or re-election at the 2012 annual meeting of stockholders will now include Fred Amoroso, John Hayes, Peter Liguori, Thomas McInerney, Maynard Webb, Sue James, David Kenny, Brad Smith, Daniel S. Loeb, Harry J. Wilson and Michael J. Wolf.

As interim CEO, Mr. Levinsohn will manage the Company's day-to-day operations with assistance from Yahoo!'s existing senior leadership team.

Just a few weeks after its initial unveiling, Adobe today announced that the Creative Suite 6 is now available for purchase, with the Creative Cloud software coming May 11, 2012. CS6 includes the following products: Photoshop, InDesign, lllustrator, Dreamweaver, Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Flash Professional. It comes in four different configurations, each ranging in price from $1,299 to $2,599: Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium; Creative Suite 6 Design Standard; Creative Suite 6 Production Premium; and Creative Suite 6 Master Collection.

According to a report from Reuters, a jury ruled today that Google has infringed upon some of the copyrighted content owned by Oracle regarding the Java programming language. The ruling comes as part of a high-profile lawsuit filed by Oracle that claims Google illegally used Java code in its Android mobile operating system.

The jury, however, was unable to decide whether Google had fair use of the copyrighted content. Google lawyers are moving toward a mistrial at this time, according to the report.

Oracle, which initially filed the lawsuit back in 2010, is seeking roughly $1 billion in damages from Google.

Today, Samsung officially announced the Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, sporting a 4.7-inch HD display, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera capable of up to 1080p HD video recording, 1 GB of RAM, and 4G LTE connectivity. The phone comes in a package that is a mere 8.6  The Galaxy S III will be launching in Europe on May 29, 2012, and other countries internationally in the coming months. It will be launching in the United States sometime this Summer.

A video walkthrough of the Galaxy S II is included below:

In its fifth amendment filing with the SEC, Facebook today announced the price of its upcoming initial public offering (IPO) at $28 to $35 per share. At that price range, Facebook should have a valuation between $85 billion and $95 billion, beating the previous technology record currently held by Google at $23 billion. The world's largest social network plans to offer 157,415,352 shares of Class A common stock at a later date.

Facebook released the following statement:

Facebook, Inc. is offering 180,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock and the selling stockholders are offering 157,415,352 shares of Class A common stock. We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders. This is our initial public offering and no public market currently exists for our shares of Class A common stock. We anticipate that the initial public offering price will be between $28.00 and $35.00 per share.

As expected, Activision this evening released the first trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which will be the next title in the Call of Duty video game series. The trailer will be airing officially within the next few hours during the NBA Playoffs on TNT. We've included the video below for early viewing.

From the trailer, gamers can see that combat will take place across the globe, including locations in the United States. The reveal focuses around showing how technology has advanced since the last Call of Duty game. New weapons and guns were also briefly shown in the trailer.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is expected to hit store shelves on November 13, 2012.

UPDATE: Treyarch, the developers behind Black Ops 2, have confirmed that the trailer coming during tonight's NBA Playoffs game will have exclusives not included in the video below.

As part of the keynote, RIM released the following video that shows several different concepts that will be included in the next BlackBerry OS. The video shows off display mirroring to TVs, the on-screen keyboard with an interesting auto-complete feature, calendar, email, and more.

The first BlackBerry 10 OS devices are expected to launch sometime late this year.

Microsoft and Barnes and Noble announced today that Microsoft will be investing $300 million in a new Barnes and Noble subsidiary, dubbed "Newco" for the time being. The subsidiary will be focused around Barnes and Noble's Nook e-reader and college business, and as a result of the investment, Microsoft will receive a 17.6% stake in the partnership.

Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced the formation of a strategic partnership in a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary, which will build upon the history of strong innovation in digital reading technologies from both companies. The partnership will accelerate the transition to e-reading, which is revolutionizing the way people consume, create, share and enjoy digital content.

The new subsidiary, referred to in this release as Newco, will bring together the digital and College businesses of Barnes & Noble. Microsoft will make a $300 million investment in Newco at a post-money valuation of $1.7 billion in exchange for an approximately 17.6% equity stake. Barnes & Noble will own approximately 82.4% of the new subsidiary, which will have an ongoing relationship with the company’s retail stores. Barnes & Noble has not yet decided on the name of Newco.

Today, Amazon reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2012, announcing a revenue of $13.18 billion, which beats analyst expectations by about $0.32 billion.

Operating cash flow increased 1% to $3.05 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $3.03 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2011. Free cash flow decreased 39% to $1.15 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $1.90 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2011.

Apple has just reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2012, announcing a revenue of $39.2 billion and a net profit of $11.6 billion. Gross margin was up in this quarter (47.4%) when compared year-over-year, while international sales accounted for 64% of Apple's overall revenue in the quarter. Revenues and profit were both records for the Cupertino-based company for the quarter.

Sales numbers break down as follows:

• 35.1 million iPhones shipped (up 88% year-over-year)
• 11.8 million iPads shipped (up 151% year-over-year)
• 4 million Macs shipped (up 7% year-over-year)
• 7.7 million iPods shipped (down 15% year-over-year)

"We're thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter," said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. "The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you’re going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver."

Following months of rumors, Google today officially unveiled its own cloud storage service, which is dubbed "Google Drive." Google Drive will give users 5 GB of storage space for free, allowing them to store any files they'd like on the cloud and access them on a wide variety of platforms, including:

• Windows and Mac OS X
• Android
• iOS app coming soon
• Web

• Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.
• Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just... there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.
• Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.

Other storage option plans include:

• 25GB for $2.49/month
• 100GB for $4.99/month
• 1TB for $49.99/month

Google Drive has also been integrated directly into several Google products, including Google+. Gmail integration will be coming soon.

Microsoft and Facebook jointly announced today that the software giant will be selling 650 patents that it recently acquired from AOL to the world's largest social network in a deal worth $550 million. Microsoft will be licensing the 650 patents, and will continue to hold control of the remaining 275 that came from the original deal with AOL.

“Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction,” said Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel, Microsoft. “As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.”

“Today’s agreement with Microsoft represents an important acquisition for Facebook,” said Ted Ullyot, general counsel, Facebook. “This is another significant step in our ongoing process of building an intellectual property portfolio to protect Facebook’s interests over the long term.”

Today, Facebook filed with the SEC an updated version of its S-1 that includes the company's financial results for the first quarter of this year. According to the documents released to the public, Facebook had a $1.06 billion revenue in the quarter and a net income of $205 million. In addition, Facebook revealed that it now sees 532 million active daily users on the social network and that 901 million people are currently registered. Finally, the social network announced that users usually upload around 300 million photos per day (average), creating around 3.2 billion likes and comments per day.

Sprint announced earlier today that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus 4G LTE smartphone will be launching on its network on April 22, 2012. The phone, which will cost $199.99 with a new two-year contract, can be pre-ordered from Sprint's website beginning today.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus has the following features:

• 1.2 GHz dual-core processor
• 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED
• Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich")
• 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera
• Google Wallet support

Today, Google reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2012, announcing a revenue of $10.65 billion, beating analyst expectations by a wide margin. As far as profit goes, Google reported a solid $8.14 billion in that category, right in target with previous expectations.

In addition, the web giant also unveiled plans to create a non-voting capital stock that will essentially create a 2-for-1 split. The new stock, class C, will also be traded under a separate ticker on NASDAQ.

“Google had another great quarter with revenues up 24% year on year,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google.  “We also saw tremendous momentum from the big bets we’ve made in products like Android, Chrome and YouTube. We are still at the very early stages of what technology can do to improve people’s lives and we have enormous opportunities ahead.  It is a very exciting time to be at Google.”

Today, Google announced the rollout of a completely redesigned and overhauled version of its social network, Google+, which will soon be approaching its first birthday. Changes on the new version of Google+ include:

• Dynamic navigation on the left that allows dragging of apps up and down
• Improvements to photos, videos
• Improvements to conversation views, threads, and activity viewing
• More importance on the "Hangouts" feature, which allows for group video chatting

The United States Department of Justice announced today that it has a filed a lawsuit against Apple and several e-book publishers over the pricing of the electronic books. The DoJ claims that Apple and publishers took part in illegal activity by lowering the prices of e-books for the iBookstore, but raising them for competition. The lawsuit involves the following publishers:

• Hachette
• HarperCollins
• Macmillan
• Penguin
• Simon & Schuster

Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster have all agreed on settlements and if approved, the companies would be forced to allow other retailers, such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble, to reduce the prices of its e-books as well.

In addition, the companies will be prohibited for two years from placing constraints on retailers’ ability to offer discounts to consumers.   They will also be prohibited from conspiring or sharing competitively sensitive information with their competitors for five years.   And each is required to implement a strong antitrust compliance program.   These steps are appropriate – and essential in ensuring a competitive marketplace.

AOL announced today that it has reached an agreement with Microsoft where the software giant will acquire more than 800 patents from AOL in a deal worth $1.056 billion. Microsoft will also be licensing more than 300 additional patents from AOL as part of the deal.

Following the sale, AOL will continue to hold a significant patent portfolio of over 300 patents and patent applications spanning core and strategic technologies, including advertising, search, content generation/management, social networking, mapping, multimedia/streaming, and security among others. AOL also received a license to the patents being sold to Microsoft.

The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of 2012, pending approvals.

Earlier today, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social network will be acquiring popular photo upload and filter service Instagram, for $1 billion. Zuckerberg says that the Instagram team will be joining Facebook, and that the two will begin working on integrating Instagram features onto the world's most popular social network.

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.

Just last week, Instagram launched its Android app after a long wait from users. The app was downloaded over one million times in the first 24 hours of availability.

According to Engadget, AT&T has confirmed that it will begin offering customers with off-contract iPhones and accounts in "good standing" the ability to unlock their iPhone for use on other carriers tomorrow, April 8, 2012. Once that happens, any carrier's micro-SIM card can be used in the iPhone, as long as the device supports the specific frequency.

Beginning Sunday, April 8, we will offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones. The only requirements are that a customer's account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee.

At a press event in New York City that has just wrapped up, Sprint and HTC announced the EVO 4G LTE smartphone heading to Sprint's network sometime in the second quarter of this year for $199.99. Pre-orders for the device begin May 7, 2012 and a release date will be announced at a later time.

The HTC EVO 4G LTE touts Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich") with the new HTC Sense UI 4.0, a 4.7-inch HD display and a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor. The smartphone also features an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chatting.

Other specifications of the HTC EVO 4G LTE include:

• 2000mAh battery
• Kickstand integrated on the back of the device
• Beats Audio integration

Alongside this announcement, Sprint also unveiled plans to become the first U.S. carrier to build a nationwide HD Voice network. The rollout process will begin sometime in late 2012, and the network will attempt to improve voice quality and remove background noise. The EVO 4G LTE will be Sprint's first device capable of running on the new network.

Google has unveiled a new project that it has begun working on, dubbed "Project Glasses." It has begun asking for people's feedback on what they want to see in heads up display glasses, which is something similar to the things found in old science-fiction movies. The company has revealed that the glasses run a version of Android OS, and will be for sale sometime later this year for the cost of a smartphone.

Today, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) announced more of its findings during audits at Foxconn facilities in China. Apple asked the organization back in February to perform complete audits on nearly all Foxconn facilities to address concerns over working conditions and child labor.

The FLA revealed that it has found serious violations at the plants, which include illegal overtime and safety concerns. As a result of the findings, Foxconn as agreed to hire thousands of new works, improve living and working conditions for employees, ban illegal overtime, and more. Illegal overtime for employees included unpaid time as well.

Research in Motion has just announced its financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2012. The BlackBerry-maker has once again reported poor results, which is highlighted by the 19% decrease in revenue from the previous quarter (Q4 2012 revenue was $4.2 billion). The company revealed that it shipped 11.1 million BlackBerry smartphones and 500,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets during the quarter. Net loss for the year is being listed at $125 million for RIM.

In addition to the bad news, RIM announced that its former co-CEO, Jim Balsillie, has resigned from his position on the company's board of directors. "As I complete my retirement from RIM, I'm grateful for this remarkable experience and for the opportunity to have worked with outstanding professionals who helped turn a Canadian idea into a global success," he said.

Earlier today, Zynga announced that it has acquired OMGPOP, the creator of the incredibly popular iOS and Android game "Draw Something," where users are challenged to draw pictures based on a given word and have their partner guess the word. The deal is worth $180 million, alongside an extra $30 million for employee-retentions. The game is six weeks old and currently holds the top paid and free app on both the iOS App Store and Google Play market.

Draw Something sports 35 million users, 10 million users active daily, and nearly 1 billion ad impressions per day. The app has already become the most popular Facebook Connect game as well.

Zynga is well known for its partnership with Facebook, and for developing other mobile games such as Words With Friends and Scramble With Friends.

According to All Things D, Beats Audio has acquired the music streaming service MOG. MOG is a mix between Spotify and Pandora, both of which allow music to be played across the Internet, but has its unique features as well. At this time, it's unclear whether the deal has been closed, and what MOG will be sold for if the deal follows through.

We'll keep you posted with new information.

Apple has just announced via a press release that it has sold three (3) million new iPads since the tablet's launch last Friday, March 16, 2012. The Cupertino-based company first unveiled the next-generation iPad, which sports a high-resolution "Retina" display, 4G LTE connectivity, improved performance, and an upgraded rear-facing camera, earlier this month, with pre-orders being opened earlier.

“The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold―the strongest iPad launch yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad, including the stunning Retina display, and we can't wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday.”

UPDATE: AT&T released a very brief statement this morning, simply stating that it saw record-breaking sales and activation numbers during the iPad launch.

The call will be led by CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer, and will be available via a live stream on Apple's website as well.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, and Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, will host a conference call to announce the outcome of the Company’s discussions concerning its cash balance. Apple® will not be providing an update on the current quarter nor will any topics be discussed other than cash.

The microblogging service has also confirmed that Posterous Spaces will remain up and running for users, and that should changes occur, users will be given "ample" amount of time for preparation. Those looking to move away from Posterous will be able to in the coming weeks once Twitter provides instructions on how to do so.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Alongside the announcement of "the next iPad" today, Apple also announced an updated version of its Apple TV set-top box with a redesigned user interface and the ability to play 1080p HD video content from the iTunes Store, which is already available to the public. The user interface is now heavily icon-based, clearly taking influence from iOS.

Apple® today announced the new Apple TV® featuring 1080p programming including iTunes® movies and TV shows, Netflix, Vimeo, photos and more in HD. With iTunes in the Cloud, customers can purchase and play their favorite movies and TV shows from the iTunes Store® and watch them instantly on their HD TV. The new Apple TV features a simpler, refined user interface making it easier than ever to access your purchased movies, TV shows and music with iTunes Match℠ right from iCloud®. With AirPlay®, users can stream or mirror their favorite content from their iPad® or iPhone® 4S to Apple TV.

The new Apple TV will be available beginning March 16, 2012 for a price of $99.

Apple unveiled the all new third-generation iPad at its media event today alongside an updated Apple TV.

The new iPad is named by Apple as "the new iPad" and features a Retina display, newer iSight cameras, a A5X processor with quad-core graphics and 4G LTE. The Retina display on the new iPad has a resolution of 2048x1536 with over 3 million pixels while being on the same size display as the iPad 2.

Next to the Retina display, the largest addition to the new iPad is 4G LTE connectivity from Verizon and AT&T in the U.S. Apple says the iPad can take max download speeds of 73 Mbps on LTE networks. Additionally, the iPad is now available for mobile hotspot use, also know as a form of tethering. The iPad is slightly thicker and slightly heavier than the iPad 2 but features the same amount of battery life. Ten hours or nine hours while on LTE.

The A5X processor of the new iPad features quad-core graphics processing and impressed nicely as several demos showed the speed at which highly intense applications run. On the backside, Apple has put a 5 megapixel iSight camera with Apple standard optics like autofocus and autoexposure. The same camera also can capture 1080p video. Alongside the camera several iLife applications also received updates, such as Garage Band and iMovie. Apple also announced an all new part of iLife for iPad, iPhoto. iPhoto brings editing, brushes, photo  journals and easy ways to share images, such as Photo Beam.

Finally, the new iPad comes with an iPhone 4S like Dictation feature. Just like the iPhone there is a microphone button on the pop-up keyboard now that translates speech to text. The microphone is now standard throughout all keyboards on the new iPad.

The all new iPad will be available March 16 and pricing remains the same for capacity and connectivity as before. Beginning at $499 for 16 GB Wi-Fi only up to $829 for 64 GB Wi-Fi + 4G LTE. Pre-orders for the new iPad begin today. The iPad 2 is also still available with a $100 price drop in place with each model.

Today, Google announced that it will be rebranding the "Android Market," which consists of app downloads, music, movies, ebooks, and more to a more general name, "Google Play." The service is cloud-based, meaning all of your data will move with you device-to-device. It allows users to store up to 20,000 songs for free, buy ebooks, download over 450,000 apps, and purchase movies.

The web giant says that over the next few days, users will be upgraded from the Android Market to Google Play, including the individual apps as well.

Today, AT&T announced a revision to its smartphone data throttling policy that was first established last year for customers who elected to keep their unlimited data plan, even after the carrier stopped selling it. Prior to the changes today, AT&T said that it would throttle the top 5% of data users on its network, but it was never clear how much data a user had to use per billing cycle to be considered in the top 5%.

The carrier revealed today that, from this point on, it will now be throttling data speeds for 4G LTE device owners after 5 GB of usage, and after 3 GB of usage for non-4G LTE users (3G or 4G).

• Customers with a 3G or 4G smartphone – who also still have our unlimited data plan – will see speeds reduced if they use 3GB (gigabytes) of data or more in a billing cycle. Speeds will return to normal at the start of the next billing cycle. For context, less than 5 percent of smartphone customers use more than 3GB per month.
• For customers with a 4G LTE smartphone – who also still have our unlimited data plan – data speeds will be reduced if usage is 5GB (gigabytes) or more in a billing cycle. Speeds will return to normal at the start of the next billing cycle.

Before seeing a change in data speeds, AT&T will send a text message to customers to warn them.

According to FOSS Patents, Apple has been granted an injunction against all of Motorola Mobility's Android-based devices in Germany after a judge ruled that the company infringed upon an Apple-controlled patent dealing with a "portable electronic device for photo management." In short, the patent deals with performing certain tasks when photos are in "zoomed in" mode, but not when they are "zoomed out."

If Apple elects to enforce the granted injunction, Motorola Mobility would be forced to recall any devices that infringe upon the patent in Germany, at its expense.

Today, Microsoft announced the launch of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview build, the next step in releasing its next-generation operating system to the world. The release contains over 100,000 changes from the Developer Preview of the OS, which was released last year, and is available for download from the links below.

The Consumer Preview is designed to give what its name implies - the ability for consumers to try out Windows 8. The previous seed was for developers and only provided a locked-down version of the next OS out of Redmond.

Download link for Windows 8 Consumer Preview: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Nokia announced the Lumia 610 smartphone that is powered by Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 mobile platform. The phone is geared toward lower price points and emerging markets, and was made possible by a software update to Windows Phone 7 that added support for new markets.

The Nokia Lumia 610 was made possible thanks to a new software release from Microsoft delivering enhanced capabilities to the Windows Phone 7.5 platform.  The software release, available from April optimizes Windows Phone to support lower memory and processor requirements, while still delivering the same great experience for more affordable products.  In addition, Windows Phone will now include the network and language requirements for China. As a result, Nokia announced plans to make a range of Lumia smartphones available in China, covering both CDMA and WCDMA technologies, in the coming months.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Nokia announced its "808 PureView" smartphone, whose most touted feature is its 41-megapixel rear-facing camera. Nokia says that the phone is able to zoom in without losing any picture quality, and "superior" in low-light conditions.

In addition to superior still imaging technology, the Nokia 808 PureView, also includes full HD 1080p video recording and playback with 4X lossless zoom and the world's first use of Nokia Rich Recording. Rich Recording enables audio recording at CD-like levels of quality, previously only possible with external microphones. The Nokia 808 PureView also features exclusive Dolby Headphone technology, transforming stereo content into a personal surround sound experience over any headphones and Dolby Digital Plus for 5.1 channel surround sound playback.

No further details were revealed about the 808 PureView at this time.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Huawei introduced what it is touting the "world's fastest smartphone," the Ascend D quad. The smartphone sports an in-house K3V2 quad-core 1.2GHz/1.5GHz processor and a high-resolution 4.5-inch display. The Ascend D quad is powered by Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich").

Other technical specifications of the Huawei Ascend D quad include:

• 8-megapixel rear-facing camera capable of 1080p video recording
• 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera
• 1800 mAh battery
• 8.9-millimeter thin casing

The company also introduced two other smartphones at the MWC conference: the Ascend D quad XL and the Ascend D1. The Ascend D quad XL features the same specs at the Ascend D quad, but sports a 2500 mAh battery and a 10.9-millimeter thin casing. The Ascend D1 features a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor and sports a 1670 mAh battery.

Both Ascend D smartphones will be available in a number of worldwide markets in the second quarter of this year. The Ascend D1 will be available in the same markets sometime in April of this year.

Sony Xperia P

The Sony Xperia P touts an aluminum unibody case design and a 4-inch "reality display" that sports a larger angle of view. The Xperia P includes an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera that's capable of recording up to 1080p video and near field communications (NFC) technology. The phone will be available in three different finishes in the second quarter of this year.

Sony Xperia U

The Sony Xperia U touts a dual-core 1GHz processor, a 3.5-inch "reality display," and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera. Available in two finishes, the Xperia U will be available beginning in the second quarter of 2012.

Both smartphones will launch on Android OS 2.3 (a.k.a. "Gingerbread"), but will be upgradeable to Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich") in the second quarter.

HTC One V

The HTC One V is the entry-level "HTC One" brand smartphone and features a 3.7-inch WVGA display. It is powered by a 1 GHz Snapdragon S2 processor, 512 MB of RAM and Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich"). It also touts a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, 4 GB of internal storage, Beats Audio, and HTC's "Sense" UI, version 3.6. The device's design also brings back HTC's signature "chin" phones.

The phone will be available sometime in the second quarter of this year, but specific launch details haven't been revealed at this time. The One V will also come with 25 GB of Dropbox cloud storage for free for two years.

HTC One S

The HTC One S is the thinnest smartphone that HTC has ever produced. It sports a 7.9-millimeter thin casing and a 4.3-inch qHD AMOLED display. It is powered by a dual-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 processor and Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich") with HTC Sense 4.0.

The One S also features an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, 16 GB of internal storage and 25 GB of Dropbox cloud storage for free for two years.

The One S will be launching within the next two months on T-Mobile in the United States, with other markets to follow.

HTC One X

The HTC One X is the high-end of the "HTC One" brand, and touts a 1.5 GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor and a 4.6-inch 1280 x 720 resolution Super LCD 2 display. It also features an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, and Beats Audio. The phone is powered by Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich"), 1 GB of RAM, and HTC's Sense UI 4.0.

The One X comes with 32 GB of internal storage and 25 GB of Dropbox cloud storage for free for two years. All of these features are packed into a 9.27-millimeter thin casing.

The HTC One X will be launching on AT&T's 4G LTE network before the end of April of this year.

Today, Comcast announced the launch of its new video streaming service, dubbed "Xfinity Streampix," which will be a direct competitor with Netflix and Verizon's recently announced streaming service with Redbox. Comcast says that the service is subscription-based and will allow customers to watch older movies and TV shows instantly by streaming them to TVs, mobile devices, and online platforms.

To help jumpstart the service, Comcast is partnering with the following movie studios and content providers: Disney-ABC Television Group, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution and Cookie Jar Entertainment.

Our goal is to consistently deliver greater value to our customers and to bring the best anytime, anywhere entertainment on multiple platforms. Streampix is another step moving TV Everywhere forward by giving customers access to an even greater library of popular choices to watch.

Xfinity Streampix is launching to Comcast customers this week, and will be available on devices such as the Xbox 360 and Android-powered smartphones in the "coming year." The service will be bundled with a number of "Xfinity triple-play" packages, or a separate $4.99 per month.

Today, Research in Motion (RIM) announced the release of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0, bringing several new features and improvements to the company's mid-range tablet. OS 2.0's major new feature is the addition of a native email client, which the PlayBook launched without last year. Customers made it heard that they were upset over the lack of a native email client on the PlayBook.

In addition, PlayBook OS 2.0 brings the following new features:

• Social integration with the Contacts and Calendar apps
• An updated BlackBerry Bridge app, which includes the ability to use a BlackBerry smartphone as a mouse and/or keyboard for the PlayBook
• New apps in the BlackBerry App World, including Android apps that are able to run on the PlayBook platform
• Updated virtual keyboard, new "Print To Go" app, etc.

The PlayBook OS 2.0 update is available over-the-air (OTA) beginning today.

Today, Samsung announced its plans to spin off its struggling liquid crystal display (LCD) division as it places a new focus on organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels. The new company will be called "Samsung Display Co." and will be officially set up on April 1, 2012.

Combining all 2011 financial results, Samsung's LCD business had an operating loss of $668 million, which is certainly playing an important factor in this decision. The company will now be able to focus on its new OLED division, which it believes is where the money will be at in the near future. OLED panels are able to operate without the need of a backlight, meaning the display can be thinner, and thus, lighter.

Just last week, Samsung first revealed that it was investigating the possibility of a spin off.

Ahead of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) conference that's set to kick off a little later this month, LG has officially unveiled its highly anticipated "Optimus Vu" smartphone to the public today. The device sports a 5-inch IPS LCD display, LTE connectivity, a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, and a 2080mAh battery. The Optimus Vu's display touts a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution, giving it a 4:3 aspect ratio.

The large 5-inch display with bright 4:3 aspect ratio makes viewing documents, books, internet and multimedia contents easier and more comfortable. The 4:3 aspect ratio is optimized for viewing to grasp more at a glance and note taking to increase productivity in everyday life. Moreover, IPS display realizes every color in its natural state for the best viewing experience even under bright sunlight.

The LG Optimus Vu is powered by Android OS 2.3 (a.k.a. "Gingerbread"), and includes a built-in "QuickClip" hotkey that can be used for quickly grabbing screenshots and memos.

Other technical specifications of the LG Optimus Vu:

• 8.5mm thin
• 32 GB of internal storage
• 1 GB of RAM
• 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera
• Update to Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich") already in the works

The Optimus Vu will be unveiled in Korea next month, but pricing information has not been provided.

In a very unexpected move today, Apple announced "OS X Mountain Lion," the ninth major release of the Mac OS X desktop operating system. Mountain Lion will be released to the public this summer, with a developer preview being seeded today. The OS will come less than a year after OS X Lion was released to the public.

OS X Mountain Lion continues Apple's work on migrating features of iOS to the Mac environment. The OS touts 100 new features, including: Reminders, Notes, Game Center, Notification Center, AirPlay Mirroring, Twitter integration, and Messages. Messages will  be replacing the aging iChat application on OS X, and will feature iMessage support, allowing messages to be sent between Macs and iOS devices.

“The Mac is on a roll, growing faster than the PC for 23 straight quarters, and with Mountain Lion things get even better,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The developer preview of Mountain Lion comes just seven months after the incredibly successful release of Lion and sets a rapid pace of development for the world’s most advanced personal computer operating system.”

OS X Mountain Lion will also include tighter integration with iCloud, which will allow apps like Mail, FaceTime, and Find My Mac to be automatically setup. In addition, documents will be automatically synced and pushed to all iCloud-enabled devices.

Another new feature is dubbed "Gatekeeper," which will allow Mountain Lion users to determine which sources are able to run and install things on the computer. This seems to be Apple's attempt at drastically improving OS X security.

OS X Mountain Lion will be a Mac App Store exclusive download and will be available sometime in the late summer of 2012.

A couple of other notes about Mountain Lion:

• Removes the "Mac" title from "Mac OS X"
• System software updates have been moved to the Mac App Store
• By default, apps must either be "signed" with a certificate or be installed through the Mac App Store. This can be overridden, but lessens security