Macworld.com - After months of anticipation, Amazon on Wednesday night released a beta of Kindle for Mac, software that lets you read Kindle e-books without the need for any special hardware (say, a Kindle). The free app for OS X 10.5 or later is available now in more than 100 countries, and joins the ranks of Kindle for iPhone, Kindle for PC, and Kindle for Blackberry.

AFP - PayPal, the online payment platform of US e-commerce giant eBay, will tie up with a Chinese partner to allow consumers in China to buy from overseas merchants, according to a report.

Reuters - China Mobile (0941.HK), the world's largest mobile operator, reported its best quarterly profit in a year, beating expectations for little growth, as customers began spending more on value-added services.

PC World - IBM and insurance provider Assurant Solutions have come up with a project that, in the manner of dating services like eHarmony, uses analytics to match up call center callers with the most appropriate representative.

PC World - Apple is reportedly removing iPhone, iPod, and MacBook screen protectors from its online and retail stores, just a couple of weeks before the iPad hits the stand.

PC World - High Tech Computer (HTC) on Thursday said it plans to 'fully defend itself' against the patent infringement lawsuit filed by Apple early this month, adding it has always respected the intellectual property of others and will continue to do so.

Reuters - A top executive for Microsoft Corp's MSN China will leave the joint venture, Microsoft said on Thursday, in a setback as the firm struggles to compete in China's hotly contested social networking space.

AFP - China's top provider of electronic payment services will tie up with online payment platform PayPal, the two companies said, in a move that will let Chinese customers buy from overseas merchants.

AP - China Mobile Ltd., the world's biggest phone carrier by subscribers, said Thursday its 2009 profit rose 2.3 percent over a year earlier and warned it faces growing competition.

PC Magazine - March Madness is upon us, and we have the best ways to keep track of all the scores and news on your phone.

PC World - Google is working with Intel, Sony, and other partners to develop Google TV, a service aimed at putting the Internet search giant's Web offerings in people's living rooms, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

AP - HTC Corp., the Taiwanese cell phone maker sued by Apple for patent infringement, said Thursday it will defend itself against charges that it lifted iPhone technology.

Reuters - Israel's Teva has won the battle for German generic drugmaker Ratiopharm, paying an enterprise value of 3.625 billion euros to fix the industry leader's weakness in the world's second-largest generics market.

AP - TriQuint Semiconductor Inc., which provides chips for mobile gadgets such as Apple's iPhone, hiked its profit forecast for the quarter on Thursday, a sign that demand is improving.

AP - Chip maker LSI Corp. is poised for a series of strong quarters on healthy demand for personal computers, servers and network equipment, according to one analyst.

AFP - China Mobile said on Thursday it hopes to soon reach a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone, several months after rival China Unicom launched the iconic smartphone in the country.

Reuters - Europe's online security would best be served by developing global cyber regulation, ending current 'ad hoc' international efforts, British lawmakers said on Wednesday, echoing industry calls for worldwide rules.

PC World - Nokia will launch an online music service in India in the first half of this year, a spokeswoman of the company in India said on Thursday.

AP - GameStop's fourth-quarter results and 2010 forecast topped Wall Street expectations Thursday and company shares soared 9 percent on its outlook for the year.

Macworld.com - Smartphone manufacturer HTC fired back at Apple on Wednesday, saying that it “disagrees” with the legal actions Apple has taken. Earlier this month, Apple sued Taiwan-based HTC over alleged infringement of intellectual property. HTC, of course, was quick to respond that it had its own patent library and one of its chief software partners, Google, weighed in on its behalf.

PC World - Computerworld - Microsoft's new browser, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), will not run on Windows XP, now or when the software eventually ships, the company confirmed this week.

AFP - Teenagers who cannot tear themselves away from the Internet, computer games or their mobile phone can get help from a new addiction service, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

Reuters - Online retailer Amazon.com Inc said on Thursday it released an application to allow its Kindle e-books to be read on Apple Inc Mac computers.

PC World - I've tried not to laugh, tried to maintain some semblance of journalistic dispassion, but screw it, these Kevin Butler PlayStation spots are hilarious. The latest plugs Sony's upcoming PlayStation Move motion control system with some pretty barbed razzing of Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's forthcoming controller-free Project Natal.

PC World - China Mobile hopes to offer both Apple's iPad and a version of the iPhone that supports China's homegrown 3G mobile standard, comments by China Mobile's top executive showed on Thursday.

NewsFactor - Google's Nexus One may have gotten off to a rocky start with consumers, but the 'superphone' is making fast inroads with wireless carriers. Google this week started selling a Nexus One that will run on AT&T's 3G network, and has also inked a deal with Sprint Nextel. Google previously struck deals with T-Mobile, Vodafone and Verizon Wireless.

AP - Owners of the nation's oldest nuclear power plant are threatening to shut it down rather than build cooling towers mandated by New Jersey environmental regulators.

Macworld.com - SMS messaging is a bit of a pain. Sure, everybody with a cell phone has access to SMS, but it's a great way for cell phone providers to nickel-and-dime overzealous users. Instant messaging is a popular alternative, but it's sometimes a bit more full-featured than what people need. Ever been dragged into a chat room when push notifications are turned on? Yikes.

PC World - In an effort to capture what it sees as a growing market for virtual desktops within enterprises, Microsoft is simplifying some licensing agreements and enhancing its virtual-desktop-related software.

PC World - Facebook's 400 million users have been targeted by a spam run that could infect their computers with malicious software designed to steals passwords and other data, according to security researchers at McAfee.

AFP - Taiwan cellphone maker HTC, accused by Apple of infringing on iPhone patents, said Thursday it will 'fully defend' itself against the charges.

AFP - Amazon released a free program on Thursday that allows Kindle electronic books to be read on Apple's Mac computers and said they will also be available on the upcoming iPad.

PC World - Use coupon code UN40B6000 at Beach Camera to drop the price of the Samsung Luxia 40-inch LED high-definition TV by $200. The discount brings this slim (a mere 1.2 inches deep) TV set from a typical retail price of around $1200 down to just under $1000. Unveiled at CES last year, Samsung's Luxia line stands out for its focus on streamlined design and energy efficiency.

PC World - Amazon has raised the stakes in a turf war among e-book sellers by releasing a beta of its Kindle software for Mac computers.

PC Magazine - Amazon on Thursday announced the release of its Kindle e-book reader app for the Apple OS X.

AP - Hewlett Packard Co. said Thursday that it has reached a settlement with three companies that have been accused of infringing on the printer company's patents for ink cartridges.

AP - Mentor Graphics Corp., a provider of electronic hardware and software design products and services, said it has completed its buyout of Valor Computerized Systems Ltd.

Macworld.com - Jerome York, a member of Apple's board of directors, has passed away. York had been hospitalized Wednesday after suffering a brain aneurysm.

NewsFactor - Amazon.com introduced a free software package Thursday that gives Mac computer users access to the online retailer's Kindle e-book store in more than 100 countries. Called Kindle for Mac, the beta e-reader completes Amazon's goal of offering consumers access to e-books and other digital content across a wide spectrum of electronic devices.

Reuters - Sony is teaming up with European movie-rental firm Lovefilm to offer TV viewers in Britain instant access to films from the Web, as a land grab for space on Internet-connected televisions gets under way.

AFP - Sales of desktop computers soared 30 percent in February defying talk that such machines are being made obsolete by laptops, smartphones and other mobile devices.

InfoWorld - Acknowledging the relationship between Microsoft and the open source community has been contentious, a Microsoft official Thursday nonetheless emphasized the company's embrace of the open source paradigm, even if it was not necessarily for altruistic purposes.

AP - Palm Inc. reported sales figures Thursday that showed it's having a difficult time getting consumers to pay attention to its phones in a market dominated by iPhones and BlackBerrys. The company's shares plunged in after-hours trading.

NewsFactor - A back-and-forth battle is brewing between Internet search giant Google and media giant Viacom. Both companies are taking aggressive legal shots against each other after Viacom filed a copyright claim against Google's YouTube service.

AP - Russian telecommunications company Vimpel Communications posted a fourth-quarter net profit Thursday, reversing a year-ago loss as it added new mobile and broadband subscribers.

AP - A songwriter and music producer who claims he helped launch pop star Lady Gaga says she squeezed him out of her lucrative career after he co-wrote some of her songs, came up with her stage name and helped get her record deal.

Macworld.com - Remember that court case from 2007 in which Viacom sued Google for $1 billion in damages for hosting infringing content on YouTube? As of Thursday morning, several legal documents from that billion dollar case have been unsealed. Now, there’re a few new twists to the case.

NewsFactor - In a possible sign of the sea change that social networking has brought to the Internet, new industry data show that U.S. visits to Facebook last week exceeded, for the first time, those to the former top site, Google. While the difference was relatively small for the week ending March 13 -- 7.07 percent of all visits for Facebook, compared to 7.03 percent for Google -- the trend could point to the growing strength of the social Internet.

Macworld.com - Canon has pulled the new EOS 5D Mark II 2.0.3 firmware update, just days after its initial release. The much anticipated update added a host of new video capabilities to the Mark II, including manual control over audio recording levels—something that was previously only possible with a third-party device.

PC World - A knock-off MacBook Air running Windows, a tablet computer shaped like a big iPhone and another tablet meant to rival Apple's iPad were all among the devices shown off by a small Chinese gadget maker on Thursday.

AP - Viacom Inc. and Google Inc.'s YouTube site began airing each other's dirty laundry Thursday, providing a tantalizing peek at the wheeling and dealing that triggered a bitter battle over the copyright laws governing the Internet.

AP - The suitors for Sex.com have been put off for now.

AFP - An auction in New York of the hotly desired Sex.com Internet domain name scheduled for Thursday was halted at the last hour when creditors forced the previous owner into bankruptcy.

Reuters - Palm Inc warned that revenue for the current quarter would be far below Wall Street's expectations, after tepid demand for its smartphones left wireless carriers with piles of excess inventory.

AP - A songwriter and music producer who claims he helped launch pop star Lady Gaga says she squeezed him out of her lucrative career after he co-wrote some of her songs, came up with her stage name and helped get her record deal.

Macworld.com - With the release of Logic Pro 9.1 back in January, Apple's pro audio software made the historic jump to becoming a 64-bit application on Snow Leopard. Thursday's 9.1.1 update smooths over a few things.

AP - Palm Inc. reported disappointing sales of its smart phones, which it revamped with a brand new operating system last year.

Reuters - Google Inc could win a widely expected victory next week in Europe's top court and still face many more battles over keyword advertising, the backbone of its Internet business model.

Reuters - Jamie Foxx is in negotiations to star opposite Bruce Willis in 'Kane & Lynch,' a video-game adaptation that veteran stunt coordinator and second unit director Simon Crane is helming.

PC World - Your computers, your cell phone, Internet services, Web hosting--your business depends on technology to run, so at tax time it's natural to want to deduct all your tech expenditures.