This week Facebook dug deeper into mobile, as millions of Chinese web users got caught in the crossfire of a corporate battle.
Announcing it had reached 200 million mobile users, Facebook added a feature that allows retailers to offer discounts to customers near their stores. CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied plans for a “Facebook phone.”
Tencent, which runs China’s biggest IM service QQ, shut off access to the platform for millions of users in a long-running spat with anti-virus provider Qihoo 360.
On the upside, Chinese netizens found that the Amazon Kindle offered a way over the Great Firewall, opening access to Twitter, Facebook and other forbidden sites.
Alcatel-Lucent reported sales growth and a small profit, but fell short of analysts’ expectations, while Qualcomm surprised the Street and lifted its revenue guidance.
A change in the way the UK government measured inflation knocked £2.9 billion (€3.3b) off BT’s pension shortfall.
Vodafone Essar sought buyers for its mobile towers in a deal that could be worth $450 million (€318m).
Australian research group CSIRO came up with a way to deliver 12Mbps broadband via an analog TV antenna.
China Unicom took a hit from its heavy iPhone subsidies.
IBM, Fujitsu and HP topped a Gartner poll of ICT firms’ green credentials.
UK privacy regulator ICO found that Google’s Street View program had breached privacy laws, but did not impose a penalty. Google paid $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit over the disastrous launch of its social site Buzz, which exposed all gmail addresses.
European groups put up €22 million to back Symbian. Apple counter-sued Motorola for allegedly breaching six of its patents in the Droid and other phones.
Apple and Google are ready to vie control of mobile payments firm Boku.
A teardown of the Samsung Galaxy Tab revealed that its parts cost just $214, well below the $264 cost of the iPad.
A new Nokia Siemens app allowed telcos to crowdsource network quality testing.
The Pentagon declared its new Cyber Command ready for battle. Microsoft launched Xbox Kinect to rave reviews and invested in a new Moscow research center.
On the eve of its first election in 20 years, Burma was hit by a massive cyber-attack.
And Flash video briefly became available to iPhone users via the Skyfire app before being pulled from the App Store.