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AP - British police searched the offices of Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers Saturday after arresting a police officer and four current and former staff of his tabloid The Sun as part of an investigation into police bribery by journalists.

YouTube's anti-piracy screening has both come under fire and gotten some relief on Friday. The system is now known from an anecdote at Vice to generate false positives if enough of a song is improperly attributed to the wrong group. When Universal-backed group Yelawolf took a sample from an After the Smoke track and had its adaptation leaked, the Universal takedown claim not only brought down the Yelawolf leak but the original track the sample came from....

RIM's new leader Thorsten Heins in further interviews has outlined how he plans to take on competition in the short term. He revealed to Reuters that just 20 percent of BlackBerry owners are using a modern version of the OS, in some cases using BlackBerry 5 or even older. Much of the company's focus would be on getting them to upgrade to new phones, including special carrier deals that could bundle devices together or give carriers phones with bundled apps....

Digital Trends - As reported by the New York Times earlier today, an Amazon merchant known as VIP Deals issued a letter to all customers that purchased the Vipertek black leather, case folio cover designed for the newly released Kindle Fire. As detailed in the correspondence here, the merchant offered a full refund of the $10 case in exchange for a review on Amazon. While the letter didn’t specifically ask for a positive review, it stated “Please share your experience to help others learn more about the specific features and qualities of the product, what you liked about it and the benefits to owning the product.” Later in the document, the seller went on to state “Please also rate your 5-star experience, we strive to earn 100% perfect perfect ‘FIVE-STAR’ scores from you!” The letter was dated December 16, 2011.

Digital Trends - With the North American PS Vita launch coming to a February 22 near you, Sony has unveiled two Vita bundles, hoping to drum up interest in the 3G version.

Schneider Optics was one of many companies at the Macworld iWorld expo showing off its latest accessories. Electronista stopped by the lens maker's booth to check out their latest addition to the iPro interchangeable lens system for the iPhone 4 and 4S. A 2X telephoto lens now complements the company's wide angle and fisheye lenses....

AP - When Facebook makes its long-expected debut as a public company this spring, the social-networking company will likely vault into the ranks of the largest public companies in the world, alongside McDonald's, Amazon.com and Bank of America.

Digital Trends - A quick-thinking cop used his knowledge of Apple products to lead him to an iPhone thief within 30 minutes of the device being stolen.

AP - Twitter, a tool of choice for dissidents and activists around the world, found itself the target of global outrage Friday after unveiling plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.

Yahoo! News - What would you do with $1.82 billion worth of shredded money? In Ireland, people build houses out of it — at least that's what Dublin-based artist Frank Buckley did. The unemployed artist originally wanted to create a gallery for his series of …

Digital Trends - As detailed by a Sophos Security post earlier today, the IT security blog conducted a poll of over 4,000 Facebook users in order to determine a general consensus regarding Facebook’s new Timeline feature rolling out to profiles over the next few weeks. Over 50 percent of respondents claimed to be worried about Facebook Timeline and an additional 32 percent responded “I don’t know why I’m still on Facebook.” Only 8 percent declared positive emotions towards Timeline and another eight percent stated that they will have to get used to it.

Several successful Kickstarter projects are currently on hand at the Macworld iWorld expo for potential customers to try out, including LandingZone's docking station for the MacBook Air. Electronista initially wrote about the device before it had gathered enough funding to pass through the Kickstarter program, so we were excited to get a chance to see it in person....

Reuters - Research in Motion's Thorsten Heins plans to waste no time in his new job. The BlackBerry maker's chief executive said he will present the board with his plan for company's future in just a matter of weeks.

Israel has followed Australian footsteps in planning its own national broadband network. The country's Israel Electric Corporation plans a purely fiber-based network that will supply many of the country's homes with at least 100Mbps speeds. They picked fiber with the intention to scale and could theoretically hit 1Gbps in time....

Digital Trends - Did you know January 28 is Data Privacy Day in the United States, Canada, and the European Union? The intention behind Data Privacy Day is to raise awareness of the importance of protecting the privacy of personal information—not just amongst individual users of things like social networking, but also amongst businesses, organizations, and corporations that collect, retain, and access information about their clients, customers, and users. Companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have been drawing the attention of privacy advocates and regulators in recent years, but the reality is that there are tens of thousands of companies out there collecting, processing, and distributing personal information about individuals all the time. Increasingly, those companies are looking to things like social networking for cues about individuals’ behaviors, lifestyle, interests, and activities.

Reuters - It was only two weeks ago that Twitter was protesting online censorship in the form of anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA. Now the social networking site faces a surge of opposition to its own censorship practices.

Digital Trends - The Facebook IPO has been looming on the horizon for some time now. Recent speculation has increased the ever-building hype around the company’s S1 filing, and the latest rumors say that the process could begin as soon as Wednesday. According to the Wall Street Journal, insiders suggest as much and say the company is expected to raise somewhere between $75 and $100 billion. 

ContributorNetwork - Google has decided to unify all 60 of its services under one umbrella privacy policy. Records of searches done on Android phones, the Internet and YouTube will be combined to create ultra-personalized advertising. Users won't be able to opt out of the policy, although web browsing history settings can be changed to avert the use of web browsing statistics for advertising purposes.

Samsung continues to send out conflicting signals about when its future flagship phone, the Galaxy S III might be released. Earlier today, Samsung's Senior marketing VP, Younghee Lee, said that the company was "still reviewing" options. At the same time, a probable reference to the phone has since shown up on Samsung's UAE support page as the GT-i9300....

Friday signaled the second anniversary of the iPad's introduction and what has since been interpreted as the start of a shift in the entire computing space. Apple's tablet was unveiled this day in 2010 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco by its late co-creator, Steve Jobs. It would only go on sale April 2, but it proved to be polarizing from its unveiling, even for Apple loyalists....