Google feels it’s not getting credit for how strong sales of Android-powered phones are, so CEO Eric Schmidt is going on the offensive, telling shareholders that the company’s partners are shipping at least 65,000 handsets with the Google open-source operating system every day, according to AFP. Schmidt’s comments follow market researcher NPD’s report that the dozen or so Android-based smartphones have out-sold Apple’s one and only iPhone. In February, Schmidt said that 60,000 Android devices were being shipped each day. 

A federal court judge has likely dealt a death blow to LimeWire, one of the most popular and oldest file-sharing systems, according to legal experts. Mark Gorton, LimeWire's founder, could see a federal court decision force his company to shut down operations possibly very soon. On Wednesday, CNET broke the news that U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood granted summary judgment in favor of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which filed a copyright lawsuit against LimeWire in 2006. In her decision, Wood ruled Lime Group, parent of LimeWire software maker Lime Wire, and founder Mark Gorton committed copyright infringement, induced copyright infringement, and engaged in unfair competition. 

Cnet 

Asus is planning a netbook with a slot-in mobile phone that will double as a 3G communications module, according to a UK distributor.The arrangement offers an easy way to use the same SIM card and data account for both a phone and a portable computer.The phone module, from an Israeli company called Modu, is already on sale, together with an array of feature-phone shells and other devices that it's designed to slot into. The modular approach addresses one of the great problems of mobile devices for both buyers and designers: you cannot, with current technology, have a device that is both large enough for comfortable extended use and small enough to carry around all the time.

The Inquirer 

UK internet users have become significantly more cautious about how much personal information they reveal on social networking websites such as Facebook, according to a report by media regulator Ofcom. The twice-yearly report, a survey of the internet habits of 1,824 people aged 16 and over, found that since 2007 users have become more savvy about online security and are now more reluctant to provide personal information online. Ofcom's report found that 80% of those surveyed who have a social networking website are likely to only allow friends or family to see it. This is a significant seachange in attitude compared to 2007 when just 48% of those surveyed took such steps.

Guardian 

Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps coined a phrase Friday for something many have been talking about since Apple launched the iPad about six weeks ago. "Curated computing" refers to the way Apple staff examines each piece of software written for iPhone OS devices before allowing it into (or blocking it from) the App Store. Epps is almost certainly not among the first 10,000 people on the planet to observe that the iPhone OS does not allow users to install whatever programs they wish, unless the devices are jailbroken.

Wired 

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has called in City of London Police to assist as it decides whether to go to court over BT's covert trials of Phorm's web interception and profiling system. The City force ran the original criminal investigation into the trials, which saw tens of thousands of BT customers' broadband traffic monitored without their knowledge or consent. The idea of Phorm's technology is to monitor users' behaviour at the ISP level in order to serve them appropriate adverts later. Privacy campaigners consider that this is worse than the tracking cookies already used for such purposes as the user has no visibility of the process and can gain control over it only with the ISP's assistance.

The Register 

Google has come under criticism from European privacy regulators for its Street View project. The swipe came after Google was forced to disclose that since 2006, it had been collecting private data about wireless networks while it compiled the photo database it needed for the Street View project. Following an enquiry from European agencies as to how Google collected data, Google admitted in a blog post that it had collected private data from around the world. Google explained that it had been collecting private data from unencrypted wireless networks, including information about web traffic, had been collected by the Google cars as they visited the area to take photographs.

ITProPortal 

Apple appears to have run out of its stock of iPads for British customers, even though it will not start shipping the device this side of the Atlantic for two weeks. The Californian company said just over a week ago that the iPad would go on sale on May 28 in the UK starting at £429 for the basic version with the top of the range 64GB device with both Wi-Fi and 3G network access costing £699. It opened up pre-orders on May 10. But eager iPad owners visiting its website over the weekend were being warned that if they ordered an iPad now it would ship "by June 7th".

The Guardian 

The US government has appealed to China to continue working with foreign technology investors to combat global warming, and warned that China could significantly harm foreign companies by focusing on developing its own clean tech policies.US commerce secretary Gary Locke made the plea in a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, according to Reuters. Locke reportedly warned that, although developing clean energy and other technologies could help China nurture "a stronger innovation ecosystem", it could "significantly disadvantage foreign companies interested in bidding for contracts worth billions and billions of dollars annually".

V3 

China’s State Council has called for private investment in the telecom and other infrastructure sectors - but don’t expect private telcos to be hanging out their shingles just yet. The council, China’s highest government body, issued an opinion paper calling for private capital to be "encouraged" into telecom, power utilities, water resources, defense technologies and city government enterprises that have been until now been reserved for state-owned companies.

Telecoms Europe