Still chewing on the launch of Amazon's first tablet, the industry had to keep from gagging on Friday amid reports of a possible Palm acquisition.       "A well-placed source tells us that HP is currently looking to rid itself of Palm as soon as possible, and that Amazon is the closest to finalizing the deal, among a handful of contenders," VentureBeat reports. "From a distance, at least, this deal seems like a good idea for everyone involved," suggests Digitaltrends.com. "Amazon could surely get Palm at a discount, and would do well with its own mobile platform." "Buying …

The Justice Department is requesting more information about Google's proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility, the search engine said this week. In a blog post, Google said it plans to cooperate fully with the "second request" from the antitrust division, which it assures is "pretty routine." Routine or not, "A second request does not mean the agency will block the deal, just that it wants to take a closer look at the antitrust issues," according to the Los Angeles Times."While Google doesn't appear to be too worried about the request, they did note this means …

Now that Amazon has entered its horse into the tablet race, what are watchers saying about the product's prospects, and its likely impact on the sector? Well, it's cheap! "The Kindle Fire will ... sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple's cheapest iPad," Bloomberg Businessweek reports, adding: "Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is betting he can leverage Amazon's dominance in e-commerce to pose a real challenge to Apple's iPad." "With its low price--most tablets retail for around $500--and the established Kindle brand, analysts believe Amazon's product could represent the first legitimate competitor in an area where …

Sure to shake the tablet landscape, Amazon on Wednesday is expected to debut the Kindle Fire. "Yes, this is the name Amazon has settled on, to help differentiate the product from the e-ink Kindles," TechCrunch writes regarding the new tablet. All Things D reports that Amazon has already struck deals with Conde Nast, Hearst, and Meredith to sell their magazines on the Android-based tablet. "Besides being viewed as the first tablet that could seriously compete with the iPad, the Amazon tablet will likely be closely tied to Amazon's services, a big incentive for publishers who …

It's Shrek to the rescue! Breaking up a string of bad news and disappointing forecasts, Netflix has scored a major distribution deal with DreamWorks Animation. "The Netflix accord, which analysts estimate is worth $30 million per picture to DreamWorks over an unspecified period of years, is billed by the companies as the first time a major Hollywood supplier has chosen Web streaming over pay television," The New York Times reports. Specifically, "What this means is that rather than providing its films to HBO or a similar premium pay TV channel, DreamWorks has opted to show …

Likely to shake the Facebook user-experience to its core, a company employee just revealed new details surrounding the social network's about-to-debut Music service. Calling it the service's "killer feature," TechCrunch was one of the first to pick up on this "Listen with your friend" feature. As Ji Lee, creative director at Facebook, explained in a tweet on Wednesday, the feature will let users: "Listen to what your friends are listening [to]. LIVE." "Not only will all music you're listening to appear in the just-launched right-side ticker, there will be a link to ‘Listen with your friend', that …

Remember Ning? The social-platform start-up that, for a split second, people thought might reshape the Web? Well, Glam Media just bought it for a reported $150 million, mostly in stock.  Regardless of what Ning is actually worth, the rumored sale price is way off its top valuations of $750 million, and, as TechCrunch notes, not much more than the $120 million investors pumped into the enterprise.  "The sale comes after a rocky history for Ning, which bills itself on its site as 'The World's Largest Platform for Creating Social Websites,'" writes All Things D.Mercury …

Exactly what Facebook plans to debut later this week at its f8 conference isn't clear, but it's reportedly big, and will likely reshape the site's core experience with new "read," "watch," and "listen" buttons. With the new battle cry, "Read. Watch. Listen.," Facebook is expected to "unveil its next massive initiative to socialize the Web," reports All Things D. "A key focus of this year's annual event has been well reported: Content." The supposed "motto excites me because of the promise it holds that Facebook will fully embrace multimedia," ReadWriteWeb's Richard MacManus writes. "But that …

At long last, Facebook this week is expected to debut a spanning media platform, which will let users share music, TV shows and movies.The move -- "effectively making the basic profile page a primary entertainment hub" -- is likely to come at Facebook's F8 developers' conference on Thursday, The New York Times writes, citing sources. As CNet notes, The NYT report comes just days after "Dutch entrepreneur and developer Yvo Schaap spied a clue in the HTML for the Web sites of Spotify, Rhapsody, and several other major music services that pointed to some type of …

Along with nearly every other Web platform and publisher, Google is reportedly readying its own Flipboard-esque social-news reader. "I heard from someone working with Google that Google is working on a Flipboard competitor for both Android and iPad," tech blogger Robert Scoble reported Thursday. "My source says that the versions he's seen so far are mind-blowing good." "Google is indeed working on rolling out the new product, which is currently called Propeller," confirms All Things Digital, citing "numerous" unnamed sources. Said sources say Propeller is apparently "one of a number of new socially focused announcements …