By the summer of 2012, most televisions on the market will come embedded with Google TV. That’s no fact, but rather a bold claim by Google chairman Eric Schmidt, which has some Web watchers calling bull. Labeling it “a moonshot too far,” paidContent writes: “Convincing any of the manufacturers to adopt Google TV over their own varieties looks way more difficult than it has been in the mobile sector … And that’s not even accounting for how, in many countries, TV is dominated by several big platforms and pay-TV vendors in a way mobile is not.”  “Pigs will …

How ‘bout them telcos! Catching Netflix and other streaming services off guard, Verizon is reportedly readying its own online video offering.    “The phone company is talking with prospective programming partners about the service, which would be introduced outside of markets where it currently offers its broadband and TV package, known as FiOS,” Reuters reports, citing sources. As CNet reports, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said he considered buying Hulu when it was on the market, and continues to “look at alternatives" in the streaming space. Either way, “given the company's limited work with video streaming, a decision …

  Is Starbucks wasting its time making coffee? The company is showing serious promise as an app maker. Indeed, the coffee queen says it has processed over 26 million mobile payments since January, accounting for $110 million in revenue. “That's only a drop in the bucket compared to the $11.7b it did in revenue last year, but it still represents five percent of the total Starbucks card business for the year,” writes The Verge.  Even more impressive, over 6 million of those mobile transactions occurred during the past nine weeks, which is more than double the 3 million …

Microsoft just announced a bold plan to conquer consumers’ living rooms -- and, thus, a big chunk of their media diet -- with the Xbox. “Calling it the future of TV, Microsoft is unveiling a new user interface for the Xbox 360′s dashboard,” along with dozens of new options for watching movies and TV on the console, Games Beat reports. “The update is one of the biggest in the past five years for the Xbox 360 because Microsoft is trying to improve the experience of watching entertainment.”  “In an [online] ecosystem where Apple, Google and Facebook suck out …

Cementing the value of social gaming, Zynga this week revealed plans to price its IPO at $8.50 to $10 per share for 100 million shares. As such, the company could raise over $1 billion, according to a regulatory filing released Friday. Not the first “social” darling to go public this year, Zynga is unique in that it’s already turning a profit, writes Wired. (In its latest filing, the company said it made $30.7 million for the first nine months of the year on revenue of $828.9 million.) Still, citing sources, Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Zynga initially planned a …

What is Carrier IQ, and why are Web watchers so excited about it? Hitting at the heart of user privacy concerns, it’s a mobile diagnostic tool that reportedly spies on users’ keystrokes, and has now been found on Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones, as well all versions of Apple’s iOS. “Carrier IQ, as (software developer Trevor) Eckhart Eckhart demonstrates … secretly records the numbers a user calls, their text messages, the content of Web searches (including encrypted ones) and a whole mess of other data,” The Next Web reports. After a similar summation, Mashable writes: “This …