Thought Steve Jobs would eventually apologize to Adobe for not allowing its Flash media player in iPhones, iPods or iPads? Then you don't know Steve. "Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content," the Apple CEO writes in a new and inciting blog post. "New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too) ... Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind." "Oh, snap," writes The Wall Street …

Hewlett-Packard -- the world's biggest technology company as measured by annual sales of $114.6 billion -- has agreed to buy Palm for $1.2 billion. What does it mean? First off -- challenging Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others -- the deal "could make HP a new force in the red-hot smartphone market," suggests Mercury News. What's more, "HP executives said they plan to use Palm's webOS operating system for a host of mobile gadgets -- including tablet computers and netbooks, in addition to phones." With the deal, "Palm gains access to HP's prodigious marketing muscle and global reach ... …

Buried in AOL's poor first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday were plans to sell its instant messaging service ICQ to Digital Sky Technologies for $187.5 million. "The acquisition makes sense for DST considering that the instant messaging service has a significant Russian user base," writes TechCrunch. "ICQ, which AOL acquired in 1998 for $400 million, draws around 32 million monthly unique visits ... but over 25 percent of those visits are from Russia, where it holds the no. 1 spot for instant messaging." The deal meshes with AOL's ongoing efforts to streamline its business operations, and shed units that it …

Microsoft and HTC have signed a patent agreement that provides what the companies call "broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for HTC's mobile phones running the Android mobile platform ... Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will receive royalties from HTC." More than mere serendipity, Fast Company suggests that the deal was motivated by the allegation that HTC's smartphones violated some Microsoft patents. "Rather than engage in messy legal battles on the matter, HTC has merely agreed to push a few dollars to MS for every Android phone it sells." (Apple is presently suing HTC for the same reason.) …

Google just brought its "similar page results" onto the front page of users' search results. According to ReadWriteWeb, the move represents a "continued effort to custom tailor search results and suggest that what your [sic] searching for might actually be something else." The feature, which will now be included directly at the bottom of users' first search results page, is similar to other improvements made by Google recently, such as localizing its search suggestions list, adding search suggestions to Google Maps and suggesting a suicide hotline number for select search phrases. "While we've certainly taken some issue with Google's personalization …

Apple has acquired a small chip maker named Intrinsity, which is "known for making zippy versions of a computer chip often found in mobile devices," reports The New York Times. The deal is part of a larger effort by Apple to make sure it has the fastest chips for its mobile devices. Not content to rest on its successes, the acquisition also "shows the company continuing to try to gain an edge in the mobile device market," notes The Times. This marks the second time in two years that Apple has purchased a small chip company to gain technology for …

In other Apple acquisition news, it looks like the company has picked up a mobile "assistant" app maker named Siri. According to Business Insider, the deal "puts Apple in even closer competition with Google, as we believe that mobile assistant apps are one of the many ways that search will look on mobile platforms ... So, in a sense, Apple just got into the search business." According to Siri itself: "You can ask Siri to find a romantic place for dinner, tell you what's playing at a local jazz club or get tickets to a movie for Saturday night." Siri's …

IAC's Match.com is demanding that newer rival PlentyOfFish -- which is now the top dating site globally -- stop making "a very long list of claims" about its service, paidContent reports. Among other contentions, PlentyOfFish is telling the world that: "20,000 people sign up per day; Our members will go on over 18 million dates with other users this year; If you come from a midsized city, there is a good chance there are at least 3,000 people online right now in your city." In response, Match.com General Counsel Marshall Dye wrote in a letter to PlentyOfFish founder Markus Frind: …

Spotify, the U.S. bound digital music service, is making what The Financial Times (UK) calls "an ambitious challenge to Apple's iTunes" with an important upgrade to its technology. Since launching in 2008, Spotify's application has been used by more than 7 million people across Europe to access its online music library. New features will now allow Spotify to "absorb" a user's existing digital music collection within the same interface, and synchronize it with mobile devices running its app, reports The Times. The new software will allow Spotify users to dispense completely with iTunes for the first time. …

Since 2005, there have been a least 358.4 million digital data breaches that resulted in the loss of U.S. consumers' personal information, according to new research from The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Keep in mind that 358.4 million is just a minimum, since there are plenty of leaks that have lost an unknown number of records (like the one from a closed-down Hollywood Video store in Nevada, where customer records were thrown in a dumpster then scattered by the wind)," notes Tech Dirt. So why don't we hear as much about record-breaking data breaches these days. "That's not …