Though it's unlikely to deter users or advertisers in the short term, Julian Assange is railing against Facebook as the "most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented." The Wikileaks founder made the comments to Russia Today as he awaits extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. "According to Assange," notes The Next Web, "it doesn't stop with Facebook. He believes the social network is joined by Google, Yahoo and other major US organizations that have 'built in interfaces for US Intelligence.'" Said Assange: "It's not a matter of serving a subpoena, they have an interface they …

Bringing a potential rival into the fold, Twitter has reportedly acquired TweetDeck for $40 million-$50 million. "This deal is defensive for Twitter, say all the sources we've spoken with over the last couple of months," writes TechCrunch. "They simply couldn't allow UberMedia [which has already acquired UberTwitter, EchoFon and a number of other Twitter-related startups] to have so much market share in this space." Following top-level turnovers and broad strategy concerns, the microblogging platform was rumored to be eying the Twitter client for months. As the most-popular Twitter client not created by the company itself, TweetDeck is clearly …

Despite being dismissed by Facebook for buying its stock on secondary markets, Mike Brown has reportedly landed at Twitter in a similar corporate development role. "Brown, who had helped negotiate many of Facebook's so-called 'talent acquisitions' is to be Twitter's director of corporate development and will report to Kevin Thau, vice president of business development," writes All Thing Digital's NetworkEffect blog. "While the issue of insider trading of private companies is a sensitive one, Twitter was apparently able to see Brown's side of the story." Brown had purchased Facebook shares on the secondary market last fall out of …

Google has started testing a voice search service, reports Mashable. Voice search reportedly detects a computer's microphone settings and can open up a "Speak now" widget to detect words and transcribe them into a search query. Android phone owners should be familiar with Google Voice Search as it's available in the Google Search widget. "Google Voice Search on Android even translates voice commands into actions," notes Mashable. Google has reportedly been working hard on improving the accuracy of its voice search product. It now recognizes Chinese and learns from individual speech patterns. "Perhaps now Google believes it's accurate …

The Seattle Times pays a visit to Google's Beijing outpost to see how the search giant is dealing with the pressure of high expectations, and continued government involvement. "We never left China," Boon-Lock Yeo, head of Google's engineering and research teams in China, tells the newspaper in reference to the widely held assumption in the United States that the company had raised the white flag. ,br> Still, admits Yeo, "There were periods of uncertainty." What's more, "There have been some changes," says Xi Cheng, an Oxford-educated Googler working on the translate team. "But we are still here. And it's …

Experiencing a major surge in activity on the news of Osama Bin Laden's death, Twitter is having what Business Insider is calling its "CNN Moment." On Sunday night, Twitter was the first place to report that President Obama would address the nation on a national security issue. Then, the first credible sign of the imminent announcement of Bin Ladin's death came from Keith Urbahn, the Chief of Staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who tweeted "I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden." Writes Business Insider: "Remember CNN when the Gulf War started …

Brightcove has been issued a broad patent for the "distribution of content," which covers the basic features of a professional online video platform, TechCrunch reports. The patent, which the company applied for back in 2005, describes some of the basic features of all professional online video players, such as customizable players, digital rights management, and syndication. "In other words, how video is experienced, and how it is controlled -- essential aspects for professional video publishers." Not that Brightcove has been hurting sans patent until now. On the contrary, Brightcove is now streaming 700 million videos a month, TechCrunch …

Continuing to streamline its Web properties, News Corp. has decided to spin off IGN.com, MediaMemo is reporting. "The goal is to create a standalone Web business that will focus primarily on videogame news, reviews, and culture. News Corp. is weighing taking on outside investors for IGN in advance of the split; IGN may also acquire other properties before the move." IGN has already agreed to buy Hearst's "dudes-and-games-centric" UGO.com. Roy Bahat, who has been running IGN for News Corp. since 2007, will reportedly run the new company. Unlike its efforts to unload MySpace, News Corp.'s efforts to spinoff …

Perhaps serving as a model for all publishers' tablet strategies, Time Inc. has reportedly reached a deal with Apple to make all its iPad editions free for print subscribers. "Starting Monday, subscribers to Sports Illustrated, Time and Fortune magazines will be able to access the iPad editions via the apps, which will be able to authenticate them as subscribers," The Wall Street Journal reports. "It's a precedent-setting agreement that could pave the way for similar deals with other major publishers," GigaOm writes. "The details of Time Inc's deal with Apple are still unclear, but it …