Microsoft has named company veteran Amy Hood as first female chief financial officer. “Hood, 41, becomes CFO effective immediately, succeeding Peter Klein,” Bloomberg reports. “The search had focused on Hood, finance chief of the business division, and Tami Reller, her counterpart at the Windows unit, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” 

Facebook is close to buying social driving app Waze for around $1 billion, according to Israeli news site Calcalist, along with other publications. “Waze’s smartphone apps offer free GPS functionality for drivers, but they’re also buoyed by plenty of social data,” writes VentureBeat. “The company now has around 45 million users, and it was previously at the heart of acquisition rumors involving Apple and Microsoft.” 

Microsoft is ready to pay $1 billion for the digital assets of Nook Media, TechCrunch reports, citing internal documents. “In this plan, Microsoft would redeem preferred units in Nook Media, which also includes a college book division, leaving it with the digital operation — e-books, as well as Nook e-readers and tablets.” The Nook business is currently owned by Barnes & Noble and other investors. 

Presaging a brave new world for Web users, the Obama administration is reportedly close to approving an overhaul of surveillance laws that, as The New York Times reports, “would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services.” As it stands, “The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is ‘going dark’ as communications technology evolves.” 

Rumor has it that Google plans to debut a redesigned Maps service at its annual I/O conference, next week. “If true, then Google is ditching [the] traditional sidebar altogether,” TechCrunch reports, citing screenshots of a new Google Maps circulating around the Web. “Instead, the company may be putting greater emphasis on the map itself and shifting pertinent information -- think location data, photos, and Zagat reviews -- to a series of cards that hover in the top left corner of the screen.” 

The latest Hulu acquisition rumor stars Yahoo head Marissa Mayer, who reportedly just met with the video service’s management team. “Sources said Yahoo is ‘in the process,’ although the Silicon Valley Internet giant has not made any kind of formal bid,” AllThingsD reports. “Other players whom sources said are considering purchasing all or parts of Hulu include: Former News Corp. COO Peter Chernin … Guggenheim Partners’ digital arm, which is led by former Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn; and Amazon.” 

So far unsuccessfully, Yahoo has reportedly been trying to get out of its search partnership with Microsoft. “Chief Executive Marissa Mayer has been seeking to end the contract with Microsoft since joining Yahoo,” The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a source. Why? “Yahoo's revenue per search has been worse under the Microsoft deal than when it operated its own Web-search technology and advertising system,” WSJ reports.    

No mincing words, the Pentagon on Monday accused the Chinese government of targeting U.S. government computer systems for intrusion. The Wall Street Journal characterizes the charge as “a more direct accusation of cyberespionage than the U.S. has made in the past.” China's cyberespionage, the Pentagon claims, is designed to benefit the country’s defense and technology industry, and to gain insight into U.S. policy makers' thinking on China. 

The Senate on Monday passed a bill that will subject online shopping to state sales taxes. “The bill would empower states to require businesses to collect taxes for products they sell on the Internet, in catalogs and through radio and TV ads,” Reuters reports. “Under the legislation, the sales taxes would be sent to the state where the shopper lives.” 

Giving the best ad networks a run for their money, eBay is preparing to let brands target audiences on non-eBay sites with the help of its shopping data. Yet, “eBay's advertising business faces some perception issues, with even some eBay executives questioning the company’s move into ad tech,” AdWeek reports, citing one industry executive.