I dare you to Facebook Like or even comment on this post. You can't, because the Facebook Javascript API , the backend system which allows developer applications and Facebook's own apps like Likes and Comments to communicate with the data available on the social network, is down, and has been down for at least an hour as far as I can tell, begging the question, "If article falls on a blog and no one Likes it, does it make a sound?" techcrunch.com | 2/4/12 6:22 AM

Those of us who have been following the social gaming industry already know that Zynga has made up a big portion of Facebook's revenues. But lots of public investors only seem to have gotten the memo on Wednesday evening, when Facebook's S-1 filing revealed that the developer made up 12% of its total revenues, or $445 million. In the two days since, Zynga's stock has gone up more than 26%, to close at $13.39 this evening. techcrunch.com | 2/4/12 5:54 AM

I just donated $40 to Wikipedia, because I promised myself I would every time I poked fun at its Holiday donation drive and then just never got around to it. Did you know that you could actually donate during the off-season (Via the covert "Donate to Wikipedia" link at the far left of each individual entry page)? I didn't, before I asked Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales whether it was possible to donate in the off-season. Spoiler alert, it is. My 40 bucks got me, in addition to the very sweet 'Thank You' letter below, the satisfaction of paying duly for something I use all the time. techcrunch.com | 2/4/12 5:27 AM

In interesting but ultimately not very shocking news, Google has signed on as a major sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference , which is more or less what it sounds like. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just a little odd seeing Google, which is becoming increasingly political, listed next to such organizations as the Koch Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the NRA. But this isn't the moment Google comes out as a closet Republican. It's actually quite in keeping with Google's position of aggressive neutrality. techcrunch.com | 2/4/12 4:09 AM

Want to watch the big budget Super Bowl commercials, but can't wait till Sunday or don't care about football? Facebook and USA Today have just launched Ad Meter, a Facebook app where you can watch many of the TV spots right now. Then from kickoff until Tuesday night you can vote for your favorites. Traditionally an offline poll done live with handheld meters, USA Today has finally brought Ad Meter online so you can judge ads both in real-time and post-game. techcrunch.com | 2/4/12 1:48 AM

It's the Super Bowl season, when a host of services and apps debut just in time for the biggest television event of the year. And, if you're a fan of Madden's NFL Superstars (a web app that's available through Facebook), then you'll like this launch: the game is now available as a Pokki right here . Pokki , for those that haven't used it, is a platform that lets you install lightweight apps that live in your Windows Taskbar (a Mac version is on the way). Each app gets its own icon — click on it, and the app will pop open immediately, click away and it'll hide itself, and when you click it again, it'll pick up right where you left off. techcrunch.com | 2/4/12 1:00 AM

Silicon Valley absolutely, positively doesn't need a nap room because in theory we don't sleep, let alone nap (and if we do need to nap -- like in an emergency -- we take that shiz home, far far away from hungry competitors!). Please Aol Mr. Sr. Facilities Manager, take that money and buy us a bunch of Diet Coke to drink late at night or that great beef jerky we used to have or a copyediting slave intern or passes to Burning Man or anything but a room specifically designed for being less productive. techcrunch.com | 2/4/12 12:48 AM

Earlier this afternoon Droid-Life noticed something strange: the Android developer devices page had been modified to remove the Verizon Galaxy Nexus, leading the site to question whether Google may have removed support for the device because of its spat with Verizon over Google Wallet.  Which would stand to infuriate a lot of new Galaxy Nexus users (including myself), who are looking forward to receiving device updates directly from Google and not having to wait for Verizon to get around to pushing their own releases. Thankfully, we've confirmed this isn't the case: Google says it will indeed be updating the Verizon Galaxy Nexus in the future. techcrunch.com | 2/4/12 12:29 AM

The amount of stuff we trust to fly in and out of our smartphones is astounding . Just look at what happened when a couple of reporters got access to an unwitting (and rather unlucky) Apple employee's iMessages alone — within days, they learned more about him than most people know about their closest friends. Now, imagine all the stuff that could fly in and out of a government official's phone, or that of a highly-ranked member of the military. Forget saucy texts and booty pictures — we're talking about state secrets, here. Looking to keep their secrets underwraps while on the go, the U.S government is working on a build of Android custom-tailored to meet their security requirements. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 11:50 PM

The Gillmor Gang - Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor – are recording live at 1pm PT. Recording has concluded. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 11:00 PM

Temple Jump, Tiny Birds, Numbers With Friends. These are not the apps you love. They're fakes designed to scam you out of $1.99 when you go to buy Temple Run, Tiny Wings, or Words With Friends. Today Apple took a stand against plagiarism, kicking these rip-offs out of the US App Store. Good riddance, but how can platform owners stop these developers before they rob users of thousands or even millions of dollars? techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 10:39 PM

The CEO of Micron Technology, Steve Appleton, died in a small plane crash today in Boise, Idaho. He was 51. Appleton worked at the company since 1983, starting on the night shift production line. He died piloting a Lancair experimental aircraft around Boise. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 10:30 PM

Most popular mobile sports apps are trying to feed you scores and news, or show you fantasy numbers. OnSports , by HitPost, is in a smaller class of apps that's focused on users running the discussion themselves. And now, ahead of the Super Bowl this Sunday, viral growth and featured spots on the Android Market and the iTunes App Store are helping it step up against larger competitors. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 10:15 PM

Remember those little Zen rock gardens they used to sell for desks? So you could take a minute of your busy day to contemplate the void? Thanks to the magic of Kickstarter , you can build your own automatic, desktop-based Zen garden that will rake itself into endless patterns. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 10:00 PM

Ansca Mobile , the Palo Alto-based mobile development company and makers of the popular Corona SDK , is accusing its partner PapayaMobile of ripping off parts of its SDK  for use in PapayaMobile's Social Game Engine . According to Ansca Mobile COO David Rangel, his company recently discovered that Papaya's engine is what he calls a "blatant copy" of some aspects of the Corona SDK. In addition, says Rangel, some of PapayaMobile's syntax and sample code is identical to Ansca's, and the company is using graphic assets it took from the code on the PapayaMobile website. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 9:57 PM

Maybe it was too thick, maybe it was too heavy, maybe you just didn’t like Honeycomb. Regardless of your reasoning, you may want to keep your eyes peeled on your credit score if you bought and returned a Motorola Xoom between March and October 2011, because your personal information may be in someone else’s hands. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 9:55 PM

Tumblr is introducing a new feature today that lets its users pay a dollar in order to have their post featured on the Tumblr Dashboard. The option is called "Highlights," and it's now available right from the new post page on Tumblr. With Highlights, you can choose a special icon that will appear next to the post along with an optional message that points out why the post is important. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 9:29 PM

Thirty spokes meet at a nave; Because of the hole we may use the wheel. Clay is moulded into a vessel; Because of the hollow we may use the cup. Walls are built around a hearth; Because of the doors we may use the house. Thus tools come from what exists, But use from what does not. - Tao De Ching There's a carousel in a small Cape Cod town that we visited this summer and the kids rode it a few times. The carousel is quite old and quite handsome and it makes a great diversion of an evening. I'm reminded now of trying to take pictures of the kids while they rode the carousel. For a while I'd wave and try to get their attention as they roared past, their laughter dopplering around the edge of the curve, and then, after four or five tries I'd give up and just watch. It's a wheel, an endless circle, designed to delight and enthuse and distract. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 9:20 PM

Online accounting software maker Xero has raised a new $16.6 million round of funding from existing investors — including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, whose most famous investment, Facebook, just filed for an IPO, techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 9:00 PM

There are few more articulate supporters of high speed broadband access than Sonic.net CEO Dane Jasper . Not only does he think Americans should have the right to high quality broadband, but he also thinks that it is the key to innovation in the broader economy. Home video is, of course, increasingly dependent on broadband and so, Japser told me when he came into our San Francisco studio earlier this week, is innovation in our  healthcare and education sectors. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 8:30 PM

Earlier this week during the Crunchies we snagged the founders of Warby Parker for a backstage interview — which was fitting, as I've been wearing a pair of their specs myself (they seemed pleased by this). Tune in to the video above for some details on the company's 'Buy A Pair, Give A Pair' program, through which Warby Parker matches every purchase by donating a pair of glasses to people in need. And for those of you looking for an alternative to the hornrimmed classes, there's good news: wireframe glasses are on the way (early spring can't come soon enough). Oh, and we also take a stab at what the founders do when people tell them they look like hipsters (given their response, you may want to hold off on doing that). techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 8:25 PM

The Super Bowl is just around the corner, but unfortunately most of us won't be able to attend the big game. Parties are fun and all, but there's nothing like leaving the stadium with arms full of jerseys, footballs, foam fingers and the like. How else are you supposed to relive the excitement over and over without mementos? (In a non-serial killer kind of way, of course.) Well, the good news is that Shazam and Delivery Agent have partnered yet again to let you buy Super Bowl XLVI goods from your phone, PC, or tablet while you watch the game. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 7:48 PM

You know what's funny? If you Google "how do you get kids to learn" (sans quotes, even), the first result goes to this TechCrunch blog post about an app that lets kids draw butts on the iPad. Really! The post details the company called Madbrook (aka Everything Butt Art ), which launched at TechCrunch Disrupt NY in May. It's the brand behind a series of printed books, all of which are meant to teach creativity and step-by-step drawing while using humor and silliness to appeal to the young demographic. Now, the iPad app promised at Disrupt has finally arrived. The company's first digital creation, Butt Art -Kids Learn to Draw Zoo Animals Step-by-Step , has gone live in the App Store. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 6:55 PM

WikiLeaker Julian Assange could be on a plane headed for a jail cell in Sweden in a couple weeks if his two-day appeal to Great Britain’s Supreme Court this week fails. Assange claims the arrest warrant issued by Sweden’s public prosecutor instead of a judge has no weight and his lawyer reached back as far as the sixth-century Byzantine Codex Justinius to try to prove that the concept that “no one can be a judge in his own case” is a “fundamental principle.” Unfortunately for Assange prosecutors often play a judicial role in Sweden and elsewhere on the continent and Britain generally defers to other European systems.

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Nokia's UK YouTube account has posted a video promoting the pink Lumia 800, and shockingly enough it seems pretty targeted toward women. Here's the thing: It's pretty obvious that, with a pink phone, the majority of its owners will be teenage young ladies. That's fine. But doesn't a commercial that shows only women enjoying the phone kind of ruin it for guys? What if there's a young man in the UK that was really excited about the pink Lumia 800? He's probably not so excited after seeing this commercial. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 6:29 PM

Dropbox has no shortage of fans or users these days -- their stellar wins at the Crunchies are proof of that -- and now the cloud storage service is leaning on them to test an experimental new build of the Dropbox Android app. While the thrill of being on the bleeding edge is probably enough for some people to take the plunge, the real meat of the experimental build comes in the form of the new auto upload feature for photos and videos. It's pretty much exactly what the name implies: as soon as you snap a photo or take a video with your Android device, it automatically gets uploaded to your account. And in usual Dropbox fashion, it just works. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 6:23 PM

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We covered the launch of Summly an application that summarises text last year , but I recently caught up with Nick D'Aloisio, the16 year year-old programmer who came up with the application for a video interview. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 11:13 AM

Here are some recent posts on TechCrunch Gadgets: The Peek Bites The Dust Steve Jobs Impersonator With Angel Wings And Halo Used To Hawk A Worthless Android Tab The $199 PlayBook Returns For A Limited Time techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 11:00 AM

Halfway to living up to its moniker with over 250 startups, 500 Startups held a series of demo days this week and last, where a group of 33 scrappy startups presented their wares to investors in both New York and San Francisco. As we are wont to do with these things, we visited the 500 Startups offices in Mountain View and interviewed the seven that we thought were the most interesting, from both an investor and consumer standpoint. The startups chosen spanned all sorts of market territory, from a novel take on media-based eCommerce to an SaaS for farmers, but what they all had in common was a unique approach to the problem they were trying to solve as well as inkling of that other indeterminate thing that makes a startup great. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 9:59 AM

Facebook is testing a new photo viewer layout that mounts engagement buttons and comments to the right rather than beneath images. See, Facebook doesn't want you to just view comments, it wants you to start a conversation. Apparently the company doesn't care about being accused of copying Google+, since the viewer's layout is very similar to that of its competitor . techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 5:25 AM

The Occupy movement, or rallying cry, or whatever you want to call it, is by its nature decentralized. By refusing to come together under one banner other than the word "Occupy," they've both diluted their message and allowed it to spread more quickly. You don't need an Occupy license to occupy a bank's lobby in Kansas City, but at the same time there's a natural question of whether one occupation is related to another. Political considerations aside, the point is that Occupy might benefit from a recognizable face. On this front, some faction of the movement has decided to do a little branding, but in keeping with the democratic, bottom-up nature of the organization (or rather dis organization), they've opted to run a contest and let the "official" logo be selected by popular vote. It's a great application of web technology to an interesting problem, and will probably prove to be a memorable case study in an increasingly common phenomenon: the necessity of branding an emergent movement or pattern on the internet. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 4:39 AM

Yammer grew like crazy last year. How crazy? Product VP Jim Patterson just tweeted out the Yammer 2011 Year in Review infographic below with the comment: "Pretty much everything tripled." Paid seats went from 300,000 to 800,000, total users went from 1.6 million to 4 million (2.5X growth), and employees went from 80 to 250. Also, all told, 200,000 companies are using Yammer, including 85 percent of the Fortune 500 (and TechCrunch). techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 3:57 AM

The tale of Google Wallet's life thus far is a bit of a weird one, but here's the gist: Google launched it back in September, initially as an exclusive feature on Sprint's Nexus S. We reviewed it here . Then came Google/Samsung's new flagship Android phone, the Galaxy Nexus — and, for one reason or another, none of the Galaxy Nexuses on any of the US carriers supported Wallet. Android fans roared, and everyone involved pointed fingers everywhere else until everyone just kind of forgot about it. Flash forward to day: without much fanfare, AT&T Galaxy Nexus owners are reporting that Google Wallet now appears to support their devices. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 3:44 AM

In case you happened to be the victim of a day-long coma yesterday, it was a very exciting day for Mark Zuckerberg , Silicon Valley, and that quaint little social network we've all come to know, love, and be terrified of. Facebook filed its S-1 on Thursday with the crystal clear intent to go public on a market near you very soon, and will be raising $5 billion ahead of its IPO at an expected valuation of between $75 and $100 billion. In fact, there was so much excitement and noise around Facebook's IPO yesterday that the volume of visitors looking to check out Facebook's filing succeeded in crashing the SEC's website . Hitwise tells us that SEC.gov apparently saw a 15 percent increase in total visits, compared to the day before and a 42 percent compared to previous Thursday. And guess who was the number two source of traffic for the site? That's right, TechCrunch.com -- less than 3 percent behind the top source, Google.com. Thanks to you, readers, we gave the SEC all the traffic they could handle. And apparently more. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 3:32 AM

Alan Lomax single-handedly (and some would say, heavy-handedly) saved the folk music from oblivion. Son of John Lomax, Alan travelled across the US and around the world recording folk musicians in their natural habitat. Some of his most notable songs - work songs, cowboy songs, and ballads - formed the bedrock of the folk movement and the succeeding rise of the singer-songwriter in the 1960s and 70s. Everyone from Bob Dylan to Nickelback owe him a debt of gratitude. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 2:47 AM

If you're anything like me (and hopefully for your sake, you're not), then you tend to do things --scheduling, booking, and so on -- at the last minute. For we Last Minute Scramblers, some highly usable services have popped up that not only allow us to book at the last minute, but receive deals while doing so. You may be familiar with HotelTonight , an app for Android and iOS that takes last-minute deals (discounts up to 70 percent) offered by hotels on their unsold rooms -- and serves them to you via your smartphone. Well, another San Francisco-based startup thinks that there's more to this whole last minute booking thing. Yes, from 500 Startups' summer batch comes a new app, called WillCall , which wants to be the HotelTonight for ... live events. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 1:02 AM

Say what you will about The Huffington Post and AOL, their merger has given HuffPo the resources to conquer the online news aggregation business. Today HuffPo dropped some big stats about the year since its acquisition, most importantly a 47% growth of monthly unique visitors to 36.2 million. Next it's aiming to take down CNN and the cable news industry with The Huffington Post Streaming Network , which will stream content live on the web for 12 hours a day. tctechcrunch2011.wordpress.com | 2/3/12 12:04 AM

The big promise of location-based mobile apps is that they can help you find something great in real life without you meaning to look for it. But that hasn't usually been my experience. Instead, whether because of the friction of having to check in, the lack of adoption by friends outside of tech, or whatever else, I simply forget to use them. That has changed with Highlight , a new passive location app for iOS that shows you when Facebook users with friends and interests in common are nearby. Since it launched last week, I've gotten in touch with an old friend/source who's now at a big new company, discovered a couple previous acquaintances who happen to live or work near me, and got the heads up about a fellow blogger creeping behind me at work. My experience is more or less on track with what founder Paul Davison is hearing from other users so far. techcrunch.com | 2/3/12 12:02 AM

You may remember the Peek , a device that showed up back in 2008 (so long ago, now!) offering nothing but email. That's right, nothing but email in an age when smartphones were already becoming popular, and the iPhone was changing the way people thought about interacting with their data. In a way, it was genius: limiting the service and the device made it easy to explain and simple to use. It does email, period. An interesting tack, and one that kept them rolling for a few years, but alas, Peek is finally going to take the big sleep. tctechcrunch2011.wordpress.com | 2/2/12 11:33 PM

Parenting is already an extremely hard job, let alone the myriad issues tired parents find in trying to track down the best local babysitter and daycare services, schools, and more. Meanwhile, the brain-melting technology that we see employed every day focuses mainly on photo sharing, friend finding, and money managing, but parents are often left holding the short end of the stick. This is according to Dr. Carol Peebles, a co-founder of WeSprout , a graduate of the first batch of startups from healthtech-focused accelerator, Rock Health . techcrunch.com | 2/2/12 10:34 PM

A video detailing the new features of Windows Phone 8 Apollo — originally intended for Microsoft's smartphone partners — has leaked into the hands of PocketNow editors. Yay! In my opinion, Windows Phone Mango is a solid platform that's quicker and smoother than anything I've seen on Android. Still, when looking at devices from Microsoft, Apple, and Google side-by-side, the Windows Phone always seems to lose in the spec department. That said, WinPho boss Joe Belfiore has plenty in store for us come Q4 2012 (the rumored release date of Apollo). techcrunch.com | 2/2/12 10:34 PM

Android malware has been an issue over the past year. Granted, most of the numbers we see out of security software companies are inflated — including malicious apps from third-party sources and ignoring small download figures — but that's not to say that we can just brush that dirt off our shoulders. Google knows this, and has for a while. Despite the fact that downloads of malicious apps are down 40 percent between the first and second half of 2011, seeing that 14,000 , 30,000 , or even 260,000 devices have been affected by this or that malicious app requires action. That said, Google is adding a new security layer to the Android Market: codenamed Bouncer. techcrunch.com | 2/2/12 10:29 PM

comScore just released its monthly mobile numbers, which charts smartphone usage from U.S. consumers for the three month period ending in December 2011. For the period, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices, which is in line with the previous period's usage. With respect to smartphone usage, 97.9 million (up from 91.4 million people in the previous period) people in the U.S. used smartphones during the three months ending in December, representing 40 percent of all mobile subscribers. Google Android continued to be the most popular smartphone platform with 47.3 percent market share, up 2.5 percentage points from September. Apple took the second position, growing 2.2 percentage points to grab 29.6 percent of the smartphone market. RIM ranked third with 16 percent share, followed by Microsoft (4.7 percent) and Symbian (1.4 percent). techcrunch.com | 2/2/12 10:24 PM

Back in November, there was a run on PlayBooks when the price was briefly reduced to $199. For a tablet that started out with a premium price, the deal proved enticing to many buyers. And again at the beginning of January, with a slightly odd promotion pricing all models at $299 . Well, they're at it again: until the 11th, the PlayBook is priced to move : $199 for the 16GB version, $249 for 32GB, and $299 for 64GB. Unfortunately, the device won't be shipping with the 2.0 version of the PlayBook software that we played with at CES . They will be rolling out the update soon, though. techcrunch.com | 2/2/12 10:20 PM

“In the Studio” at TechCrunch TV continues today with a guest who was once a Senior Scientist at Apple and CEO of Mozilla Corporation before eventually making the trek up Sand Hill Road, where today he's a partner at a leading venture capital firm. John Lilly, an investor with Greylock Partners, has kept himself busy. Having invested already in properties like Tumblr, Dropbox, and a series of others through his firm's early-stage "Discovery Fund," one of the new areas Lilly is investigating today is world of personal health data and systems. The sheer number of new companies and devices on the market offering consumer-level health solutions is simply staggering. We have an explosion in "computing devices" (phones and sensors), new hardware (like Fitbit), new software services (like Cake Health), and social systems and platforms that attempt to weave these all together to form some type of personalized representation of our current state of health and where we'd aspire to be. (Note: There are simply way to many companies in the health space to mention them all here. You can find more comprehensive lists on Quora and by poking around the website of Rock Health, an incubator designed to help launch health-focused startups.) techcrunch.com | 2/2/12 10:00 PM