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In the midst of increasing competition on several fronts and the apparent sales underperformance of the Verizon iPhone, Apple wants some great pictures to tell its story, customers be damned. Or as I scored it on Twitter this week, Apple PR 1, Apple loyal customers 0.

Rovio CEO Mikael Hed says the immensely popular Angry Birds game is coming to Facebook next month with “completely new aspects to it that just haven’t been experienced in any other platform.” According to All Facebook, Hed used the word “collaborative” to describe aspects of the game, adding that “the pigs will have a more prominent role.”

It’s hard to tell what’s going to happen, but Twitter sensation Charlie Sheen just tweeted that he will appear live tonight at 10 Eastern (7 Pacific) on Ustream, an online video channel. He didn’t indicate what else would be going on during his Ustream netcast, where he’ll probably be cavorting and horsing around on a program he’s calling Sheen’s Korner.

The fact that Twitter now prominently featured the top trending topics in its app – including the promoted trends that Twitter gets paid for – was, according to many users, a major negative of this version and was seen as a sneaky way to push ads to users without delivering any additional value. Some, including the intrepid Apple-watcher John Gruber, even went as far as reverting back to an older backup of their iPhone to get the old version back.

* All these services need to do is let US stream and they win and knock YouTube’s ball right out of their hands. It’s too bad that the Google of new isn’t as brash and fun to watch as the Google of old. The Google of old would have turned on video streaming long ago.

Good news, iPad 3G owners. If you were lucky enough to snag one of those coveted unlimited data plans with your original AT&T iPad, you won't have to toss it when upgrading next week. The carrier has confirmed to us that those who currently have the aforementioned plan will be able to keep it on their account when upgrading to the iPad 2, which in turns gives you no reason whatsoever to turn down the opportunity

Facebook Inc., the world’s biggest social-networking company, is holding talks with Skype Technologies SA about offering Web video calls to its 500 million users, two people familiar with the discussions said. Video calling between friends on Facebook was first discussed by the two companies last year, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. The feature wasn’t offered in an October update to Skype, which did include voice calling between Facebook friends.

The current iPad 3G 32GB model--the closest approximation to the Motorola Xoom--is priced at $729, while the Xoom is priced at $799. That has elicited complaints from some quarters. But IHS iSuppli shows there is a valid price differential because of the higher-cost--and typically higher performance--parts used in the Xoom. Of course, if Apple comes out with a comparable feature set in the iPad 2 but maintains its current pricing, then Motorola has a real pricing challenge on its hands.

A federal magistrate is granting Sony the right to acquire the internet IP addresses of anybody who has visited PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz’s website from January of 2009 to the present. Thursday’s decision by Magistrate Joseph Spero to allow Sony to subpoena Hotz’s web provider (.pdf) raises a host of web-privacy concerns.

A Nevada students grade-change, hacking scheme has resulted in 13 arrests at a Nye County school, just west of Las Vegas.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) is in talks with record companies to give iTunes music buyers easier access to their songs on multiple devices, three people with knowledge of the plans said. Apple is negotiating with music companies, including Vivendi SA (VIV)’s Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG) and EMI Group Ltd., said the people, who asked for anonymity because the talks are private. An agreement may be announced by midyear, two of the people said.

Apple finally introduced the iPad 2 during its media event in San Francisco this week and gave us a preview of what's to come in iOS 4.3. Those were certainly the major headliners, but we also covered a teardown of the new MacBook Pro, discussed some new AT&T offerings, and more. Read on for the top stories of this busy week:

Minecraft—the independent gaming title featuring a pixel-perfect, build-it-yourself sandbox world—picked up three big awards at this year's Game Developers Conference. And with accolades comes documentaries: Specifically, one documentary, which is now around $17,000 away from the $150,000 it needs to fully fund the film.

Lee Don-joo, executive vice president of Samsung's mobile division, admitted to Yonhap News Agency that the thin design and low price points of the iPad 2 are going to cause trouble for Samsung.

As part of the iTunes 10.2 update released on Wednesday, Apple patched an unprecedented number of vulnerabilities in WebKit, the Web-rendering engine that powers Safari and the iTunes Store. According to French security firm Vupen, Apple plans to add those patches to Safari 5 in an update set to be released before the Pwn2Own hacking competition at CanSecWest 2011. Still, security researcher Charlie Miller, known for "pwning" Safari for the last three years running, doesn't think a potential patch will present much of a challenge in his fourth attempt to crack Apple's browser.

Facebook has snapped up yet another tech startup. Tuesday’s acquisition is Beluga, a startup that allows users to send instant group messages, photos and location information across multiple platforms.

Apple is defending its attempt to trademark the phrase "App Store," saying in a new filing that Microsoft has failed to prove that the term should be left open for use by competing mobile application marketplaces.

Google has just pulled 21 popular free apps from the Android Market. According to the company, the apps are malware aimed at getting root access to the user’s device, gathering a wide range of available data, and downloading more code to it without the user’s knowledge. Although Google has swiftly removed the apps after being notified (by the ever-vigilant Android Police bloggers), the apps in question have already been downloaded by at least 50,000 Android users.

We were assured by Apple's sales team that Apple would just refund the £100 price difference, without any complicated returns and exchanges, so you can take advantage of the price drop on the original iPad. Good news! The catch is that you'll need to be within the 14-day returns window, which doesn't leave much wiggle room for those outside of that window. You'll also need your receipt.

Today Nielsen is reporting that Google's Android mobile operating system has beat out RIM BlackBerry and Apple iOS to become the number one mobile OS in terms of consumer market share. Android has now reached 29% market share, compared with RIM's 27% and Apple's 27%. However, that's only one way to slice the pie.

pple improved upon it significantly, but there's no mistaking its InCase Convertible Magazine Jacket heritage.

Blog host WordPress.com was the target of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack earlier today described by the company as the largest in its history. As a result, a number of blogs--including those that are a part of WordPress' VIP service--suffered connectivity issues.

Currently, video-streaming services like Netflix Inc. and Google's YouTube pay patent royalties, as do makers of Blu-ray disc players and other hardware. These firms pay royalties to an organization called MPEG LA, which is the target of the formal antitrust probe, the people familiar with the matter said. MPEG LA has amassed pools of patents covering widely used video formats and collects royalties for its members, which include Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

What Apple has done by introducing its "post-PC" language into the vernacular is almost more a game of semantics. Now when Motorola boasts the brain-crushing, bone-splitting power of the Xoom, the company could easily come off like the guy who buys the red Ferrari because he has something to prove.

In what seems like a ritual at this point, I watched Apple's iPad 2 keynote in disbelief, noting the factual errors that kept coming up minute after minute.

Also in the interview, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong addresses the company's commitment and plans around video. He says the company has spent $200 million around video in the last year and will spend more around international expansion.

Of course, there's no getting around the fact that the MacBook Pro is still incredibly expensive and omits what should be no-brainer features -- $2,199 for two USB ports and no Blu-ray drive? -- but those are tradeoffs and prices professional Mac users have long become used to, just like this particular MacBook Pro design itself. Something tells us the next revision of the MacBook Pro will offer a more radical external redesign to go along with Lion, but that's a long ways off -- until then, this MacBook Pro represents the best blend of power, portability, and battery life we've come across to date. We'll see how the PC world responds with its Sandy Bridge systems soon enough.

According to Mullenweg one of the targeted sites was a Chinese-language site operating on WordPress.com which also appears to be blocked on Baidu, China’s major search engine. WordPress.com doesn’t know exactly why the site was targeted and won’t release the name until it does. Based on the extent of the attacks Mullenweg tells me that they appear to be politically motivated.