MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Nuts: Twitter Inventor About To Launch His Next Project, Code-named Squirrel  —  Almost immediately following Twitter coming back from a planned downtime this afternoon, co-founder and current chairman Jack Dorsey sent out a tweet letting his followers know that he was, “Getting ready to embark on something new and entirely different.

Erica Sadun / Ars Technica:
Apple changes to App Store review policy worry developers  —  With the iPhone 3.0 firmware on its way, developers are running into new development headaches and are worried that a purge of “junk” apps may be on its way.  —  Apple sent shock waves through the iPhone developer community Thursday […]

Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Botnet master hits the kill switch, takes down 100,000 PCs  —  Botnets aren’t just dangerous because they can steal massive amounts of personal data and launch denial-of-service attacks—they can also self-destruct, leaving the owners of affected machines in the dust.

Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Mixed Emotions: Our First Hands-On Test Of Wolfram|Alpha  —  Wolfram Alpha, the hyped “Google killer” will officially launch on May 18, but we already got preview access to it today, and had a chance to put it through its paces.  —  Let’s get this out of the way quickly: Wolfram Alpha […]

Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google’s “We’re Not A Monopoly” PowerPoint Presentation  —  Update: Google sent us a color version of the deck.  We’ve embedded it instead.  Here’s the company’s response, too.  —  Earlier: An organization called Consumer Watchdog landed a copy of a presentation Google is showing around Washington D.C …

Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
SEC filing: Sun shareholders sue to block Oracle acquisition  —  Sun Microsystems’ shareholders have filed three separate class action suits to block the $7.4 billion acquisition by Oracle, the company revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Andrew LaVallee / Digits:
Google Chrome Ads Coming to Your TV  —  Google plans to promote its Web browser through a television ad that first appeared online.  —  The ad comes from Google’s Japan office, part a series of viral videos spotlighting its browser Chrome.  Google will be using its TV Ads platform to launch […]

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Google Execs: Twitter-like Functionality Could Be Added to Search  —  While taking questions yesterday about alleged violation of anti-trust laws, Google execs including CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly told press that the company is, in the words of Reuters scribe Alexei Oreskovic, “looking at …

Henry K. Lee / San Francisco Chronicle:
UC hacking leaves thousands at risk of ID theft  —  Overseas hackers gained access to confidential information belonging to tens of thousands of students and alumni at UC Berkeley and Mills College after breaking into computer databases at the Berkeley campus’ health services center, officials said today.

Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Amazon creates its own URL shortener for products  —  Amazon.com has quietly created its own URL shortener for products sold on its sites.  People can now type “amzn.com/” and a product number to create a short URL, without the need for sites like tinyurl.com and bit.ly.