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After months of rumours and speculation Facebook finally got round to unveiling their “Project Titan” messaging product yesterday. The new system centres around a unified inbox that deals with your IMs, SMS, email and Facebook messages, so in theory you’ll only have one conversation thread for each of your contacts.

Nice move Apple, very nice. With the uploading of one simple image Apple have stolen most of Facebook’s thunder just an hour before the social giant’s much-anticipated press conference.

On the eve of their big press conference where they are expected to announce their “Gmail killer”, Facebook has overtaken eBay in value to become the third most valuable web-based company in the US.

The talent shortage in Silicon Valley only seems to be getting worse. Following a series of high-profile departures from Google (mostly in the direction of Facebook), and talks of some big-money deals going on in an effort to retain staff. There was a story going round (completely unconfirmed, of course) that Google gave a senior engineer $3.5million in stock to stop them leaving for Facebook.

Another day, another swirling internet rumour vortex. Well, we needed something to fill the void now all that Nexus Two business is sorted out, didn’t we? A few months ago we got wind of an internal Facebook product codenamed “Project Titan”, which Facebook apparently refer to as their “GMail killer”.

We saw Google’s quarterly financial results not too long ago, and while The Big G wasn’t quite on par with Apple’s earning power, they still fared pretty damn well. So well, in fact, that the powers that be in Mountain View have reached into their deep pockets and are throwing a thousand greenbacks at each employee as a Christmas present.

The annual Semiconductor Industry Association dinner Thursday night in San Jose, Calif. seemed to focus rather little on chips, and rather a lot on tea. Tea-bagging that is.

The GSMA has announced that Google will be exhibiting at Mobile World Congress for the first time

San Jose based Cisco Systems sometimes jokingly gets referred to as the “plumber of the internet” but with the firm having recently shipped its 30 millionth IP Phone and its new line of video phones and tablets set to take the world by storm, Cisco is proving that no matter how dumb the pipe, there’s nothing dumb about this plumber.

At its event in its Palo Alto headquarters on Wednesday, Facebook failed to shock and awe the world with news of anything really groundbreaking, instead sticking to incremental upgrades to its mobile SDK, the predictable launch of Facebook Deals, the opening of its location based APIs and single sign on mobile login.

Sure, Silicon Valley has a remarkable pedigree and history of producing world-beating technology companies, as well as an established technology presence, networking scene and excellent weather, but you know what us Brits have? Words.

Speaking at a mobile event in Facebook’s Palo Alto Headquarters today, Zuckerberg fielded a question from an unfortunate Mashable Apple fanboy about when the social networking firm would come out with an iPad app, only to be told “The iPad is not mobile…next question.”

Will the social network be announcing the much-hyped-but-even-more-debunked Facebook phone? Will the big news be all about an iPad app, or other types of new mobile apps? Will developers be salivating at news of a new Facebook mobile SDK? Or will Foursquare be put into check by Facebook Places announcing special retail deals?

Intel has been banging on about “smart TVs” for donkey’s years, but it seems it may actually be ready to put its rather huge sums of money where its mouth is, in a new joint venture with Taiwanese giant Chunghwa Telecom Co.

Lars Rasmussen, the engineer behind Google Maps and later Google Wave, has left Google for pastures new. Like a great number of ex-Googlers these days, those new pastures are Facebook.

A robust computing environment and ubiquitous connectivity are the two most critical components to every facet of mobility, Doug Fisher, VP at Intel Corp. (INTC), said during his keynote at Sprint’s developer conference.

The best things in life are free, but in order for them to stay that way, Google says it will allow developers to leverage its AdMob platform to stick interactive video ads inside Android apps.

You could argue that eBay has always been one of the greener websites out there – the whole point of the online auction house is to sell your unwanted belongings onto others who will find a use for them – and what’s greener than recycling?

It’s a strange tradition, but a tradition nonetheless. As each delicious Android release has come and gone, Google has taken delivery of an oversized statue of that release’s namesake for proud display on the lawn of the firm’s Mountain View Googleplex.

App developers hoping to get their offerings snapped up or funded by the carrier giants often have to endure a lengthy odyssey of between 23-26 meetings with upwards of 60 people, it emerged at the TC3 Telecom Council Carrier Connections conference in Silicon Valley Thursday.