E-commerce site Priceline will buy travel search and booking site Kayak for $1.8 billion, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Many Twitter users suspected a hack on Thursday upon receiving e-mails from the company suggested a password change, The New York Times reports. The company said the e-mails were just routine and not evidence of an attack.

DigiTimes reports that Foxconn, which is a leading manufacturer for Apple, is going to open several production plants in the U.S.

Google Ventures is increasing its investment fund to $300 million per year, Reuters reports.

NBC is taking product placement to the next level in a partnership with American Express that allows viewers to buy featured products on TV using a smartphone app, Advertising Age reports.

Forbes asks, what is Google's mysterious Niantic Project?

"This totally reshapes the discussion," said Harold Feld, senior vice president of the advocacy group Public Knowledge.

AT&T is asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to transition to an all Internet Protocol-based fiber network on a trial basis in a few of its wire centers. This experiment would in effect create a regulation-free zone in which AT&T could roll out fiber, roll back copper, and not be subject to rules that require them to continue to invest in their legacy networks.

The move is important for AT&T, because the company is behind rival Verizon in its fiber-to-the-home offering, and is losing out to cable in terms of home broadband speeds. "From an engineering perspective, this totally makes sense," Feld said. "We want to see better broadband in America." However, he worries that the deregulatory push could have the effect of dialing back what's meant by universal service. "We're in danger of becoming the only industrialized nation to go back on access to basic phone service," he said.

The AT&T plan does include a promised expansion of its 4G network to reach 300 million Americans, and the company has indicated it could meet its universal service requirements with wireless home phone service.

Phone carriers are required to carry each other's traffic, and it is unclear how this obligation will evolve in an IP-based world. Mike Romano, senior vice president of policy at the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, which represents rural telecoms, said, "I do think there are concerns about what this means for the fundamental mission of universal service, and the way carriers interconnect with one another in an IP enabled world."

In the absence of any regulatory requirements, telecommunications companies would negotiate reciprocal agreements to carry traffic. In a worse-case scenario, this could lead to interruptions of the type seen in pay-TV, when broadcast signals and cable network feeds are withheld from subscribers when service providers and content owners negotiate over pricing.

"Whether I get to see Mad Men is one thing," said Feld, citing a recent dispute between AMC and Dish Network. "Whether I can call the hospital in an emergency--that's something else."

The acceleration to an all-fiber network could bring big changes to the market for business broadband. Incumbent providers like AT&T and Verizon are required to offer access at regulated rates to their "last-mile" infrastructure--the wirelines that connect to office buildings, malls, and other commercial centers--to competitive telecom companies.

Former Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., who represents a coalition of companies that provide business broadband, is skeptical that AT&T needs to establish a few regulation-free services areas to experiment on how a transition to all-fiber and an elimination of copper would play out. "Their proposal is to end competition in the business broadband market," he said.

AT&T is mindful of the raft of issues raised in its filing. A company official said, "We understand there are a lot of policy questions that have to be answered. A lot of technology and operations questions. We have to play four-dimensional chess to make this conversion."

How the policy issues will be addressed is another matter. "Ideally, you'd do it legislatively," said Feld, but he doesn't see a path to a revised Telecom Act in the current political climate.

AT&T was wise to time its FCC filing to news of the massive investment, said David Kaut, telecom analyst for Stiefel Nicolas. "They're framing it as part of an overall effort to upgrade their network," he said. "It's not a pure quid pro quo, but there is a relationship between what they see as 21st century regulation and 21st century investment."

Last month, the AFL-CIO came out against the Internet Radio Freedom Act, offered in September by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The bill would require that the Library of Congress's Copyright Royalty Board use the same standard for setting royalty rates paid by Internet radio providers like Pandora that it uses to set rates for cable and satellite digital music providers. Pandora and radio stations that simulcast music via the Internet complain that they pay much higher rates.

The music industry, however, argues that the legislation would result in lower revenues for performers and has been rounding up opposition to the Chaffetz-Wyden legislation. Among the latest to come out against the legislation is the NAACP.

"As an organization which has, for more than 103 years, fought for economic justice for all Americans, this legislation is clearly antithetical to the work of the NAACP," Hilary O. Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington Bureau and senior vice president for advocacy and policy, said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee leaders last week. The bill "fails the basic test of economic fairness and discriminates against singers and musicians by slashing the compensation they receive when their work is played over digital online radio. Fair and adequate compensation for a day's work is a fundamental civil and labor right."

As it works to oppose the Chaffetz-Wyden bill, the music industry is continuing to press lawmakers for legislation that would require traditional terrestrial radio stations to begin paying performance fees to musical performers for playing their music on the air. Unlike Internet radio stations and cable and satellite music providers, traditional radio stations have been exempt from paying royalties to performers because they were viewed as benefiting from the exposure they received from radio airplay.

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to hold a hearing on the issue of music royalty rates later this month.

Even as it lobbies lawmakers to move the Chaffetz-Wyden legislation, Pandora filed a lawsuit earlier this week against the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, a royalty collection agency, demanding that the Internet radio service pay lower royalty rates to songwriters and music publishers. In the lawsuit, Pandora argued that ASCAP is refusing to allow it to pay the same royalty rates the group offered to Pandora's competitors.

AT&T announced on Thursday that it would expand access to FaceTime, an app that allows users to make calls without using a carrier's voice service. AT&T had restricted access to the app, saying the app could bog down its network.

"It is for this reason that we took a more cautious approach toward the app," AT&T's Jim Cicconi wrote in a blog post on Thursday. "To do otherwise might have risked an adverse impact on the services our customers expect--voice quality in particular--if usage of FaceTime exceeded expectations."

Over the coming months the app will be available for use on all of AT&T's tiered data plans, as well as plans for deaf and hard-of-hearing customers.

In September, Free Press, Public Knowledge, and the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute threatened to file a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission accusing AT&T of violating the agency's net-neutrality rules, which govern anti-competitive behavior by providers.

The groups praised AT&T, but said the complaint will move forward if the carrier doesn't follow through.

"AT&T's course correction is a move in the right direction, but until the company makes FaceTime available to all of its customers it is still in violation of the FCC's rules and the broader principles of Net Neutrality," Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said in a statement.

"When I think about the next year, I think the president is focused on moving this economic engine, this dynamo forward," Jim Kohlenberger, former chief of staff at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration, said at an event sponsored by Mobile Future, a coalition of tech companies. But he added that "we've got big things we need to do, [such as] getting more spectrum into people's hands. We have to solve important privacy and security challenges."

The need for more spectrum has topped the wireless industry's wish lists in recent years and will continue to do so in 2013 despite steps taken by Congress and the Obama administration to free up more airwaves to fuel Americans' demand for new wireless technologies. These steps include an executive order by the president to find 500 megahertz of spectrum over the next decade for mobile broadband and passage of spectrum legislation that authorized incentive auctions to entice television stations to voluntarily give up some of their spectrum.

"This president has laid out a very aggressive mobile agenda and has begun to execute on it. I think the next four years are really going to be about execution, execution, execution," said Bryan Tramont, a managing partner at Wilkinson, Barker and Knauer who served as chief of staff to former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell.

Some of the challenges the administration will face in implementing its spectrum policies include trying to get federal government users to give up their spectrum for commercial providers and effective implementation by the FCC of the incentive auction process, he said.

While spectrum will continue to be a top concern, other panelists also said privacy and cybersecurity will continue to be challenges in the mobile space that the administration will want to address.

"The priorities that were going to see very soon are going to be around the ideas or issues surrounding cybersecurity and around privacy," Rob Painter, managing director for the venture capital firm Razor's Edge Ventures.

Earlier this year, the administration unveiled a proposal to boost online consumer privacy through a consumer "Privacy Bill of Rights." While the White House called on Congress to implement this proposal through legislation, it also is pushing for industry to implement some of the principles through voluntary industry codes of conduct. The first industry stakeholder effort aimed at developing these codes of conduct is focused on increasing transparency in what data is collected by mobile applications.

Tramont noted that companies that want to do business in the mobile space face a challenging landscape in trying to figure out what kind of information they need to provide consumers about their privacy practices given the different messages coming out of the federal government, states, and industry self-regulatory efforts.

"There is lot of consumer behavior that is shifting around consumer privacy and I think it is a fundamental challenge for us as an industry to make sure we come up with the right path forward," he said.

Reps. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas, co-chairmen of the Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, and five other lawmakers wrote nine data brokers last summer seeking more information about where they collect data, what type of data is collected, who buys the data, and how it is used.

The lawmakers said in a statement that only one company, Acxiom, described itself as a data broker. In its response to the lawmakers, Equifax, which is more well known as one of the three national credit reporting agencies, rejected the data broker label and instead said it offers "marketing services," which it noted only make up 1 percent of its business.

Acxiom also was the only company that provided details on how many consumers asked to access data about themselves. Several others said they do not allow consumers to access their data because it is not personally identifiable. Acxion said in the last two years as few as 77 people each year out of the 190 million consumers it has information on asked to see their data.

The companies did provide a few details on how they collect data about consumers. Their sources include consumers themselves, telephone directories, mobile phones, government agencies, financial institutions, and social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

"Many questions about how these data brokers operate have been left unanswered, particularly how they analyze personal information to categorize and rate consumers," the lawmakers said in a statement. "This and other practices could affect the lives of nearly all Americans, including children and teens. We want to work with the data broker industry so that it is more open about how it collects, uses, and sells Americans' information."

The lawmakers added that they would continue to press for more information about the industry and for consumers to have more control over their own information.

They are not alone in calling on data brokers to be more transparent about their activities. Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill has been vocal in calling on data brokers to provide consumers more information about the industry. Brill has been mentioned as a possible choice to succeed FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz if he steps down as expected.

Verizon to waive charges for text and voice mobile call use to victims of Hurricane Sandy between October 29 and November 16, CNET reports.

Foxconn chairman Terry Gou said the Chinese manufacturer is having a hard time keeping up with demand for iPhones, Reuters reports.

Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of giving secrets with WikiLeaks, is offering to admit to some of the charges in the hopes of getting a reduced sentence, Wired reports.

A picture of President Barack Obama hugging his wife Michelle is the most-liked Facebook picture of all time, and the most retweeted on Twitter, Slate reports.

The move was accompanied by a petition by AT&T to the Federal Communications Commission to initiate a proceeding on the transition of the telecommunications industry to Internet Protocol-based services. Essentially, AT&T is hoping for a waiver to develop and test all-IP networks in certain locales, and phasing out its legacy services and the extensive regulatory obligations that go with them.

"The FCC did this with the [digital television] transition in [Wilmington, N.C.], and converted them early," said Bob Quinn, who heads AT&T's federal regulatory group. "This is the same concept. It gives us context to tee up policy issues."

For example, under the waiver, AT&T could potentially meet its obligations to offer Lifeline service - a discount phone service - using only its wireless service. The waiver would also give AT&T the opportunity to build IP infrastructure without having to maintain legacy networks at the same time.

Part of the goal would be to generate information on how to best manage the shift to an all-IP environment. Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai recently called for a task force to look at how to update telecom regulation for fiber.

"AT&T believes that this regulatory experiment will show that conventional public-utility-style regulation is no longer necessary or appropriate in the emerging all-IP ecosystem," the company wrote in the filing, which quotes liberally from the FCC's National Broadband Plan, and includes references to both the Democratic and Republican party platforms.

Objections are likely to come from rural and regional telecoms, cable companies, and others who piggyback on the systems of large telecoms to provide services. Former Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., spokesman for the Broadband Coalition, which represents some smaller, competitive providers, is worried that AT&T is using its infrastructure buildout, "as an excuse to rewrite the telecom rules to its advantage."

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said that, "AT&T's announcement of billions of dollars in new investment in wired and wireless broadband networks is proof positive that the climate for investment and innovation in the U.S. communications sector is healthy."

Larry Strickling, who heads the National Telecommunications and Information Administration at the Commerce Department said, "AT&T's commitment to further expand its broadband footprint is a promising step that, together with other investments of private capital, will help achieve" the goal of having universal high-speed broadband access.

In their comments, Genachowski and Strickling noted that they would be considering the possible impact of the AT&T plan on the competitive landscape, as well as it effect on consumers.

Even though he said he continues to believe Obama "has been the worst president for business in my lifetime," Shapiro said in an interview that the president has been "very tech friendly."

"His attitude toward business has to change," Shapiro added. "His legacy will want to be a strong healthy economy. That requires that you embrace business somehow."

In addition to focusing on reducing the deficit and addressing the so-called "fiscal cliff" at the end of the year, when taxes are set to go up and major spending cuts are slated to go into effect, Shapiro said he is hopeful Obama can work with Congress on immigration reform. CEA and other tech groups have been pushing lawmakers for legislation that would allow more foreign students who graduate from U.S. schools with tech-related degrees to stay and work in the United States.

Other tech industry leaders in Washington were far less outspoken in their preferences for the White House and were quick to congratulate Obama on winning a second term but still called for action on some key issues including tax reform.

Groups such as TechAmerica have been pushing Congress and the White House to implement a territorial tax system, which calls for taxing only those earnings that occur inside the United States. Under the current U.S. tax system, corporations are taxed for what they earn domestically and abroad unless they reinvest those revenues overseas. During the campaign, however, Obama was critical of such an approach.

"We congratulate President Obama on his reelection and look forward to working with him on the many pro-innovation and job growth issues vitally important to the U.S. technology industry and its global competitiveness," TechAmerica President and CEO Shawn Osborne said in a statement on Wednesday, "It was clear throughout the election that there was a commitment from both campaigns to address some of the most pressing issues critical to the growth of our industry--access to human capital, opening new markets, protecting IP and modernizing the U.S. tax code."

The Telecommunications Industry Association, which represents communications equipment manufacturers and suppliers, also called for action on a laundry list of tech priorities.

"We strongly encourage President Obama to bring renewed focus to the issues facing tech and telecom businesses in the U.S. In particular, our nation must have, and enforce, trade policies that erase barriers for U.S. goods and ensure that our companies have a level playing field throughout the world," TIA President Grant Seiffert said in a statement. "More spectrum for broadband is vitally important for allowing consumers to reap the benefits of the wireless revolution and for American businesses to compete effectively. And tax reform, including incentives such as a permanent R&D tax credit, is needed so these businesses can invest in new technologies and continue leading the world in innovation."

One of Washington's newest industry groups, the Internet Association, which includes tech firms such as Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Google, congratulated Obama on winning "America's first social election." The group noted the important role social media played in the election. In a statement, Internet Association CEO and President Michael Beckerman said both parties "must guard this growth for the future of voting and the freedom of this great land."

Proposition 35 is aimed at combating human trafficking and child pornography. Among its provisions are requirements that registered sex offenders turn over information about their Internet accounts and service providers.

"While the law is written very unclearly, this likely includes e-mail addresses, user names and other identifiers used for online political discussion groups, book and restaurant review sites, forums about medical conditions, and newspaper or blog comments," according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which argue that those provisions "are overly broad and violate the First Amendment."

The groups filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday, just a day after more than 80 percent of California voters approved the proposition.

"The ability to speak freely and even anonymously is crucial for free speech to remain free for all of us," Michael Risher, a staff attorney for ACLU-NC, said in a statement. "Stopping human trafficking is a worthy goal, but this portion of Prop 35 won't get us there."

President Obama may have won the election, but Mashable says that FiveThirtyEight.com's Nate Silver won the electoral prediction race.

CNET reports that "Four More Years" was the most Tweeted phrase in the wake of President Obama's victory. And Reuters examined the role of social media in the election.

A New Jersey election official told voters to send their ballots to his personal Hotmail e-mail account despite concerns about its security, Bloomberg reports.

The New York Times examined the increasing embrace of the Internet and social media by some lawyers to help their cases.

The Mercury News reports that Netflix is at a crossroads with some betting the firm is poised to make a resurgence and others saying the video service's best days are behind it.

"With 20 million tweets, Election Day just became the most tweeted about event in US political history," the site announced.

Minutes after news networks projected that Obama had won a second term, Obama tweeted a picture of him hugging his wife. That became his most retweeted tweet ever, Twitter reported.

At the height of the reaction to the networks' announcement just after 11 p.m., election-related activity spiked to an all-time high of 327,453 tweets per minute.

Overall, 30 percent of registered voters report having been urged to vote for President Obama or Republican candidate Mitt Romney through posts on Facebook and Twitter, according to an Election Day report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But just one-fifth of registered voters report urging their friends and family to vote one way or the other using social media.

Slightly more - 22 percent - of registered voters have shared their voting plans via Facebook and Twitter. Facebook put up a live, interactive map called America Votes 2012 to track in real time how social-network users are announcing their votes. It breaks down these self-reported votes for each state, and by gender and age bracket, but there's no information on how Facebook users voted.

The numbers don't break for one candidate or other: A quarter of registered voters report hearing from Romney supporters via social media, and the same percentage are receiving posts touting Obama.

Age is the controlling factor. The survey reports that 45 percent of voters ages 18-to-29 were urged to vote for a particular candidate via social media, and 34 percent of that group advocated for a candidate themselves. These numbers drop off significantly for older voters. Among voters ages 50-to-64, just 16 percent report urging others to vote for a particular candidate and 27 percent report receiving encouragement to vote. For voters over 65, a mere 9 percent used Twitter or social-networking site to tout their candidate, and 11 percent received such entreaties.

Voters were more likely to report real-world interactions. More than half said they were urged to vote for a candidate in face-to-face conversations. But social networking appears to be a more popular method of peer-to-peer persuasion than telephone calls, e-mails, and text messages. The Pew survey is based on 861 telephone interviews with registered voters conducted between November 1 and November 4.

Apple's hold on the tablet computer market has slipped as Android devices gain market share, according to The Washington Post.

But Apple says it sold 3 million of its latest tablets in three days after the new models went on sale, USA Today reports.

Technology and media companies are trying to fight proposals to strengthen children's online privacy rules, The New York Times reports.

A judge has thrown out a challenge by Apple against Google over patents, Reuters reports.

Netflix's board moved to prevent a takeover by one of the company's investors, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The message is part of an ongoing ad campaign by the Obama team that offers users a link to see how Facebook users who share their own first name have voted, and it asks users to share the link with contacts in "crucial battleground states" to see where to vote and, presumably, turn out for the Democratic ticket. The ads don't come automatically--users opt to share their social networks with the Obama campaign.

However, the request to Lira, to help get traction with his Facebook friend, former boss, noted Virginia resident, and Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, will likely fall on deaf ears.