People with perfect memories and/or senses of direction are excused from reading this article.  Everybody else may be pleased to know that Google’s introduced a version of personalized suggestions on Google Maps.

Can’t remember exactly what street your father’s favorite cigar shop is on?  Forget the last couple digits of a casual acquaintance’s address?  It’s in scenarios like these that Google’s now got you covered (so long as you agree to be helped).

Steve Jobs took the stage in San Francisco today to announce what he referred to as a "magical, truly revolutionary product."

After talking up Apple’s history and how many iPods they’ve sold and apps they have in the app store, Jobs began talking about the need for a product between the laptop and the smartphone – something that would be better at things like browsing, email, photos, video, music, games, and eBooks. He took a shot at netbooks saying they weren’t better than anything (knocking their speed, displays, and software), and then unveiled the iPad.

Internet use by both business and leisure guests at hotels increased more than 50 percent in 2009, according to a new report by iBAHN, an Internet service provider for 2,200 hotels globally.

Hotel guests spent 60 percent more time online and downloaded 50 percent more data, based on tracked packet and session length information. This confirms the predictions from an iBAHN- commissioned, 2009 study of business travelers conducted by Ypartnership.

Rick Spencer of Canonical, which distributes the Ubuntu version of Linux, revealed that Canonical has formed a revenue-sharing deal with Yahoo, which will see Yahoo become the default search engine in the Mozilla Firefox browser in the upcoming 10.04 version (aka "Lucid Lynx") of the operating system.

Yahoo said today it is holding its second annual Key Scientific Challenges Program, which is open globally to any graduate student enrolled in a PhD program at an accredited institution.

The Key Scientific Challenges Program focuses on a number of issues, from developing algorithms that make information more personally relevant, to finding insights about online advertising and experimenting with new sociological models for how people engage with the web.

Most estimates agree that there are almost 7 billion human beings on this planet, and even the biggest misanthropes must admit that a few of them are smart and capable.  Yahoo apparently wasn’t able to encounter any keepers, however, as it’s stopped searching for someone to lead the company’s international division.

Since the widely publicized turbulence between Google and the Chinese government erupted, there has been a lot of speculation about whether or not Google would continue to do business in China in any capacity whatsoever. The company stopped censoring search results in its Chinese search engine, and threatened to pull out of China before it would again do so. Talks between Google and China are expected in the near future.

For a week or so, some Twitter users have been seeing a new feature called Local Trends. This feature shows users things that are being heavily talked about at the city and state levels. Twitter has now announced that the feature is live for all users.

Last summer Google announced a new project called "Caffeine", which was described as a re-write of Google’s web search architecture. Around that time, Matt Cutts discussed Caffeine with WebProNews, comparing it to the "Big Daddy Update" of 2005, which consisted of changes to the way Google crawls and indexes websites.

There has been a lot of discussion about the fate of the online news industry lately, particularly since the New York Times announced that it will be going the paid content route next year. Another New York-based publication, Newsday, already charges for its online content. After three months of doing so, it has reportedly only managed to attract 35 subscribers.

Newsday.com is free for those who subscribe to Newsday (print) or ISP Optimum Online. Otherwise, you have to pay $5 a week ($260 a year).

Yahoo’s fourth quarter earnings report has been released, and it seems that people who were preparing for some sort of drastic response – whether it would’ve involved either pitchforks or confetti – will have to wait for another day.  Although the confetti folks might win out, as Yahoo did all right, more or less in line with estimates.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of consumers plan to shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts, with nine percent reporting they will spend more money online for gifts compared to last year, according to a new survey by eBillme and Javelin Strategy & Research.

Javelin surveyed 1,200 consumers to measure projected online spending for the quarter and found consumers plan to spend an average of $236 online which is in line with spending levels from Q1 2009.

Google has launched a new feature for Google TV Ads, which lets advertisers automatically receive cost-per-call data through the service for TV campaigns that utilize Google supplied toll-free phone numbers. Google says the feature is designed to give TV advertisers access to richer performance data, which allows more effective optimization based on real-time call data.

New statistics regarding Twitter have been released, and there’s good and bad news for the site.  The good: it’s attracting lots of new users every month, and some of them become very devoted fans.  The bad: Twitter’s growth rate is declining, and a ton of people seem to establish an account and then never return.

The folks at Apple just need to wake of in the morning to create news of all sorts that could shape the online world in many ways. First, there’s the talk about some profits in Q1 that would make any company happy (The company posted revenue of $15.68 billion and a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 per diluted share).

If you prefer to live in the real world you will agree that the job situation in the US is not getting better any time soon. If there are any political pundit types out there who want to duke it out about the what’s and why’s of this situation that’s fine. I’m just stating a fact.

So you are the new unencumbered AOL that has pushed its ship away from the Time Warner dock back in January. You are underway on a new journey that is supposed to reposition the company and put new life in the once iconic running man’s engine. In order for that to happen one would suspect that having the right people on the ship who plan to stick around would be the goal. Well, if that was the goal someone needs to make some new ones.

Pope Benedict XVI has been the Holy See for almost five years, and during that time, he (and the Catholic church along with him) has become more and more involved in social media. Last year, he launched a YouTube channel, social media outreach initiative, and apps for Facebook and the iPhone.

Back in the summer MySpace launched its own email service called MySpace Mail. The company has now announced that it has surpassed 15 million accounts for that service.

"Adoption by our users has experienced phenomenal growth, well exceeding initial expectations," says MySpace’s Rajit Marwah. "At launch we set a goal of 10 million accounts created within a year – we knew we were on to something when we surpassed this goal in less than a quarter."

Facebook has become the most-visited social network on the mobile web, according to Opera’s State of the Mobile Web report.

Unique users of Facebook grew more than 600 percent during 2009, helping the site surpass Russian property VKontakte, formerly the most popular social network among Opera Mini users. Twitter saw its usage increase more than any other social network, jumping more than 2,800 percent in just one year.

LinkedIn has announced some upcoming features related to the way users browse their connections. The company says users will start seeing the changes over the next few weeks.

There is a new browse panel, which allows users to browse their connections by their current companies, locations, and industries. They can also search connections by entering their first name, last name, or current company in the search box. Users can browse new connections and connections that may have also recently added connections by using the "Recent Activity" filter.