Facebook and EA Games inked a five-year "strategic relationship" that makes Facebook Credits the sole payment method for microtransactions in EA's Facebook games, which include two in the top 10: Pet Society and Restaurant City. EA's licensed products, Scrabble and the upcoming Monopoly, also strive to tap into the real-life pockets of Facebook's 200 million-strong game-playing population.

Remember MySpace? Me neither.

Mere months after the launch of Android 2.2, discussions about the impending release of Android 3.0, or "Gingerbread," are gushing. Android 3.0 is rumored to be released sometime in the next few weeks, and will be a significant overhaul of Google's market-dominating smartphone OS -- and may be the first truly tablet-ready iteration of Android.

Mozilla's release of Firefox 4 Beta 1 for Android (and Maemo) phones brought with it some cheers -- and some jeers. Though Firefox 4 Beta 1 showed improvements in some areas, it stumbled in others, leaving users yearning for speedy future enhancements. Here's a rundown of what's new with Firefox and what requires more of Mozilla's attention.

Is Facebook building a phone? The company won't say for sure, but for some the idea of a Facebook phone is social networking overkill. To social butterflies, a Facebook phone is a dream come true. Here is a look at the pros and cons.

Are consumers ready to dig deep into their wallets for Samsung's Galaxy Tab as the economy struggles and more affordable tablets, namely Apple's iPad, exist? According to Amazon's U.K. site, after currency conversion, the Tab will cost $US1067 unlocked in England.

After purchasing handfuls of social networking-centric companies -- including socialDeck for online games and Jambool for virtual currency -- Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company's social networking project will debut later this year.

Verizon has been accepting submissions for its forthcoming V CAST Android app store, which is rumored to be unveiled at the VCD Conference on 21 September. The V CAST app store was originally said to be an extension of the official Android app marketplace, but according to the blog Android and Me, the shop will be totally independent of Google.

Some people just don't like change. Less than a week after Digg released version 4 of its social news-sharing site, fans have rebelled, flooding Digg with links from a rival sharing site, staging a "Quit Digg Day," and prophesying a major drop-off in traffic if the site doesn't return to its roots. Has Digg dug its grave, or is this yet another kneejerk neophobic reaction?

Imagine a social networking site geared specifically toward connecting college students with their on-campus academic and social communities. Sound familiar? Those are Facebook's roots -- before the site ballooned into a worldwide phenomenon with half a billion registered users. They're also the roots of Scoop<, a forthcoming mobile social app.

Google is often accused of behaving like Big Brother, and Google's CEO Eric Schmidt isn't doing much to dispel those perceptions.

Google's Chrome has now integrated Adobe's Flash directly into the browser. Chrome 5.0.376.86 was released over Google's Stable channel and is now available to download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The update also includes five bug fixes, including two relevant to video handling.

Facebook's ongoing domination of the Web reached new heights when it paired with Yahoo to integrate updates, games, and more into the number two search engine. Now that Yahoo users can enjoy Facebook without leaving Yahoo sites (click on the screen cap to see a closeup of the new arrangement), Yahoo could experience a significant traffic surge. But is it enough for Yahoo to gain market share? And how much Facebook is too much?

Dell is diving headfirst into the smartphone/tablet market with the Android-powered Dell Streak. The Streak was announced last month and will be available for $US500 in the US in July, and for 429 pounds in the UK this weekend. Critics have already circled the Streak and dished on how it functions, looks and feels--and its ability to compete with other smartphones/tablets, a hybrid market I didn't even know existed.

Twitter has is banning third-party advertisements on its site in a move to control the monetization and integrity of the micro-blogging service. The company is spinning the move, saying it's building a firewall that blocks out advertisements that tarnish Twitter's coherent "timeline." But the real issue here is money, as always. Twitter wants your dough to support its Promoted Tweets platform, rather than allowing every straggler into the party.