The Newest Handphone: ReadWriteWeb Daily Recap

Google's Seoul Offices Raided Over AdMob Location Data

The Google offices in South Korea have been raided by police on the suspicion that Google's mobile advertising service, AdMob, has been illegally collecting location information, according to a report from Reuters.

"We suspect AdMob collected personal location information without consent or approval from the Korean Communication Commission," a South Korean police official said in the report. Google has issued a statement that it is fully cooperating with the investigation. South Korea is one of the most technology-forward countries in the world with one of the highest adoption rates of smartphones on the globe.

Bing Becomes Default Search on BlackBerry Phones, Deeply Integrated in OS

This morning at the BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida, RIM President and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis was joined by RIM's industry partners to talk about and demonstrate the company's products and solutions in action. One of those partners was a surprise guest: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who announced Microsoft's new partnership with RIM on its BlackBerry smartphones.

Microsoft's Bing search engine will become the default search and maps provider on all new devices, said Ballmer. But it will be more than that, too. Bing will also be deeply integrated into the BlackBerry operating system, BB OS 7.

MapQuest Integrates Skyhook: Can It Outperform Google Maps?

Skyhook Wireless, the company that provides location services for a number of mobile apps, announced this morning that it would be integrating with MapQuest to provide a more accurate location for mobile app users. If you've ever tried to use something like Google Maps while navigating busy city streets, then you realize how important it is for your map to update quickly, lest you become lost in a maze of one-way streets and alleys.

Skyhook says that its methods for gathering location data provide just that - better data faster - and it will debut today with MapQuest's android app.

Music Nerds Gain New Powers With Rdio & Echonest API Partnership

Subscription streaming music service Rdio is announcing this morning a new partnership with music analytics and recommendation service Echo Nest. The partnership will allow developers to add music recommendations from Echo Nest to their apps and then actually play the music using streams from Rdio. Non-subscribers to Rdio will hear 30 second previews and those of us (like myself) who are Rdio subscribers will be able to listen to the full songs.

Echo Nest is a music developers' platform that analyzes music in various ways, including BPM, mood, similar and dissimilar artist permutions and 29 others. The company offers a gallery of apps built on its system. The Rdio API was unveiled early this Spring and includes an affiliate program for subscription sales. Will developers want to build music apps that require subscription to a 3rd party service? That remains to be seen, but adding Echo Nest capabilities to the total offering certainly makes it stronger.

Rock Facebook Like a Pro With the FavFriends iPhone App

Last week while I was working, I saw the sun set over Portland with one of my closest friends, right at the moment he posted a picture of it to Facebook. At four AM this morning, I had a groggy conversation on Facebook with a friend who couldn't sleep and was watching the first boats come into her corner of Puget Sound.

I've got around a thousand contacts on Facebook but there are about 30 people for whom I'm almost always the first person, no matter what hour of day or night it is, to see their new status messages and shared links. I'm able to post comments on messages from those friends, family members and key professional contacts consistently and in a high-profile way thanks to a new iPhone app that delivers push notifications when selected Facebook contacts post anything. It's called FavFriends and I like it a lot.

Facebook for the PlayBook is Here

This morning, at the BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida, RIM announced the forthcoming availability of a native Facebook application for its PlayBook tablet computer. Since no specific launch date was given at the time, it was expected the app would roll out at a later date, perhaps later in the week. Instead, we were pleasantly surprised when Facebook app appeared in the BlackBerry App World marketplace later this afternoon.

Like the PlayBook itself, this tablet-optimized version of the social networking site has room to improve, as there are still a few bugs and kinks to work out. But at least RIM can finally claim a high-profile app for its woefully app-lacking tablet - and this time, it's an app the iPad doesn't have.

Meet Craiggers: It Blows Craigslist Out of The Water

If you've ever used craigslist before then you know, it's just not very good. That's not to say you can't find what you need on there. The site is full of amazing deals and goods and services of all kinds, but navigating it involves opening new browser tab after browser tab, going back and forth and generally losing your way.

For those of you who are tired of the craigslist user experience from circa 1996, head on over to craiggers, the site that lets you interact with Craigslist the way you ought to.

Google Experimenting With Voice Search on Google.com

Google is allowing some users to search the web by voice on their desktop browsers, a spokesperson from the company confirmed to us today in an email. Selected users are shown a little grey microphone at the end of the search box. The experiment was first mentioned by San Francisco's Matt Schlicht, social product lead at live streaming video service Ustream, and was written up by the blog Mashable. (Turns out Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable posted on this even earlier, this morning.)

Voice search may or may not come to the desktop browser version of Google beyond this experiment, but it would good for Google's long term interests if it did. Would it be good for users? Do you want to use voice input for search when you have access to a full keyboard, as opposed to a little Android phone? I suspect for many people the size of a keyboard is a less limiting factor than comfort using it for input. Voice search on the desktop could change the nature of peoples' search queries and provide a lot more speech data for Google to analyze and learn from.

Pandora Hits 10 Billion Thumbs Up or Down

Music recommendation service Pandora marked today what it calls perhaps its proudest milestone in 6 years since launching: 10 billion user interactions indicating approval or disapproval of a particular song. Those thumbs up or down are used to determine subsequent recommendations for a particular user's Pandora channels.

The 10 billionth thumb was pointed up and was for the song "Ridin' Solo" by Jason DeRulo, an autotuned song I personally consider annoying and repetitive. That's the beauty of Pandora: I don't have to listen to anything like that song if I don't want to.

Why A TweetDeck Acquisition Could Stink For The Users

Last month, rumors hit the Web that TweetDeck, the multi-columned, much-preferred desktop client of hardcore users, had been acquired by Twitter. Today, TechCrunch is reporting that the deal has gone through, with Twitter snapping up the company for $40 to $50 million.

While we don't want to be melodramatic, we're afraid that this deal could be the beginning of the end and here's why.

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