In late July, Google Voice was not approved for the iTunes App Store.  Up until now, it was unclear over why the application was rejected.  People did not know whether it was Google’s fault, AT&T’s fault, or Apple’s fault.  The FCC then decided to investigate the matter which may be one of the reasons why Google CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down from Apple’s Board of Directors.

AT&T wrote a letter today to Ruth Milkman, the Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau at the FCC.  The letter stated the following:

“Dear Ms. Milkman: On behalf of AT&T, I am writing in response to the Bureau’s July 31, 2009 letter, which asks a series of questions about Google Voice and the Apple iPhone in order to inform Commission policymaking in certain pending proceedings.  As discussed below, AT&T had no role in any decision by Apple to not accept the Google Voice application for inclusion in the Apple App Store.  AT&T was not asked about the matter by Apple at any time, nor did it offer any view one way or the other.  More broadly, AT&T does not own, operate or control the Apple App Store and is not typically consulted regarding the approval or rejection of applications for the App Store or informed when an application is approved or rejected.”

Shortly after this letter was sent, Apple revealed why they did not approve the Google Voice application.  The full letter is pasted after the jump.  The answer to question 1 is the most interesting to analyze.

Stephen Wolfram made an announcement today giving an update about his search engine.  For those of you that do not know about Wolfram Alpha, it is one of the most sophisticated search engines that exist today.

It can calculate complex math problems and can even use A.I. to output anything related to a keyword search.  Wolfram Alpha originally launched back in May.

Over the summer Wolfram Alpha classified over 54,000 bugs and suggestions and fixed what was not working in the past.  The company even launched a partnership with Microsoft to license technology over to Bing.com.

Wolfram Alpha’s search technology licensing to Bing.com will also be beneficial for Yahoo! users.  Bing.com will be powering Yahoo!’s search technology for at least 10 years.

Shortly after SpringSource was acquired by VMware, the company has acquired a company called Cloud Foundry.  SpringSource develops Java applications and management software.

“I am excited that as a part of SpringSource, Cloud Foundry will leverage the SpringSource product line to build, deploy and manage cloud-based, full-featured Java applications without tradeoffs,” stated Cloud Foundry President and Founder Chris Richardson. “This deal was independent of our discussions with VMware, but it was one of the many things about our road map that VMware liked.”

Cloud Foundry was built using Richardson’s open-source Cloud Tools project.  Cloud Foundry is the first pay-as-you-go public cloud deployment platform company.

Wenda Harris Millard used to be the Co-CEO of Martha Stewart Living.  Before Martha Stewart, Millard worked for Yahoo! as the Chief Sales Officer.

Now Millard will be taking over advertising sales at MySpace.  While working for the head of advertising sales at MySpace, she will also remain as the president of median consulting company Media Link. MySpace sales boss Jeff Berman will be leaving the company as Millard joins.

Some of MySpace’s new hires include:
- Jason Hirschhorn as chief product officer
- Mike Jones as COO
- iLike CEO Ali Partovi, President Hadi Partovi, and CTO Nat Brown through an acquisition
- Katie Geminder as SVP of user experience and design
- Mike Macaadan as VP of Product

Below is the full press release of the announcement:

Although Apple iPhone sales have shot up 365% in the second quarter, Research In Motion still dominates the smartphone market in the U.S.  In the second quarter of the economy, smartphone shipments increased a total of about 13.4%.

Research In Motion and their BlackBerry devices control about 52% of the smartphone market.  But their control in the market is weakening as the Apple iPhone marketshare is starting to increase at a rapid pace.  The Apple iPhone now has about 23.3% of the smartphone market.

The statistics in the survey was compiled by market research firm Canalys.

“RIM has successfully expanded its product portfolio to include a wide selection of devices and interfaces that appeal to a range of customers at different price points,” stated Canalys VP and principal analyst Chris Jones. “This includes 2.5G models that are smaller, lighter, lower cost, and have better battery life than most of its 3G rivals.”

HTC’s smartphone marketshare in the U.S. dropped to 5.6% from 8%.  Marketshare of smartphones powered by Microsoft Windows Mobile have also dropped. Nokia has about a 44% market share in total handsets. RIM’s global share went up to 21% from 16.7% from the previous year.

Facebook is in the midst of launching a new payment service for the applications built around their social network platform.  This could be a new revenue source of Facebook.  The new feature is called Pay With Facebook.

The Pay with Facebook feature was first spotted by InsideFacebook within the GroupCard application.  Inside the GroupCard application.  The virtual goods being sold within GroupCards sell for between $3 to $25.

When a user clicks on the Pay With Facebook option, a pop-up window appears with the invoice.  Facebook will then charge the credit card that they already have filed or ask you to input a new credit card. I’m assuming that Facebook takes a commission for transactions made through their system just like PayPal.  This could be huge for the social network in terms of having a new revenue stream.

Firas Alkhateeb, a student at the University of Illinois uploaded a satirical image on Flickr of President Barack Obama with a paint job that resembles the Joker in the movie The Dark Knight.  The image has spread all over the Internet since it was uploaded last December.

Yahoo! recently decided to remove the image (above) from Firas’ Flickr account and sent him an e-mail.  The e-mail stated that the image was deleted “due to copyright-infringement concerns.”

The problem with this e-mail is that there are tons of satirical pictures of former President George W. Bush all over Flickr.  Ryan Tate of Valleywag suggested that Yahoo! may not want to disappoint the Obama administration in The White House because of several lucrative contracts between the two parties.

Another possible reason why the image was deleted would be because many Flickr users clicked the “Report Abuse” button on the image so Yahoo! caved and had it removed several months later.  President Obama has a huge fan base on the Internet.

A tipster has sent some screenshots to Boy Genius Report about how iTunes 9 will possibly be integrated with Facebook.  When playing a song on iTunes, a link will be shared on Facebook that reports what is being played.  There is also a link where users can buy that same song through iTunes.

[via BGR]