Earlier this month, there was several reports saying that expectations were not met for iPhone 4 sales on Verizon. On the contrary, Verizon Wireless CEO Daniel S. Mead said that the carrier had sold more iPhone 4s during its launch than any other product so far. The earlier numbers was based on sales numbers at 5 of Apple’s biggest stores for the iPhone 4. These numbers did not include online orders and data from Verizon’s stores. Mead also said that Apple will soon bring a product to market on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. “They understand the value proposition of LTE, and I feel very confident that they are going to be a part of it,” said Mead in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Perhaps Mead is indicating that the iPad 2 may run on the LTE? [WSJ]

Consumer Reports has officially given their recommendation about the Verizon iPhone 4. It is very similar to the time when they wrote about how they would not recommend the AT&T iPhone 4 because of the antenna issues. Consumer Reports said that the Verizon iPhone 4 has a tendency to drop calls and is unable to make calls in weak signal locations. Duh? By now almost everybody that has an iPhone 4 that a case might be needed to prevent your hand from covering the phone when using the device naturally.

eBay payment subsidiary PayPal.com has cut off a support account for U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. The account that was frozen belonged to the Courage to Resist organization. The Courage to Resist partnered with the Bradley Manning Support Network for raising funds in support of Manning. Manning was one of the whistle-blowers of government documents that was leaked on to Wikileaks. “We’ve been in discussions with PayPal for weeks, and by their own admission there’s no legal obligation for them to close down our account,” said Loraine Reitman of the Bradley Manning Support Network (Support Network). “This was an internal policy decision by PayPal.” [BradleyManning.org]

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has announced a new plugin called Google Cloud Connect. Google Cloud Connect lets you simultaneously collaborate to documents on Microsoft Office 2003, 2007, and 2010. It also adds revision history, cloud sync, unique URLs, and simple sharing to Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. You can download the plugin for Windows at this Google Tools link. Video demo below: [Google Docs Blog]

AOL is starting to roll out “Project Devil.” Project Devil is an initiative where larger ad formats will be delivered across websites for providing higher ad rates. After the $315 million acquisition deal with The Huffington Post closes, Project Devil ads will be integrated into that website. “This is the future of what display is heading toward,” stated AOL president of global advertising and strategy Jeff Levick. “People buy Vogue because they want to read the ads as much as the content. That’s exactly what we want to do.” [AdAge]

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has released a developer preview of OS X Lion. This operating system has undisclosed features like AirDrop and FileVault. Some of the core features of Lion OS X includes Mission Control, Launchpad, full screen apps, new multi-touch gestures, the Mac App Store, a new version of Mail, AirDrop, Resume, Auto Save, and Mac OS X Lion Server.
- Mission Control – Mission Control unifies Exposé, Dashboard, Spaces, and full screen apps. It will have a bird’s eye view of every app and window running on the Mac.
- Launchpad – Launchpad makes it easy to find and launch any application. Launchpad displays all of your Mac apps in a full screen layout.
- Full screen apps – With one single click, you can make your Mac App go full screen.
- New multi-touch gestures – The new multi-touch gestures on Mac OS X Lion includes pinching your fingers to zoom in on a web page or image, You can also swipe left or right to turn a page or for switching between full screen apps.
- New version of Mail – The new version of Mail has a wide-screen layout, Conversations, a more powerful search, and Microsoft Exchange 2010 support.
- AirDrop – AirDrop is a way to copy files wirelessly from one Mac to another without any set up.
- Resume – Resume launches your apps again how you left them.
- Auto Save – Auto Save automatically saves your documents as you work on them.
- FileVault – FileVault lets you set full disk encryption for local and external drives. FileVault also lets you instantly wipe data from your Mac.
- Mac OS X Lion Server – The Mac OS X Lion Server makes setting up a server even easier. It also supports the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Mac OS X Lion.

[AppleInsider]

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has announced a new generation of MacBook Pro laptops. The MacBook Pros have Thunderbolt I/O technology and a FaceTime HD camera. The laptops alThe so have the latest dual-core and quad-core Intel Core processors. The new MacBook Pros started at $1,199 for the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The 13-inch MacBook proce has Intel Core i5 and Core i7 dual-core processors up to 2.7GHz and Intel HD Graphics 3000. The 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro laptops have Core i7 processors with up to 2.3GHz and AMD Radeon HD graphics processors with up to 1GB of video memory. [MacBook Pro via Apple PR]

News Corp’s The Daily digital newspaper made its debut on the Apple iPad and soon it will be coming to Android as well. According to a source with AllThingsD, News Corp. is preparing to launch an Android version in the second quarter of this year. Apple worked closely with News Corp. to create the app and it became one of the first apps to go under the Apple subscription model.