When Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) acquired Palm in April 2010, the company said that they are planning to “double down” on the webOS operating system. Now that is proving to be a very costly mistake.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) will be announcing that they have acquired Hunch for around $80 million according to Michael Arrington. Hunch was started by Chris Dixon, Caterina Fake, Tom Pinckney, and Matt Gattis. Hunch has raised about $20 million in total funding since they launched.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has announced that they have updated the Google Search app for the iPad. Searching on the new Google iPad app is faster and more interactive. When you start typing, Google Instant starts displaying results. Once you select a website to visit, you will notice that the page will load on a slide-in pane that layers over search results. You can slide back to the pane to the right to get back to the search results. And you can also keep scrolling through the results as the website loads so you can go back and forth from the results to websites.

Facebook is working with HTC on building a smartphone code-named “Buffy.” The phone will revolve completely around the social network service. Buffy will run on a modified version of Android and will have HTML5 as a platform for Facebook applications according to sources with AllThingsD.

Mozy.com has put together an infographic about where nuclear weapons are being stored. I was shocked to see that 2,500 warheads are in operation and ready for deployment in the U.S. with 2,300 of them being at the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific in Bangor, Washington. You will also notice that the country with the highest amount of stored weapons is Russia, which has 13,000 weapons across 48 storage locations.

Via: Mozy

This past September, I wrote about how LivingSocial was expected to raise $200 million in funding instead of going the IPO route for now. This week the company is expected to confirm the investment as provided by JP Morgan Asset Management, Amazon.com, and T.Rowe Price. This would put LivingSocial’s valuation at between $5 and $6 billion. LivingSocial is also expected to receive a $100 million revolving credit facility from JP Morgan that would allow them to draw funds without singing for a loan each time. [NYT]

Harvard University has launched the Harvard Innovation Lab (i-lab), a start-up incubator designed for students. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has been pushing for more innovation spaces in the east coast city.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin has made a $500,000 grant to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is attempting to raise $28.3 million for its annual budget. The donation was made as part of a foundation created by Sergey and his wife Anne Wojcicki.