“It’s ridiculous.”
— a Twitter investor on the social network’s $7 billion-plus private-market valuation (Silicon Alley Insider)

• 

  A U.S. appeals court ruled today that Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, must accept the $65 million settlement reached with Facebook in 2008. Wrote Chief Judge Alex Kozinski: “The Winklevosses are not the first parties bested by a competitor who then seek to gain through litigation what they were unable to achieve in the marketplace.” But from the sound of a rebuttal blog post, the Winklevii aren’t having it. “In my judgment, the opinion raises extremely significant questions of federal law that merit review by the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,” responded Tyler. “For that reason, my colleagues and I will file a Petition For Rehearing En Banc within the next fifteen days.” (Reuters via VentureBeat)

• Gartner research predicts the iPad will own the majority of tablet market share until 2015. The firm estimates that the popular tablet will have a 69% majority through 2011, but that figure will eventually fall to 47% four years from now. (Gartner)
• Fiber optic company Level 3 Communications plans to buy its rival, Global Crossing, for $1.9 billion. The deal would result in a merger combining two major providers of Internet connections accounting for more than 130,000 feet of fiber optic lines. (Wall Street Journal)
• Sony settled with George Hotz, a 21-year-old New Jersey hacker who unlocked the company’s PlayStation 3 console. As part of the settlement, Hotz says he will not spread the code he used to disable the PS3’s security system. (Wall Street Journal)
• As far as the Apple rumor mill goes, Avian Securities reports the iPhone 5 will go into production in September, which would place a likely launch date towards the end of this year or even early next. A lower-priced version with lesser hardware specifications might also be in the cards. If all that’s true, the iPhone 5 would be the Apple smartphone not to launch some time during the summer. (Silicon Alley Insider)
• Want a new Kindle on the cheap? Now there’s a way, but depending on how you feel about ads, it may not be worth the hassle. The “Kindle with Special Offers,” which starts shipping May 3, knocks $25 off the standard $139 price of the Kindle Wi-Fi in exchange for ad placements in the e-reader’s screensaver and at the bottom of the homescreen. (CNNMoney)
• Microsoft’s Bing search engine accounted for 30% of all U.S. searches last month, up from 28.48% in February. Meanwhile, Google’s market share dropped from 66.69% to 64.42% during the same period. (The Next Web)
• Did we call it, or did we call it? Facebook may be on the verge of striking a deal with China’s largest search engine, Baidu. The agreement would make way for a new, jointly-owned social network unrelated to Facebook.com. (Silicon Alley Insider)
• The netbook, finally, truly could be on its way out the door, at least if recent moves by Acer and Google are any indication. (MocoNews)

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