Gartner analyst

MySpace is attempting to bring back old users and attract new ones with a complete revamp of the social network. The plans to change come after the social network has lost market share against its rivals.

Once considered the household name for social-networking web sites, MySpace lost its top position in the market once Facebook began to attract new users at high rate.

A California-based developer is hoping to cash in on the most expensive application on Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch. Former law student Michael Gharray created BarMax, a $999.99 application to help law students study for exams while on the go, according to published reports.

Currently the most expensive application for the iPhone, BarMax is a study guide for the California bar exam. The largest app to hit the App Store at 1GB features lectures, outlines and exam questions from past bar exams.

Nokia is reducing its retail presence in the U.S. The Finnish phone maker announced Thursday the closing of its two flagship stores. The company said the decision to close the stores in Chicago and New York was based on advertising success as U.S. consumer awareness has grown substantially since the stores opened three years ago.

Google may be bringing its own version of Pandora or iTunes to users. The Internet search giant is reportedly developing a music service called Google Audio, multiple sources have told TechCrunch.

There's a lot of tweeting about the micro-blogging company behind the tweets. Twitter closed an estimated $100 million round of funding Friday and its valuation soared to $1 billion.

With 40 million users and still growing, Twitter has not only grabbed the attention of technology giants, including Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which have reportedly offered to acquire the company, but attention from investors. Insight Venture Partners, T. Rowe Price, Institutional Venture Partners, Spark Capital, and Benchmark Capital have acquired a piece of the Twitter pie coveted by the tech giants.

Research In Motion has acquired Torch Mobile, a company focused on mobile browsers. The acquisition of the Toronto-based company will help RIM focus on enhancements for its popular BlackBerry line of smartphones.

The Waterloo, Canada-based RIM is tapping into Torch Mobile's experience in mobile Web browsing to strengthen its own offering to BlackBerry owners.

Microsoft will include Outlook in its next version of Microsoft Office for Mac. Outlook will replace Entourage for Mac, the current e-mail application used by Mac users.

The software giant is releasing Outlook for Mac in its next version as a way to develop the Mac's product suite. The new version is slated to be released in time for the 2010 holiday season.

Microsoft developed Outlook for Mac in response to requests from enterprise users. The application is expected to enable individuals to be more productive across various platforms.

Facebook will again tweak its privacy controls to give its 200 million users simplified control over what they want the public and their friends to see. In the past months, Firefox has added multiple privacy controls that confused and angered its members.

Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly said Wednesday that Facebook will begin a series of tests to simplify choices. "With the test we're announcing today, we'll move toward simplifying these settings and putting them all on the same page," Kelly said.

Bigger is not necessarily better anymore. Lugging around a heavy notebook is becoming a thing of the past as users lean toward lighter, smaller netbooks.

But Microsoft and others could control the netbook market by changing the specifications and pricing. Depending who provides the specs, a netbook has a screen size as large as 13 inches or as small as five inches, weighs two to three pounds, and has a 160GB hard drive, or 32BG if it's a solid-state drive, to 250GB and 64GB for a SSD.

Nokia is attempting to make a splash this summer with a new phone and a new app store to go with it. Executives from the Finnish phone maker have been teasing about an application store dubbed Ovi for some time, but this week Niklas Savander, Nokia's executive vice president of services, told Forbes it will launch as the largest app store to date, boasting 20,000 apps.