High-tech hot topics: Google vs Bing on search results, The Daily, Verizon iPhone 4

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Hot topics in the tech blogs for the week ending February 4 include Google and Microsoft sparring over search results, the arrival of Android Market on the web, bloggers questioning if Apple is tightening its control over the App Store, the launch of the iPad-only newspaper The Daily, and reviews of Verizon's CDMA iPhone 4.

Google and Bing search results
Microsoft and Google publicly aired their dirty search-engine laundry this week with Google accusing Microsoft's Bing of copying its search results and Microsoft saying that Google used click fraud to trick them. Microsoft blogged that, "[w]e do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period," while ZDNet wrote that "[t]here's no way Google would give a rat's ass how its public results were being used if it wasn't worried about Bing."

Google launches Android Market website
Google launched a web-based version of its Android application store (which was previously only available via an Android-powered device) called the Android Market website. The company also showcased features of its made-for-tablet Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system and unveiled in-app purchasing. The Android Market website lets users browse through more than 100,000 apps, games and widgets and provides lists of the top paid and top free applications for the platform.

Questions over Apple's tightening control of the App Store
Sony's Reader iPhone app was rejected from Apple's App Store this week, prompting the New York Times to write an article about Apple moving to further tighten its control over the App Store. The news sparked a series of posts suggesting the company might block apps like Amazon's Kindle app and Barnes & Noble's Nook app but Apple later clarified its action saying, "We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines"...""We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase."

News Corp. launches The Daily iPad newspaper
Apple and News Corp. launched the new subscription-based iPad-only newspaper, The Daily. Many technology news outlets gave The Daily scathing reviews. ReadWriteWeb said it "sure doesn't feel like the future of the newspaper," Gizmodo said it's "evolutionary, not revolutionary" and Mashable called the $0.99-per-week publication a "second-rate iPad magazine, not a newspaper." Fortune noted, "It's not the end of the struggle to translate print media to a digital platform - it's just the beginning." LA-based writer Andy Baio took the time to create an index of the iPad-only publication, making it available for anyone to read on the web for free at http://waxy.org/2011/02/the_daily_indexed/.

Reviews of the Verizon iPhone
Technology journalists in the US started to post their reviews of Verizon's CDMA iPhone 4 this week. Daring Fireball's John Gruber encapsulated the sentiments of many others by explaining, "It's the same phone. The only difference is the network. And Verizon's network is better." Later in the week bloggers uncovered a memo on Verizon Wireless' website that stated the company would begin to reduce data speeds of its heaviest data users.