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Apple announced this week the acquisition of Chomp, an app-search startup.

Chomp CEO Ben Keighran is reportedly working already in Apple’s marketing department, and CTO Cathy Edwards is already employed as a senior iTunes engineer.

Chomp crawls the data associated with all the apps in an app store and uses a sophisticated algorithm-based search function to enable people to search and actually find the apps they really want. Less appreciated by the public (but not Apple) is what appear to be incredible analytics tools, enabling a deep understanding of what people are searching for, how successful they are at finding it and detecting meaningful trends in app demand.

Sound familiar? Search algorithms and analytics are Google’s core competency.

Spectacular and a little spooky; Ban.jo, an iOS/Android app that launched last summer, is startling in what it’s able to give the user: the realtime whereabouts of any friends who have location services active for any of (now five) different social media platforms.

Intego, the company behind the popular VirusBarrier security software for the Mac, has uncovered a new trojan horse called ‘Flashback.G’ that infects Macs running older versions of Java Runtime. The software installs itself on your system without your acknowledgement when you visit a malicious webpage, then it will record usernames and passwords for sites like Google, eBay, PayPal, and more.

Path recently sparked a huge controversy over user privacy violations in popular App Store apps, and the media firestorm that resulted has now promoted The California Attorney General to enforce new standards for informing users about app privacy policies.

Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP, Amazon and RIM will now be implementing new policies that developers must comply with when publishing apps online. All information that’s collected from the user will be outlined in the app’s privacy policy and made viewable in app stores before downloading.

Users of Google’s Flight Search will now be able to receive the same great desktop features on their mobile devices. Flight Search is now available for both Android and iOS users who search for a flight via their mobile browser. Just search for a flight departing from the US and watch as Google provides you with a table that shows available flights, including duration and prices. Benefits of Google’s Flight Search include:

Just days after confirming its plans for its data center in North Carolina, Apple has confirmed that it is gearing up to build another one in Prineville, Oregon, neighboring rivals like Amazon, Google, and Facebook. The Cupertino company purchased the 160-acre lot for $5.6 million from Crook County.

It’s never been easier (or as cheap) to translate words and phrases between over 60 languages than it is with the free Google Translate app for iOS. Simply select the language you require, type or speak your phrase, then wait while Google does the hard work. Here’s how to get started.

What do you do when you’re sitting on a mountain of cash and have a labor condition crisis that has resulted in terrible PR? Give your employees a couple more dollars and hope that satisfies everyone, duh! Apple’s manufacturing partner, Foxconn Technology Group released a statement today that they have raised the wages of their Chinese workers by 16-25% this month. This is the second time wages have risen for Foxconn employees, but the first pay raise still didn’t resolve criticisms over Apple’s labor conditions.

What with the whole Path address book debacle, this isn’t a good week to be caught up in a user privacy scandal on iOS as far as public perception is concerned. Google better batten down the hatches then, as it has just been discovered that they have been exploiting a loophole in the way Safari blocks cookies to bypass the privacy settings of millions of iPhone, iPad and Mac owners. Ouch.

Once again, Apple has found itself the most valuable company on Earth, attaining a market capitalization of about $456 billion today, beating ExxonMobil’s market cap of just $402 Billion. Yawn.

More interesting, however, is that Apple’s combined value is more than Google and Microsoft put together, who are worth $198.9 billion and $256.7 billion, respectively.

As we watch Apple race to be the world’s first trillion dollar company, I wonder what we’ll all be measuring its value against next. Silicon Valley? The United States? The Moon? The secret to immortality?

Google has sent letters out to various standards organizations, including the IEEE, promising to honor MMI’s patent licensing policies after it completes its planned acquisition of the company. This includes honoring MMI’s maximum go-forward per-unit royalty rate of 2.25%. This is the same rate MMI is asking Apple to pay in order to lift the injunction on the iPhone and iPad 3G passed down in Germany. Apple has rejected this offer and is fighting it, claiming it’s unfair and contrary to the principles of FRAND licensing commitments. No matter the outcome of the Apple/Motorola dispute, Google will be honoring it once they take over.

The latest update to Alfred adds a selection of smart new features, one of which is a new way of grabbing selected text from any Mac app and pushing it straight into one of your other Alfred actions – such as a web search, for example.

A recent survey of mobile carrier execs by Deloitte highlights some of the major concerns over the next few years. Chief among them is losing control of the mobile industry and market space to platform developers – namely Apple and Google. As Galen Grumen points out for Infoworld, this scenario actually gives Apple more power than Google because Apple controls the entire iOS ecosystem, from operating system to hardware to app and media sales.

This situation has mobile carriers worried. Carriers in Europe have actually gone so far as to consider developing their own smartphone platform to compete with iOS and Android in the hopes of enough success to maintain bargaining power against the demands of Apple or Android manufacturers. But the big question is whether or not this is good for consumers and business customers.

Google is working on a “secret project” that must need some product integrity as they’ve hired Apple senior director of product integrity Simon Prakash. Simon has worked for Apple for over eight years and is responsible for helping Apple remain top among product quality. This seems to be the first time Google has hired such a senior-level person directly from Apple, and this would certainly put the kibosh on any agreement Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs may have had regarding poaching employees.

Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?

After this week’s topic, someone’s going to be spitting teeth. Our question: Is Siri Really A Revolutionary Feature? Android’s had voice actions and voice recognition for years, so what does Siri really bring to the table that’s new? Is it all just hype?

In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!

Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.

Crytek, the developers behind the Crysis series of games, are said to be in the advance stages of building a new social gaming network called GFACE that will be capable of some pretty amazing things. In addition to the features you’d expect from any social network, such as the ability to communicate with friends and share your experiences, GFACE will boast an impressive game streaming service that allows you to team up with friends and play together from a number of different devices. Think of it as Facebook meets OnLive… only better.

New numbers show Android-based tablets are gaining on the reigning champ, Apple’s iPad. Although Android owns 39 percent of the tablet market, some question whether there’s a ringer: Amazon’s Kindle Fire. The device is the first non-Apple tablet to lay a hand on the iPad, but uses a highly-customized version of Google’s mobile operating system. How much of Android’s gains are due to its barely-recognizable distant cousin, twice removed?

Since the Absinthe jailbreak tool was released for Apple’s A5-powered devices last week, we’ve seen all sorts of tweaks that maximize Siri functionality on the iPhone 4S. The latest is one of the most impressive. It’s called Lingual, and it provides quick and easy voice translation to over 30 languages, using Microsoft Bing Translate API.

Motorola Mobility sued Apple in a Florida court on Wednesday for violating 6 wireless technology patents found in the iPhone 4S and iCloud. The patents in question relate to antenna, software, data filtering, and messaging technology.

Google recently acquired Motorola for $12.5 billion and is in the process of merging with the company. While Google is not directly involved with this specific case, Motorola’s lawsuit can definitely be seen as another attempt to protect patent ammunition for the ongoing legal war between the top smartphone manufacturers. In fact, this is the closest Apple and Google have ever come to fighting in the courtroom.

Beginning March 1st, Google will roll most of its privacy policies into one new main privacy policy to cover the majority of its products. Google has been slowly working towards the goal of creating a unified and more personal experience across their products and the new privacy policy is just another step in that direction.

Apple is one of the best-known brands, so no wonder it paid Google just $18 million in 2011 for search traffic. By comparison, HP and Dell, which are breathing heavy to keep ahead of the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant ranked No. 1 and No. 2 for spending big bucks flogging their products online.

An interesting report from Boy Genius Report claims that Research In Motion is eyeing Samsung as its new daddy. The defunct BlackBerry-maker is apparently considering a last resort to stay afloat amid depressing sales and investor qualms.

According to BGR, Research In Motion wants to sell itself for up to $15 billion to Samsung. Considering the patent war that companies like Apple are fighting at present, Samsung could buy RIM to reinforce its patent portfolio. (Although RIM’s own portfolio may not be that valuable after all.)

What’s this? Android news on Cult of Mac? Who cares? Maybe you don’t, maybe you do. Point is: these are a few of the popular topics going on in the Android world today. Maybe you’d like to know what the competition is up to, or perhaps your aunt received a Kindle Fire she needs to update. Regardless of the reason, having a resource such as Cult of Android allows you to learn more about what’s going on with the competition. You know what they say: the best way to beat the enemy is to know which way they’re moving!/em>