Turns out you don’t have to charge an arm and a leg for SMS messages to make money off of texting. One startup that’s proven this is Pinger, the company behind the massively popular free texting app Textfree . Today, the company is announcing that it’s reached a major milestone: since launching in March 2009, Textfree users have sent and received a total of 20 billion text messages.

We knew that HP’s gamble on webOS was an expensive one, but thanks to the company’s Q4 and full-year financials , we’re finally getting a feel for just how dearly the webOS experiment cost them.

Facebook is deepening its integration with Windows through a new Skype-to-Facebook feature and a Messenger client for Windows 7 that allows users to access the Ticker, Chat and Notifications.

If you’ve been paying attention this morning , you’re perhaps somewhat aware of a program Microsoft has in place called Mobile Acceleration Week (part of its BizSpark program ), where 12 hand-picked startups can access hands-on support and training to build compelling apps for the Windows Phone platform. MAWs happen all over the world all year long, but I was lucky enough to catch up with some of the participants of New York’s Mobile Acceleration Week, and was pretty pleased with the apps I saw. Microsoft gives each startup 60 days to push the app to market, so don’t get too excited and start hunting through the Marketplace

Page management platform developer Vitrue has added Google+ to the list of social networks on which its platform runs. Between Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and G+, the company now oversees 1 billion social relationships. The company attributes this growth both to new clients and to its current clients’ rapid expansion across social networks, where they form more connections with consumers.

You know that scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise is walking through a mall and all the digital signs are talking to him and showing him highly targeted ads? Yeah, well, we are not there yet. But we are moving that direction.

Facebook today began allowing a limited test group of users to download a new Facebook Messenger for Windows 7 desktop client. It provides access to Chat, the Ticker feed, and notifications. Facebook is looking to gauge interest in desktop access to these real-time features that could keep users engaged with the service all day without having to keep a browser window open.

We first talked about the Wimm One in August, noting that no wearable device has ever made sense to me, at least in watch format. I believe I may need to eat my words. The Wimm is a clever little module – the watch band is removable – that runs simple applets.

HP has just reported fourth quarter and fiscal year 2011 earnings today, with fourth quarter non-GAAP net revenue of $32.3 billion, down 3 percent from the same quarter in 2010. The company posted non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $1.17. Analysts expected HP to post earnings of $1.13 a share on revenue of $32.05 billion

Here’s something I’m sure no one expected to see today: the CTIA Wireless Trade Association has just issued a release stating that they have struck a partnership with the Entertainment Software Rating Board in order to start rating mobile applications . Yes, really. The ESRB, if you’ve managed to avoid picking up a video game in the last decade or so, are the folks that decide how appropriate a game is for certain age groups