To say that RIM has had it rough these past few months is a understatement, but according to a new report from Reuters , it may not have had to go through these trials alone. In a surprising twist, Amazon was reportedly considering a RIM acquisition as recently as this past summer. According to Reuters, Amazon had tasked an investment bank with exploring the possibility of a RIM buyout, although their sources don’t mention how far both parties were from finalizing a deal.

The browser wars continue to simmer, and Firefox, once the tech world’s champion against the insipid tyranny of Internet Explorer 6, has been losing ground to Chrome. In fact, just a few weeks ago, one report put Chrome in front of Firefox for the first time, with both taking up about 25% of the market but within a point of each other. Mozilla said in October that they expected their agreement with Google, by which Google is the default search engine in Firefox, would be renewed — but the internet was all a-whisper with the idea that Google might take this tipping-point timing to alter the agreement

We first covered FixYa , the Q&A site for products, back in 2007 , after the startup demoed at the TechCrunch40 DemoPit. Over the course of the next year, FixYa went on to raise $8 million in two rounds from Mayfield Fund and Pitango Venture Capital, with Chamath Palihapitiya joining the board of directors. It’s been a few years since we’ve tapped into the startup’s progress, but Founder & CEO Yaniv Bensadon told us that the company is now seeing 20 million unique visitors a month, with 650K users having answered questions from the 10 million product problems and solutions currently live on the site

Some projects you want to succeed just because they’re something the world should have. Even if they’d be expensive, dangerous, and probably not as cool as you want them to be. Case in point: spnKiX , a pair of battery-powered skates that scoot you around at up to 10MPH, and look as futuristic as they sound

You probably know that not all LCDs are created equal: at a given size, you can have different resolutions, lighting methods, and display-driving technologies.

Tutorspree , a startup that’s looking to pull the time-honored practice of tutoring into the 21st century, has landed a $1 million funding round from some top investors, including Sequoia Capital. The full list: Sequoia Capital, Founder Collective, Lerer Ventures, SV Angel, Thrive Capital, Paul Buchheit, Geoff Ralston, Tim Brady, Alexis Ohanian, Adam d’Angelo, Reinmkr Capital, and Bubba Muraka.

Still anxiously sitting by your Nexus S, awaiting that Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) update that started rolling out a few days ago ? You might want to take a break. Go outside, go dancing, maybe go rewatch the Lord Of The Rings trilogy (it is the 10th anniversary of Fellowship , afterall); for the time being, it appears that the Nexus S’ big update has been delayed

When I first saw the 4moms Origami stroller, I knew it would be a hit. It’s a robotic stroller that unfolds like the Autobots getting ready to roll out and has one of the nicest interfaces I’ve ever seen on a stroller (which is saying a lot).

CrowdStar , a social gaming company that got its start on Facebook, has been steadily pushing into mobile over the last year, with improving results. Today, it’s trying to drive that point home by announcing that its latest game, Social Girl , has reached a million downloads and reached #6 overall on iOS since launching a week ago. That’s good for the company, sure, but the better news is how its overall mobile efforts have gone to date

Facebook will begin showing Sponsored Stories in the News Feed in early 2012, the company tells us. With Sponsored Stories , companies can pay to promote organic user activity such as Liking a page, checking into a place or playing a game