Facebook is hoping investors will "like" the social network just as much as its users already do. Following a series of rumors that have multiplied in recent weeks, Facebook filed for Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission at a value of $5 billion.

The impending IPO has been widely expected among investors and tech circles for some time, with the earliest rumors going back for years. Some expected the company to raise upwards of $100 billion (yes, you read that right—one hundred billion US dollars) but according to the company's S-1 filing with the SEC, Facebook is aiming for a much more reasonable $5 billion to start.

The "iMessage bug" that causes text, video, and picture messages to go to the wrong phone has reportedly hit an Apple Store employee, and allegedly without his knowledge. According to a story over at Gizmodo, the staff of that site has been "spying" on the texts sent by someone who appears to work at an Apple Store thanks to the help of a reader whose son recently had his iPhone fixed by a store Genius. The employee's text messages sent to and from his friends now appear to be going to the reader's son's phone, which not only include some racy sexts, but also some "interesting" photos.

First, the backstory for those of you catching up. In December, Ars discovered (thanks to the help of several readers) that iMessages could go to the wrong iPhones and expose huge swaths of your personal information to a stranger. At the time, the premise was that an iPhone stolen by a thief could be remote wiped by you and deactivated through your carrier, yet when you set up your new iPhone, the iMessages designated for you would go to both your new and old phone. This means that someone who steals your phone—or even just an innocent bystander who found it—could register your old phone under a new number and still send and receive iMessages as you. Several readers told us tales about this happening to them; one reader in particular explained how he had conversed directly with the possessor of his wife's stolen phone, who was just as confused as he was.

According to rocker Neil Young, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs was working on a project to bring higher-quality music to the masses. In an interview during the D: Dive Into Media conference on Tuesday, Young said he was collaborating with Jobs on the project before his death, though not much progress has been made since then.

Young is particularly sensitive about the fact that most music today comes in the form of highly compressed AAC or MP3 formats. "My goal is to try and rescue the art form that I've been practicing for the past 50 years," Young said. "We live in the digital age, and unfortunately it's degrading our music, not improving."

Republic Wireless is an upstart taking on some of the biggest behemoths in American industry—the major cell carriers—armed with WiFi as its main weapon. Republic keeps costs low by encouraging the use of WiFi on cell phones, though customers can still access 3G voice and data services, if needed. Though the service has some drawbacks, including a high startup cost, the previously limited service no longer has formal limits on usage, and it could pose a serious challenge to the standard carrier contract.

Did we mention it costs only $19 a month?

The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it has begun a formal investigation into Samsung's strategy of using FRAND-encumbered patents related to 3G wireless networking standards in lawsuits. The announcement comes after the Commission began a preliminary inquiry into the matter last November and several courts in the EU have struck down Samsung's attempts to use the patents against Apple.

Recent controversy sparked by the installation of monitoring software on millions of smartphones has led US Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) to propose a requirement that carriers and phone makers inform consumers about the presence of monitoring software and gain their "express consent" before collecting and transmitting information from phones.

The controversy started a couple months back when a developer publicized the widespread use of Carrier IQ software, which phone manufacturers and carriers use to monitor what happens on a smartphone. While Apple, Samsung, HTC, AT&T and others all said the software is used only as a diagnostics tool to improve network and service performance, congressmen started denouncing the use of Carrier IQ, and class-action lawsuits were filed.

Markey, co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, says such software should only be used on a consumer's phone with the phone user's explicit consent. Yesterday, he released draft legislation that would require disclosure of monitoring software when a consumer buys a mobile phone. The legislation also would prevent manufacturers from collecting and transmitting information unless consumer consent is obtained, and outlines security policies companies must follow when they receive personal information from smartphones.

“Consumers have the right to know and to say no to the presence of software on their mobile devices that can collect and transmit their personal and sensitive information,” Markey said in a statement. “While consumers rely on their phones, their phones relay all sorts of information about them, often without their knowledge or consent." Markey's legislation is just in a "discussion draft" right now, so it's early in the legislative process. It would also take a while to be enforced. The draft directs the Federal Trade Commission to promulgate regulations described in the legislation "not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act."

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KDE developer Aaron Seigo has announced a new upcoming tablet computer, called the Spark, that will ship with KDE's Plasma environment. The device, which has a seven-inch display and a 1GHz ARM CPU, will sell for €200 ($262). Underneath the shiny KDE surface, the Spark reportedly runs Mer, a community-driven fork of the Linux-based MeeGo platform. Seigo says that the device will be open and that users will be able to install custom firmware.

Although the Spark's hardware specifications aren't particularly impressive and the device is unlikely to attract a mainstream audience, it will appeal to open source software developers who want an inexpensive hardware environment for developing touchscreen-friendly applications with Qt and QML.