Everything Apple's Trying to Kill with OS X Mountain Lion  —  Apple's OS X Mountain Lion brings a lot of new features to the table.  It's the future of instant messaging, for one thing, and probably more than a few other things as well.  —  But with the update, Apple's also moving to push …

Retailers Shut Facebook Storefonts Amid Apathy  —  Last April, Gamestop Corp. (GME) opened a store on Facebook to generate sales among the 3.5 million-plus customers who'd declared themselves “fans” of the video game retailer.  Six months later, the store was quietly shuttered.  —  Gamestop has company.

Pinterest Might Be Enabling Massive Copyright Theft  —  Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing web sites in history.  —  Launched about six months ago, the site already has more than 10 million monthly visitors and, among social networks, is ranked below only Facebook and Tumblr in terms of average time-spent-per-user per month.

Settlement reached in iPhone 4 antennagate suit  —  A settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit targeting the antenna in Apple's iPhone 4.  Original buyers are entitled to $15 or a new bumper case from Apple.  —  An iPhone 4 being tested inside one of Apple's anechoic chambers …

Apple posts gorgeous new ‘how to get started as an iOS developer’ guide  —  If there is one aspect of Apple's iDevice ecosystem that deserves a ton of credit for both growing and cementing its user base, it has to be the way developers flock to it.  Apple wants developers on that line, Apple needs developers on that line.

The Hackathon Is On: Pitching and Programming the Next Killer App  —  Dirk de Kok is grinding.  Hunched over a MacBook in a fluorescent-lit basement, he and 31 other software engineers pound away at source code for the 12th straight hour.  Thick metal bars—actual bars—obscure the few tiny windows.

Google Working on Password Generator for Chrome  —  Google is working on a new password manager for its Chrome browser that would also automatically create strong passwords for users.  —  The new manager is currently in the design phase, but Google has described the process by which it would work.

LG makes the Optimus Vu official: 5-inch display and LTE in an 8.5mm-thin package  —  When LG surprised us with a teaser for the Optimus Vu smartphone, touting its 4:3 aspect ratio display, we expected an official announcement to come at Mobile World Congress.

VLC 2.0 Released: What's New, And An Interview With VideoLAN Developers  —  Back in February 2010, I wrote a post for MacStories about Lunettes, a codename of a new interface for VideoLAN's popular media player VLC.  Back then, I used to spend a good portion of my days fiddling with media players …