Beneath contempt: The Apple TV business model  —  Last year we sold ... 2.8 million Apple TVs.  This year, just in the first six months of our year we've sold 2.7.  Tim Cook at D10 1:45.  I note the “our” in “our year”.  This implies fiscal year (that and the fact that he spoke in the past tense …

Kevin Rose's Next Move: Partner at Google Ventures  —  Kevin Rose, who joined Google in March to work on Google+ along with some of his team from mobile app incubator Milk, has moved to Google Ventures.  —  Rose is now a venture partner at the firm focused on making new investments, and he has already moved internally.

That's Amore: Has Apple Bought Italian Music Editing Startup Redmatica?  —  Everyone is focused on what hardware product Apple might launch next, but out of Italy comes reported news of a software development: the company has bought Redmatica, a small startup that specializes in digital music-editing apps.

Google Places Is Over, Company Makes Google+ The Center Of Gravity For Local Search  —  When Google+ and Google+ Pages for business were introduced a little less than a year ago many people in the local search arena began anticipating the day when Google would merge or integrate Google Places and Google+ Pages.

Apple Store now selling Nest Learning Thermostat for $249.95  —  It turns out the rumors were true: Apple has begun selling the Nest Learning Thermostat in its online store for $249.95.  It's the second large retail expansion for Nest in the past 24 hours, with the company announcing Canadian availability …

Once Deemed Evil, Google Now Embraces “Paid Inclusion”  —  Back when Google was an upstart search engine, one way it distinguished itself was to fight against a pay-to-play business model called “paid inclusion.”  Indeed, paid inclusion was one of the original sins Google listed as part of its “Don't Be Evil” creed.

MegaUpload asks U.S. court to dismiss piracy charges  —  The cloud-storage service accused of piracy says the U.S. lacked jurisdiction and “should have known” that before taking down the service and throwing its founder in jail.  —  Follow @sandoCNET  —  MegaUpload's attorneys have asked …

The Sorkin Way  —  After writing two of the most interesting movies of the past several years (The Social Network and Moneyball), Aaron Sorkin has returned to television via HBO, which is premiering his dramatic series The Newsroom next month.  On the set, as a blue-chip cast—including Jeff Daniels …

Kayak Said To Postpone IPO Following Facebook'S Tumble  —  Kayak Software Corp. is delaying its initial public offering following Facebook Inc. (FB)'s post-IPO tumble, according to a person close to the situation.  —  The Norwalk, Connecticut-based online-travel service has postponed …

Skype's present is secure, its future is not  —  It has been over six months since Microsoft officially became an owner of Skype, one of the biggest communication services in the world.  The company has been growing quietly, thanks to its “Skype everywhere” strategy.

Korea Fair Trade Commission Raids Google.  Again.  —  Google is in hot water in South Korea again.  —  The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) raided Google's offices in Seoul on Monday, people familiar with the matter say.  This is the second time the agency has busted …

Mary Meeker Explains the Mobile Monetization Challenge  —  Looming over the Internet industry is the mismatch between the growth in mobile usage and mobile monetization.  —  Most recently, it was the risk factor that helped take down Facebook's ill-fated IPO roadshow, when the company warned …

Sony Considers—but Rejects—Online-Only Game Console  —  Sony is looking to the next generation of its gaming consoles.  Above, a 2009 poster of the Sony Playstation logo.  —  Sony Corp. considered but ultimately rejected a download-only plan for its next videogame console …

Wasting Time Is New Divide in Digital Era  —  In the 1990s, the term “digital divide” emerged to describe technology's haves and have-nots.  It inspired many efforts to get the latest computing tools into the hands of all Americans, particularly low-income families.  —  Those efforts have indeed shrunk the divide.

Intellectual Ventures' Nathan Mhyrvold defends patent trolling, calls tech industry immature  —  Intellectual Ventures' CEO and founder Nathan Mhyrvold, who previously spent some 14 years at Microsoft Research, took the stage here at D10, and as predicted, his interview with Walt Mossberg was quite the invigorating one.

Sweep the Sleaze  —  Promising to make you look wired and magically promote your content in social networks, the Like, Retweet, and +1 buttons occupy a good spot on pretty much every page of the World Wide Web.  Because of this, almost every major site and world brand is providing free advertising for Twitter and Facebook.

Top that, cable!  Verizon offers 300 Mbps home broadband  —  Bored with your 100 Mbps connection?  Verizon plans to offer customers up to 300 Mbps down via its FiOS fiber service next month.  That's double Verizon's current top speed of 150 Mbps down and a slam against cable companies trying to compete with Big Red.

Netflix agrees to delete data on ex-customers  —  Turns out that nobody has to know about that copy of Bad Girls of Red Light District 6: The Extended Cut you rented from Netflix just over a year ago.  —  U.S. District Court papers filed Friday revealed greater detail as to how Netflix settled …

How Much Would It Cost To Pre-Screen YouTube Videos?  About $37 Billion Per Year...  Last week we reported that videos were currently being uploaded to YouTube at the rate of 72 hours every minute, and asked how anybody could expect Google to pre-screen such a deluge.

Google Nexus tablet appears in benchmarks, appears to run on quad-core Tegra 3  —  ASUS's seven-inch MeMo tablet has just ducked under the FCC's gates, but some benchmark results for a purported Google and ASUS team-up could tally with the same device.  According to the listing …

Let's Have Some Fun Reading Way Too Much Into the Preliminary Schedule for WWDC 2012  —  “We're going to double down on secrecy on products.”  —Tim Cook, yesterday at the D10 conference  —  I've long compared Apple punditry to Cold War-era Kremlinology — to predict or analyze an opaque …

Schematic Purportedly Shows Next-Generation iPhone Front Panel Design with 4-Inch Display  —  Earlier today, Japanese blog Macotakara pointed to a blog post [Google translation] from repair firm iLab Factory showing what is claimed to be a design schematic for a next-generation iPhone front panel part.

Facebook HQ expansion plan approved; new limit of 6,600 workers, will pay Menlo Park up to $15m  —  At a meeting last night, Menlo Park officials approved a deal that will let Facebook employ thousands more people at its headquarters in the Silicon Valley city.

Apple: publishers “expressed varying degrees of unhappiness” with Amazon  —  Says its agreements with e-book publishers are similar, but not identical.  —  Apple has acknowledged that yes, part of its motivation to launch the iBookstore was to make money, but says its agreements …

Google Voice's New Update Lets Users Manage Anonymous Calls  —  For all its faults, Google Voice has gotten to be pretty solid with regard to how it routes calls from different groups of people, and today the search giant has gussied up the service even more.

Intel ultrabooks and tablets to get access to nearly eight million free, open Wi-Fi connections  —  The majority of laptops these days still aren't equipped with mobile internet connections, so most users need to rely on tethering, MiFi devices, or good old-fashioned Wi-Fi connections when on-the-go.