Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Where Microsoft's New Surface Tablet Fits in PC Ecosystem  —  While there are plenty of unknown details about Microsoft's Surface tablet, perhaps the biggest open question is what this means for Microsoft and its decades-long relationship with the PC industry.

Google partners with Flipboard, adding Google+ streams to the app  —  Speaking at Le Web '12 in London, Google's Vice President of Product Management Bradley Horowitz announced that it has partnered with Flipboard, adding Google+ streams in the app.  The streams will launch soon.

Google Threatens To Sue Huge YouTube MP3 Conversion Site  —  YouTube is without doubt the biggest free resource of videos and music available online today.  It can be enjoyed on the site itself, embedded in any webpage, or accessed via YouTube's Application Programming Interface.

Spotify Finally Launches Web Radio, For Real.  And That's a Problem For Pandora  —  A lot of people confuse Spotify's streaming music service with Pandora's streaming music service.  —  Now they're going to be a lot more confused.  In a way that's good for Spotify and a problem for Pandora.

LG To Sideline Tablet Development To Focus On Smaller Devices  —  LG Electronics Inc. (066570), the world's No. 4 mobile-phone maker, will sideline tablet computer development to focus more on smaller devices rather than compete head-on with Apple Inc.'s iPad.

MacBook Pro 15" Retina Display Teardown  —  In case you missed it, we tore apart the new MacBook Pro with Retina display last week.  Inside, we found a whole mess of pretty, yet difficult to access components.  In fact, the MacBook Pro with Retina display earned our lowest repairability score ever, with 1 out of 10 points.

Apple, Google Push Deeper Into Mobile Software; Towering Over Nokia, Research In Motion  —  Apple Inc. and Google Inc. have brought mobile giants Nokia Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd. to their knees and captured more than 80% of the world's smartphone market.  Now they are going after the rest.

Kodak sues Apple, claiming interference in patent sales  —  (Reuters) - Photography pioneer Eastman Kodak Co sued Apple Inc to stop it from interfering with plans to sell a large patent portfolio, a significant part of its bankruptcy restructuring.  —  In a lawsuit filed on Monday …

Prominent Investors Miss Web IPO Payoff  —  For venture capitalists and other prominent investors in young companies, an initial public offering is supposed to be the big payoff for years of patience.  It's not working out that way for some backers of newly public Internet companies.

People have spent 10 million nights in strangers' beds, thanks to Airbnb  —  Four years after inventing a crafty marketplace for spaces — couches, castles et al.  — San Francisco-based startup Airbnb has helped travelers book more than 10 million nights (likely to the chagrin of landlords everywhere).

Royalties From Digital Radio Start to Add Up  —  After more than a decade, the royalties for Internet radio and other digital music streams are finally starting to add up.  —  On Monday, SoundExchange, a nonprofit group that processes payments for online streams, will announce …

Box Expands to Europe, Hires Infrastructure VP Away from LinkedIn  —  There's always something interesting going on at Box.  Last I looked in on it, the fast-growing enterprise cloud service startup had just moved into new headquarters in Los Altos, Calif. though employees there were trying to coin the name “South Palo Alto.”

Now at 5 million members, Fab buys design store LLUSTRE and launches in the UK on its first birthday  —  Fab, the fast-growing online design sales site, has acquired fellow design store LLUSTRE.COM, which will be henceforth be known as Fab UK.  —  The news was due to be announced by Fab later today …

Sharp partners with design agency frog to launch Feel UX, another unique Android user interface  —  Sharp has become the latest in a long line of Android smartphone makers to announce that it is to build a customized user interface for the platform, partnering with design agency ‘frog’ to launch “Feel UX” later this summer.

Cvent Continues Mobile Acquisition Train, Snaps Up CrowdCompass for $10M  —  Online event management provider Cvent today announced its second multi-million dollar acquisition in less than a week; this time, it bought three-year old Portland-based event app creation company CrowdCompass.

Bright Unveils A Data-Driven Approach To The Job Search, Raises $6M  —  Startup Bright has already built a popular job board.  CEO Steve Goodman says that over the past 18 months, Bright.com has attracted 8.6 million job seekers who have posted 2.8 million resumes.

Readability by the Numbers  —  Last week, Readability CEO Richard Ziade announced that Readability's acceptance of reader fees and their publisher payment system is ending.  In that announcement Ziade shares a few statistics about the service.  Ziade also shared some statistics during …

Ex-AT&T employee admits leaking Apple, RIM info  —  (Reuters) - A former AT&T (T.N) employee admitted on Monday to sharing company secrets such as sales numbers for Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPhone to traders who illegally bought shares on the information.  —  Alnoor Ebrahim, 57 …