Surface: Between a Rock and a Hardware Place  —  Watching the Microsoft Surface event video, I sensed uneasiness.  Not panic, but discomfort.  Some will argue that I'm simply spoiled by Apple's on-stage polish, but Monday's Microsoft event struck me as rushed and severely under-rehearsed.

Why Windows Phone 8 means the BlackBerry is doomed  —  Enterprise features and mobile device management may cut off RIM's air supply.  —  As Microsoft Corporate VP for Windows Phone Terry Myerson and others from Microsoft and Nokia took the stage at the Windows Phone Summit in San Francisco …

Confirmed: The New iPhone Will Have A 19-Pin “Mini” Connector  —  Although the form factor and actual size are still unknown, TechCrunch has independently verified that Apple is working on adding a 19-pin port, replacing the current 30-pin port, to the new iPhone.

Microsoft sends takedown notice to sites hosting Xbox 720 doc, including Dropbox  —  A massive 56-page document on Microsoft's “Xbox 720” plans surfaced on the internet over the weekend, revealing some potential ideas around Kinect Glasses and more.  The document itself was hosted on Scribd …

Motorola Mobility to Microsoft: We Demand a Royalty Recount  —  Here's a big surprise: Google and Microsoft beg to differ.  —  For months now, the software giant has been saying that Google's Motorola Mobility unit has refused to license standards-essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

Tumblr releases revamped iOS app with new layout, offline mode, support for high-res images and Spotify  —  Tumblr has introduced version 3.0.0 of its iOS app which features a raft of changes included a revamped dashboard, support for high-resolution images and Spotify, a new image viewer and offline support.

Review: The 2012 MacBook Air soars with Ivy Bridge  —  New Air may look the same, but performance has surged ahead in just one year.  —  Another year, another MacBook Air.  Apple's lightweight machine has come a long way since it was first released in 2008.

Bringing Like to Mobile  —  People share content on the web every day using the Like button.  While this has been a key part of how people share, mobile apps have not been able to integrate the functionality.  Now they can.  —  The new Open Graph built-in like action makes it easier for people to share content from your app.

Enterprise Apps Worth $120 Billion This Year, Gartner Reckons  —  Spending by companies on enterprise software applications will amount to more than $120 billion, according to a forecast by the market research firm Gartner, which amounts to growth of about 4 percent over last year.

Larry Ellison buys most of Hawaiian island of Lanai  —  Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has bought himself quite a view on Lanai — as well as most of the island.  —  (Credit: Hawaii Tourism Authority)  —  Larry Ellison has closed a deal to buy most the Hawaiian island of Lanai for an undisclosed sum.

ACTA fails to gain ITC approval, MEPs vote to reject controversial piracy treaty  —  The controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been rejected by the International Trade Committee.  Made up of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), the committee voted 19 against and 12 in favor with no abstentions.

A First Exit For One of Thiel's 20 Under 20: GigLocator Sells To Brooklyn Bowl's Peter Shapiro  —  That didn't take long.  Just a week after Peter Thiel's foundation announced its second class of fellows, its first one just had its first exit.  —  James Proud, who hails from South London …

Customer Feedback Improvements in the Chrome Web Store  —  As Chrome Web Store apps and extensions have become more popular, users have been generating a large amount of reviews and feedback for developers.  Until now, there was no way to separate a user's review of an app's features and quality …

Opinion: EFF should call for the elimination of software patents  —  The group's patent reform ideas are a good start, but don't go far enough.  —  As recently as 2010, Justice Kennedy seemed unaware that software patents were controversial.  —  The Electronic Frontier Foundation announced …

Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 Ultrabooks with Kepler graphics coming to the US for $680-plus  —  We spotted Acer's new Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 laptops at Computex earlier this month, and though we already knew some key specs (NVIDIA's Kepler-based graphics, for example), these Ultrabooks hadn't yet been announced for the US market.

SwiftKey 3 for Android out of beta: smarter auto spacing, $1.99 today (video)  —  “Lleasexqllme.”  SwiftKey 3 won't see that as gibberish, but as “Please call me,” thanks to its new spacing prediction that has been repeatedly tweaked since the beta first came out in April.

Amateur Hour: New Crowdinvesting Rules Mean Everyone Can Play Venture Capitalist  —  It was glaringly sunny in Washington, D.C., on April 5, the day President Barack Obama signed the JOBS Act, and there was some confusion as to the location of the afterparty.

Russian revolution as sales club KupiVIP raises $38m  —  The hotly-tipped Russian shopping club KupiVIP has cemented its position as one of the country's rising stars, raising another $38 million in funding to help grow its business.  —  In an announcement on Thursday …