Apple Seeds Golden Master of OS X Mountain Lion to Developers  —  “200 New Features” Mountain Lion slide shown at WWDC  —  Apple released the Golden Master (GM) version of OS X Mountain Lion to developers today.  The “golden master” designation indicates that this version of the software …

Why GitHub abandoned the bootstrapper's ship for a $100M Series A  —  After half a decade of preaching about the virtues of bootstrapping, the GitHub founders are finally getting in bed with a major VC firm to the tune of $100 million — that's $1 million per employee at the still-small startup.

RIM CEO on What Went Wrong and the Future of BlackBerry  —  In an exclusive Q&A, CIO.com's Al Sacco chats with RIM CEO Thorsten Heins on the current state of BlackBerry and how it fell from grace, what the company is doing to ensure things in Waterloo don't get worse, and the product delay problems that have plagued RIM.

Microsoft shows off USB stick capable of bringing Windows 8 to older machines  —  Call it “Windows 8 on a stick.”  During Microsoft's Digital Worldwide Partner Conference on Monday, Microsoft showed off a USB stick that doesn't just help users bring their personal data to different PCs …

Bringing Craigslist Back  —  I've been wrestling with whether to bring back Craigslist listings in the search results.  I've found a way to include them that I'm told is legally kosher since it doesn't touch their servers at all, but it still seems somewhat dickish to go against their wishes in this …

Kim Dotcom's Extradition Hearing Postponed Until March 2013  —  In this Feb. 22, 2012 file photo, Kim Dotcom, the founder of the file-sharing website Megaupload, comments after he was granted bail and released in Auckland, New Zealand.  The U.S. wants to extradite Dotcom from New Zealand …

Next Issue brings its all-you-can-read magazine store to the iPad, plans start at $10 a month  —  The last time we heard about Next Issue, the all-you-can-read magazine store was launching on Android, with an iOS version said to be coming “soon.”  Three months later, the startup's made good on its promise …

Google Chrome 21 beta can interact with cameras, mics, and game controllers  —  The latest beta version of Google Chrome adds two new APIs that allow web developers to do a few interesting things.  They can write web apps that will use your computer's mic or camera without a plugin.

Let's Try to Think This iPad Mini Thing All the Way Through  —  We're Talking About a Smaller iPad, Not a Bigger iPod Touch  —  I've seen a fair bit of speculation that, if Apple produces a 7-inch iOS device, then maybe it would be a bigger iPod Touch, not a smaller iPad.

Lady Gaga's social network “Little Monsters” opens its doors to everyone  —  We told you about Lady Gaga and her jump into social networking with the site “Little Monsters.”  The site has been in private beta, but users all over the globe can now sign up.  —  Invites had been trickling …

About the future of Thunderbird  —  Jb Piacentino  —  Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Jb Piacentino, the managing Director of Thunderbird, following the recent Thunderbird announcement.  —  TN : Hi Jb, I read on the Web that Thunderbird is dead.  Is it true or is the rumor of Thunderbird's death greatly exaggerated?

Eric Schmidt: The Great Firewall of China will fall  —  Technology and information penetration in China will eventually force the Great Firewall of China to crumble and even lead to the political opening of the Chinese system, according to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

AT&T Exclusive: Lumia 900 is pretty in pink  —  The Nokia Lumia 900 stands apart in the smartphone market with solid polycarbonate construction, a beautiful ClearBlack Display, stunning design, and with the simple and beautiful Windows Phone operating system.

Google Nexus 7 Tablet on Sale: Staples Takes Pre-Orders  —  Staples says it will carry the Google Nexus 7 tablet in its brick-and-mortar stores later this month, and that Google's 7-inch Android tablet is now available for pre-sale on its website.  —  The office-supply retailer's site …

Software Inventory  —  Imagine, for a moment, that you came upon a bread factory for the first time.  At first it just looks like a jumble of incomprehensible machinery with a few people buzzing around.  As your eyes adjust you start to see little piles of things that you do understand.

Sexy Payments Startup Stripe Swipes $20M From General Catalyst, Sequoia, Thiel And More  —  White-hot payments startup Stripe has closed a $20 million Series B round of financing, led by General Catalyst with existing A-list investors Sequoia, Peter Thiel (personally) and Elad Gil also following on.

TED Books launches iOS store, with subscriptions  —  Conference organization TED already publishes ebooks.  Now it is selling them through a new app, Ted Books for iOS.  Readers can also buy subscriptions.  —  TED's book apps is built on the platform developed by Brooklyn-based publisher and developer Atavist.

Speech recognition anyone?  AT&T opens up Watson API  —  Look out Nuance Communications, there's a new speech recognition player in town.  Nuance can't simply buy up this potential competitor as it has in the past since this company happens to be AT&T. Ma Bell has taken the locks off …

Verizon confirms locked bootloader on Samsung Galaxy S III  —  Over the weekend we heard reports that Verizon's version of the Samsung Galaxy S III had a locked bootloader, which makes rooting and otherwise hacking the device much more difficult.  We reached out to Verizon for more details …

Google, FTC Near Settlement on Privacy  —  Google Inc. is close to a deal to pay $22.5 million to settle charges related to its surreptitious bypassing of the privacy settings of millions of Apple Inc. users, according to officials briefed on the settlement terms.

Reddit lifts its ban on “The Atlantic”  —  The Atlantic has returned to Reddit.  —  A month after the social news site kicked out the news magazine and dozens of other sites —including Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and Discovery News—for spam, Reddit has welcomed many back into the warm embrace of its monster traffic, with little fanfare.

Ad Age Survey: Marketers Buy Facebook More for Awareness Than Likes or Leads  —  Building ‘Awareness and Sentiment’ Well Ahead of Fan Accumulation  —  Marketers who buy ads on Facebook are more focused on building brand awareness than accumulating fans, according to a new survey of Ad Age subscribers by Ad Age and Citigroup.

Kleiner bid for arbitration in sexism suit rebuffed  —  (Reuters) - A California judge on Monday tentatively rejected venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC's bid to move a gender discrimination lawsuit brought by one of its own partners into arbitration.