Exclusive: Microsoft's Ballmer Throws Down Gauntlet Against Apple  —  Declaring that Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) and its partners had in the past “ceded some of the boundary between hardware and software innovation” to Apple (NSDQ:AAPL), Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told CRN in an exclusive interview Monday …

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.

RIM Said To Sell Jet To Help Save $1 Billion  —  Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM), which has lost 95 percent of its market value since 2008, is selling one of its two business jets under a plan to save $1 billion in operating costs, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

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 …

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 …

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.

Apple launches new iPad in China on July 20th  —  Apple is about to complete an important part of the puzzle for the new iPad's world rollout: it just confirmed that its Retina display-packing tablet will reach mainland China on July 20th.  The company isn't specific about local pricing …

Steve Wozniak Shares His Thoughts On Google Glass And Microsoft's Surface Tablet  —  Steve Wozniak recently spoke at the Entel Summit in Chile, and as usual, expressed his thoughts on emerging technology.  Wozniak offered his opinion on Google Glass, Microsoft's Surface tablet, and even the Kim Dotcom case surrounding Megaupload.

Google Nexus Q hacked to run launcher, apps, Netflix, and more  —  While Google's Nexus Q is an undeniably attractive piece of hardware, we found the device to be lacking in overall functionality.  Enterprising developers are already on the case, however, with the latest Nexus Q hack bringing apps …

Salesforce.com suffers worldwide disruption after power outage  —  Summary: Salesforce.com has suffered a series of outages that left many unable to use the CRM service.  Even the service status page was down for a while.  —  Zack Whittaker  —  Follow @zackwhittaker

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 …

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.

Paydiant Gets $12M More To Build Out Its White-Label Mobile Payments API  —  Paydiant, one of the more recent entrants in mobile payments, has closed a $12 million round of funding that it plans to use to build out its white-label, API-based product for banks and merchants to offer …

Apple's $74B overseas cash hoard leads all U.S. tech companies  —  A report released on Monday from investment bank Moody's revealed that Apple leads a list of technology U.S. companies holding overseas cash with some $74 billion, up from $64 billion in December and $35 billion at the end of 2010.

BlackBerry Curve 9310 makes a straight line to Verizon, July 12th  —  RIM's BlackBerry Curve 9310 hasn't exactly been shy.  It's already made a cameo over at the FCC and got some Boost Mobile face time, and now the QWERTY keyboard-packing smartphone will be hitting Verizon, arriving on the carrier this week.

Noise Free says Apple stole its technology, sues to stop patent claim  —  A Silicon Valley firm called Noise Free says it showed Apple its secret noise cancellation technology in a series of meetings but that Apple then turned around and used the technology without permission for its iPad and iPhone devices.

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.

One-bit Internet: The iPad is/isn't a content creation device  —  In the conclusion to my Retina MacBook repairability post, I wrote: “on the Internet, it often seems that everything must be compressed to a one-bit image: black or white, triumph or catastrophe, the very best or the absolute worst.”

A Reality Series Intrudes on Silicon Valley, and Finds It Cringing  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley is finally getting the treatment once reserved for rowdy housewives and excitable chefs: its own Bravo reality series.  But the tech world is not quite ready for its close-up.

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.

Ukrainian Students Win Microsoft's Imagine Cup With Their Sign Language-To-Speech Translation Gloves  —  During an awards ceremony in Sydney today, Ukraine's team quadSquad just won this year's Microsoft Imagine Cup student technology competition (and $25,000) thanks to its gloves that can translate sign language into speech.

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.

Should (And Will) Kleiner Perkins Settle Its Gender Discrimination Fight?  —  High-profile venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers faces off in San Francisco court later today against its partner Ellen Pao in what will be the first public face-off in one of the most closely watched stories of the past months in Silicon Valley.

Samsung Tops Apple on Fortune Global 500 List  —  Placing below the top 50 on Fortune's Global 500 list may not be every company's dream, but Apple can still count this year's No. 55 slot as an accomplishment.  —  Rising from number 111 last year, Apple's profits grew by almost $12 billion …