Google's Marissa Mayer Becomes Yahoo's Chief  —  Marissa Mayer, one of the top executives at Google, will be the next C.E.O. of Yahoo, making her one of the most prominent women in Silicon Valley and corporate America.  —  The appointment of Ms. Mayer, who was employee No. 20 at Google …

Microsoft unveils the new Office  —  Delivers Office as a cloud service while harnessing innovations enabled by Windows 8  —  Today, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the customer preview of the new Microsoft Office, available at office.com/preview.

Apple Rolling Out iCloud.com Email Addresses with iOS 6 Beta 3  —  With today's release of iOS 6 Beta 3 to developers, Apple has revealed in the update's change log that it is beginning the first stages of transitioning users from the me.com email addresses and Apple IDs available under MobileMe to new addresses using icloud.com.

Introducing a Simpler Homepage  —  Millions of you are coming to LinkedIn everyday to discover and discuss what matters most to your professional life.  And today, we've started to roll out a simpler and easier way to navigate Homepage experience that offers quick access to the relevant information …

Apple begins bid to block in-app purchasing flaw, but service remains operational (for now)  —  Apple has begun taking steps to limit the impact of a flaw in its iOS in-app purchasing mechanism that allows iDevice owners to download free in-game content, but despite its initial efforts, the service remains operational.

Apple May Meet Tablet Competition With a Smaller iPad  —  The tech companies are at it again — trying to catch the blockbuster iPad in a race to win the tablet market.  —  Google on Friday began shipping its Nexus 7, which is smaller and less expensive than Apple's iPad …

An iPad Lover's Take On The Nexus 7  —  Trolls, feel free to skip to the bottom of this column and post your comments immediately without reading a word.  Actually, who are we kidding — you didn't make it this far.  —  Everyone else, brace yourselves.  You may want small children to leave the room.

Cisco Acquires Virtuata  —  Cisco is pleased to announce that it has acquired privately held Virtuata.  Based in Milpitas, Calif., Virtuata provides innovative capabilities for securing virtual machine level information in data centers and cloud environments.

Skype confirms ‘rare’ bug that sends messages to unintended contacts, promises fix soon  —  Only a handful of Skype users have reported this problem over at the support forum, but what they're complaining about is pretty hair-raising.  They say that, following an update in June …

With Apple's Siri, a Romance Gone Sour  —  Late last summer, I was introduced to a new special someone.  I wasn't looking to meet this new muse, it all just kind of happened.  —  We met at an Apple product announcement in Cupertino, Calif. She was helpful, smart and even funny, cracking sarcastic jokes and making me laugh.

VMware plans cloud spin out to keep up with Microsoft, Amazon and Google  —  VMware, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based virtualization and software company, is planning a corporate shakeup.  GigaOM has learned that VMware hopes to spin out some of its cloud assets, including its Cloud Foundry platform …

Apple Store overnights happening July 24.  Mountain Lion launch the next day?  —  We've heard a few whispers (3 and counting) that Apple Stores both in the United States and overseas have planned overnights for Tuesday, July 24th.  With OS X Mountain Lion launching “in July”, according to Apple …

Report: European carriers placing nano-SIM orders in anticipation of next-gen iPhone launch  —  According to a report from Financial Times, carriers in Europe are stocking up on mini SIM cards designed for Apple's next-generation iPhone in anticipation of the device's expected October launch.

Live Nation buys music discovery app Rexly  —  As part of an ongoing effort to bring bleeding-edge innovation back to ticketing conglomerate Live Nation, the company's months-old investment vehicle, LN Labs, has acquired social music discovery startup Rexly.  —  Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Largest BitTorrent Trackers Go Offline in Protest  —  OpenBitTorrent (OBT) and PublicBitTorrent (PBT) are two non-profit BitTorrent trackers running on the beerware licensed Opentracker software.  Neither service hosts or links to torrent files and both are free to use by all BitTorrent users.

How Google is becoming an extension of your mind  —  SAN FRANCISCO — It's time to think of Google as much more than just a search engine, and that should both excite and spook you.  —  Search remains critical to the company's financial and technological future, but Google also is using …