Pandora and Artist Payments  —  Have you heard of Donnie McClurkin, French Montana or Grupo Bryndis?  If you haven't you're not alone.  They are artists whose sales ranks on Amazon are 4,752, 17,000 and 183,187, respectively.  These are all working artists who live well outside the mainstream …

Twitter Buys Vine, a Video Clip Company That Never Launched  —  If Twitter ends up running its own video service, this should help: The messaging service has bought Vine, a video sharing startup.  —  We don't have terms for the deal, but this looks like a lot like an acqhire …

‘iPad mini’ likely to be Wi-Fi-only - but revised 9.7in model will offer UK 4G  —  Industry sources increasingly confident that Apple will move into 7in tablet market, but will also launch revised iPads  —  Apple's expected “iPad mini” will only come in a Wi-Fi version …

Ballmer to Microsoft shareholders: ‘a fundamental shift [is] underway in our business’  —  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has hinted at Microsoft's shift towards a devices and services company previously, but this year's letter to shareholders spells it out very clearly.

Lenovo's backflipping 13-inch IdeaPad Yoga will cost $1,099, 11-inch Windows RT version arrives December for $799 (hands-on)  —  Of all the crazy convertible tablets we've seen in the last year, one has stayed near and dear to our hearts: Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga, the 13-inch Windows 8 ultrabook …

Apple's Lightning Authentication Reportedly Cracked, Unauthorized Third-Party Cables Coming  —  Chinese firm iPhone5mod has introduced (via M.I.C. gadget) a new iPhone 5 Flash Lightning Dock, marking one of the first claimed efforts to implement Apple's Lightning connector standard on a mass production basis.

Announcing the Bigger, Better, All-New Box Experience  —  Our CEO, Aaron Levie, just finished his big keynote at BoxWorks earlier, where he made some major announcements about what we're doing with Box.  Our vision: make it incredibly easy for our customers - 140,000 businesses and 14 million users …

Notes on my work at Twitter  —  There was a great profile in the New York Times about Twitter's CEO, Dick Costolo, which mentioned my work at the company.  It's not a common arrangement, so I'd like to clarify a few points.  —  In Spring of 2011, Dick asked me to take an operational role overseeing product, design, and brand.

Is this LG's Nexus phone? (update)  —  A steady stream of recent rumors have suggested that Google's next volley of Nexus devices will include an LG smartphone, and a new gallery of photos posted by an xda-developers forum member might give us our first peek at what the handset is going to look …

Reed Hastings Won't Be Returning To Microsoft's Board, Will Skip Re-Election  —  Today, Microsoft announced a shakeup on the board side of the company by announcing that Reed Hastings will not be seeking re-election.  —  Here's what Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, had to say about the departure:

Supreme Court Terminates Warrantless Electronic Spying Case  —  Behind this door at an AT&T San Francisco office is a switching room where the NSA allegedly siphoned Americans' communications.  Photo: Mark Klein  —  The Supreme Court closed a 6-year-old chapter Tuesday …

iPhone Usage Among U.S. Teens Hits 40% as iPad Continues to Gain Traction  —  Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster today released a report outlining the results of his semi-annual survey of U.S. teenagers, revealing that iPhone and iPad usage continues to surge among the demographic.

The Do Not Track standard has crossed into crazy territory  —  Summary: The advertising industry wants to change the definition of Do Not Track into something Orwell would be proud of.  One influential member of the W3C working group says he's lost the energy to go on.  Is it time to kill Do Not Track?

Workday Raises I.P.O. Range to $24 to $26  —  Initial public offerings have largely sputtered in the last few weeks, but the dismal environment has done little to dent investors' enthusiasm for Workday, a maker of human resources software.  —  The company disclosed on Tuesday that it was raising …

New iPod Touch and iPod Nano Begin Shipping, Photos and Benchmarks Posted  —  Numerous MacRumors readers have reported that their orders for Apple's new fifth-generation iPod touch and seventh-generation iPod nano have shipped, with delivery due for late this week or early next week.

Research In Motion: No BB10 Debut Until March, Analyst Says  —  Research In Motion is not likely to launch the much-anticipated BlackBerry 10 operating system software until March 2013, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek asserts in a research note.  To date, the company has only said it expects …

Hulu Extends Viacom Deal for Two Years, Adds Nickelodeon  —  Hulu may have big changes ahead of it, but for now the company is proceeding along the same path: Today it announced it has broadened a deal with Viacom, by adding some of the cable giant's Nickelodeon shows to its Hulu Plus subscription service.

As of today, developers can let you try subscription content before you buy it in their Google Play apps  —  Google developers now have the option to offer a ‘try before you buy’ for subscription content in their Google Play apps.  Google launched in-App subscriptions back in May of this year …

Verizon to launch 400th LTE market on October 18th, two months early  —  The 4G LTE battle is on as Verizon prepares to launch LTE on its AWS specturm  —  Nicola Palmer, Verizon's CTO, spoke today at MobileCon about Verizon's upcoming LTE roadmap.  Today the company announces …

Atlassian Updates Bitbucket And Stash, Faces Important Turning Point In Emerging Battle With GitHub  —  Follow the rise of GitHub and you have to also look at Atlassian and its powerful combination of tools for developers, particularly in the enterprise market.

McDonald's offers free use of iPads  —  An enterprising McDonald's in Virginia Beach, Va., decides that a suitable incentive for its customers is to offer them mounted iPads to peruse while they chew.  —  I have it on very good authority that many Apple fanpersons eat at McDonald's simply because they serve Big Macs.