Apple's Phil Schiller on the State of the Mac  —  Phil Schiller walks through Apple's Mac portable lineup at the company's press event in San Jose, California on October 23, 2012  —  With Tuesday's unveiling of the iPad Mini and a fourth-generation full-sized iPad, this has been a major week for the iPad.

Google's Vic Gundotra is posting pics with the Nexus 10 tablet  —  It's not unusual to see top-level Googlers vacationing in some really cool places.  It's also not unusual to see them taking pictures with unannounced devices.  —  So here's Google senior VP of engineering Vic Gundotra …

Tim Cook: ‘we would not make’ 7-inch tablet, iPad mini in ‘a whole different league’  —  Apple CEO addresses Steve Jobs' criticism of 7-inch tablets  —  Those who have been paying attention to Apple over the years remembered one thing when the company revealed the iPad mini earlier this week …

Gentlemen, start your benches: Measuring Windows 8's performance  —  For a couple of decades, it seemed like every time a new version of Windows was released, its hardware requirements would keep pace with hardware advancement, necessitating sometimes-costly hardware upgrades if you wanted to stay up on the latest software.

People Behind Uber Want to Do the Same Thing for Private Planes With BlackJet  —  BlackJet launches today a way to book seats on other people's private jets.  —  If it sounds like the black-car service Uber for planes, that's exactly what it is.  The company comes from Uber co-founder Garrett Camp …

Citigroup's Star Tech Analyst Mark Mahaney Fired After Leaks To TechCrunch  —  Mark Mahaney, a star tech analyst at Citigroup, was just fired.  —  He got canned because one of Mahaney's junior associates leaked information about the bank's views on the Facebook IPO to TechCrunch writers Josh Constine …

Samsung widens global smartphone lead, as Nokia drops from top 5: Report  —  Samsung has doubled its shipments year over year to an estimated 56 million smartphones in the third quarter, more than double its closest competitor, Apple, according to a new report from market research firm IDC.

Apple's iPad Mini, 4th Gen iPad Now Available For Pre-Order - Wi-Fi Only Versions Deliver November 2  —  If you're looking to get your hands on an iPad mini after the big reveal this past Tuesday, now's the time to pre-order, as Apple has launched pre-orders via its mobile app and online retail store …

Update: Facebook Plans To Build Out Pinterest-Style Collections Feature For Web And Mobile  —  No so Pinteresting after all.  Facebook began testing Collections on October 8th.  But today I found that photos users collected had disappeared and so had posts with Collect or Want buttons .

Eric Schmidt is headed to Paris to head off French proposal to charge Google for linking  —  France's new government has been making noises about forcing Google to pay for the privilege of linking to French news sites.  Google responded by threatening to remove all French news sites from its index …

Introducing CrunchGov, TechCrunch's Policy Platform  —  Nearly a year after citizens blindsided the government with an unprecedented protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act, Congress is at a loss for how to proceed.  Luddite officials see complex tech issues as a mysterious minefield …

HTC Sweetens The Deal For Its Windows And One Phones With Best Deals Service In Europe  —  To drive more consumers to its handsets in Europe, HTC is turning to exclusive content.  Today the company is launching a daily deals service called Best Deals, which is rolling out today in the UK, Italy, Germany, France and Spain.

Apple Posts Notice to UK Site Acknowledging that Samsung Galaxy Tab Did Not Infringe on iPad Design Because “They are not as cool”  —  As instructed by a UK court, Apple has posted a small link in the footer of Apple.com/uk.  The notice acknowledges the judgement that Samsung had not infringed on the iPad design with their Galaxy Tab.

Paul Ceglia, who sued Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for half the company, arrested on charges he forged records  —  A New York entrepreneur suing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for a 50 percent ownership stake in the social media giant was arrested Friday on charges that he falsified records …

New Megaupload To Launch On Police Raid Anniversary  —  With 50 million visitors per day at its peak, Megaupload was one of the largest websites on the Internet.  —  This abruptly ended January this year when the U.S. Government took down the file-hosting service and had several key employees arrested including founder Kim Dotcom.

Apple's no internal client syndrome  —  There exists a common problem for Apple frameworks, technologies and services.  —  Once upon a time apple proceeded this way: They worked on frameworks and services internally, made them private, gave them a little time to mature (about one or two releases) and only then made them public.