Apple officially welcomes Beats to the family as Beats moves online sales to Apple's site  —  Apple has updated its homepage to include a new microsite officially welcoming the Beats Electronics and Beats Music team to the company.  The new site marks the first official mention on Apple.com …

Take a look at HP's luxury smartwatch  —  Despite their utility, smartwatches remain a geeky niche item thanks to a certain lack of je ne sais quoi.  However, HP is partnering with a retailer called Gilt to build an Android and iOS compatible smartwatch that may finally tick the style box, thanks to US designer Michael Bastian.

Chinese employees at Microsoft's Nokia arm protest mass layoffs  —  (Reuters) - “Hundreds” of Chinese employees at Microsoft Corp's Nokia phone business protested on Friday against mass layoffs that the U.S. tech company announced last month, according to an employee present and pictures posted on social media networks.

Surface Pro 3's Core i3 and Core i7 models available today  —  More than two and a half months after the Surface Pro 3's reveal, all of its variants are finally available: On Friday, the Core i3 and Core i5 editions of Microsoft's laptop-replacing tablet hit the streets, following the June 20 launch of the Core i5 versions.

Google barge docking in Portland sold, structure on top of it to be scrapped  —  Scrap the mystery: High-tech vision for Google barge crumbles in a heap  —  The barge has been sold and the four-story structure will be dismantled, along with Portland's hope for a new claim to fame.

MakerBot buys European reseller Hafner's Büro, launches MakerBot Europe  —  MakerBot expands European operations  —  Summary: MakerBot has launched MakerBot Europe in order to pave the way for desktop 3D printing beyond the United States.  —  MakerBot is planning to capitalize …

Facebook back up, after being down for almost an hour for many  —  Facebook Is Down For Many  —  Facebook appears to be down right now for many.  If you load the website, you will get an error like the one you can see below.  The website has been down for around 10 minutes now.

Mobileye raises $889.7M in IPO, up more than 50% in early trading, now valued at $8B+  —  Mobileye shares rise 50 pct in bumper debut  —  (Reuters) - Shares of Mobileye NV, a maker of camera-based systems that help drivers avoid collisions, rose as much as 55 percent in their debut, valuing the company at about $8.2 billion.

Legislative restrictions on popular bloggers come into force in Russia  —  As of August 1 all blogs having 3,000 daily readers or more will have to follow many of the rules that exist in conventional mass media, such as tougher control on published information or the ban on use of explicit language.

Exclusive: Google Exploring ‘Google Workshop’ To Take Customized Smartphone Cases To A New Level  —  Google hasn't exactly had a great track record when it comes to official Nexus accessories.  Accessories have been teased or shown off only to arrive months later or not at all (remember that Nexus 10 dock?).