Top Items:

Skype To Acquire Year-old Group Messaging Service GroupMe — Skype will acquire group messaging service GroupMe, a service that was born at a hackathon at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York in 2010. GroupMe was founded by Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci. — The terms of the deal, including price, aren't being disclosed.
Discussion:
steve's blog, ReadWriteWeb, GroupMe Blog, Electronista, davidtisch.com, Guardian, VentureBeat, GeekWire, The Business Insider, PC World, Thisisgoingtobebig.com, T3.com News, Techie Buzz, memeburn, @howardlindzon, Skype Journal, Mashable!, Mobile Marketing Watch, @davemcclure, @jasonkincaid, SlashGear, GigaOM, All about Microsoft Blog, CNET News, @erichippeau, @samfromwgtn, @cdixon, WPCentral.com, @howardlindzon, Engadget, The Huffington Post, @joshk, Electricpig.co.uk, Bits, SplatF, paidContent, DealBook, WMPoweruser and Gizmodo
RELATED:
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Skype Pays Around $85 Million For GroupMe — Skype has agreed to acquire GroupMe, a company that has developed a way to for a group of people to send messages to each across various smartphone platforms. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Skype is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft.
Discussion:
The Register, VatorNews, The Big Blog, ArcticStartup Posts, About Skype, MobileBurn.com, IntoMobile and PC Magazine
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm and Is Getting Out of the PC Business — HP acquired Palm at the end of April 2010, for $1.2 billion. HP's CEO was Mark Hurd. — Three months later, in early August, Mark Hurd was forced to resign over that scandal with forged expenses and lies about his lady friend.
Discussion:
Examiner and DisplayBlog
RELATED:

Analysis: HP - Dial “M” for mayhem
Discussion:
AllThingsD, TechEye, Pulse2 and Gizmodo

iOS 5 includes early earthquake warning notifications for Japanese iPhone users — Following the devestating earthquake in Japan earlier this year, Apple has added a new early earthquake warning notification option to iOS 5. iOS 5 users in Japan can turn on early earthquake notifications …
Discussion:
GigaOM, Inquirer, The Register, App Advice, MacRumors, MacStories, TekGoblin, TiPb, Penn-Olson and iClarified

The Battle for Tripoli's Internet — As dawn broke in Libya on the morning of Sunday 21 August, it appeared that the battle for control of Tripoli was underway. Throughout the night, a steady stream of tweets and retweets emerged from Libyan sources, painting a confusing, often contradictory picture of the evolving situation.
Discussion:
Computerworld, Techdirt, Softpedia News, msnbc.com, @ljmontgo, InfoWorld, Between the Lines Blog and Computerworld UK's News

Amazon seeks Lab126 trademarks in advance of expected tablet debut — Amazon.com has quietly applied for trademarks on the name and logo of Lab126 — the internal group behind the Amazon Kindle e-reader and, by all accounts, an upcoming Android tablet from the Seattle company.
Discussion:
Fast Company, The Next Web, The Digital Reader and Electricpig.co.uk, Thanks:johnhcook

Unleaked: Former WikiLeaks Spokesperson Destroys Over 3,500 Unpublished Documents — Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a German technology activist and former spokesperson for whistleblower organization WikiLeaks, announced today that he has destroyed over 3,500 unpublished documents that used to sit …
Discussion:
Sydney Morning Herald, TechEye, FT Tech Hub, The Tech Herald …, WL Central and Boing Boing

‘Google needs television industry’ will be message at Edinburgh — Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, is expected to offer television executives an olive branch - and perhaps even some funding — • An open letter from Tess Alps of Thinkbox — When Google's chairman Eric Schmidt gives …
Discussion:
Electricpig.co.uk

Facebook, Twitter Drew Record Numbers Of U.S. Visitors In July — comScore's July traffic numbers are out and similar to June's findings, Facebook and Twitter both saw record traffic in terms of U.S. unique visitors in the month. In July, Facebook saw a whopping 162 million unique visitors …
Discussion:
digiday:DAILY, Marketing Pilgrim and Softpedia News, more at Mediagazer »

‘It was like a stampede, and they went quick’ — That's how a Best Buy employee described the line waiting to buy discounted HP TouchPads today outside the Mission Valley store in San Diego. — More than 100 people waited for the store to open, on a Sunday morning, to get one of about 30 TouchPads still in stock.
Discussion:
Gizmodo Australia and PC World
RELATED:
BetaNews.com / @betanews:
Want a $99 HP TouchPad? They are hard to find. Your best bet is to keep on top of this SlickDeals thread: http://t.co/N3Va7NR
Want a $99 HP TouchPad? They are hard to find. Your best bet is to keep on top of this SlickDeals thread: http://t.co/N3Va7NR
Discussion:
TechnoBuffalo, Pulse2, Liliputing, @percival, @joshuatopolsky, @brynaathp, Engadget, BetaNews, @mrgan, @brynaathp, PC World, Daring Fireball and PhoneArena
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
HP's TouchPad fire sale: The fallout
HP's TouchPad fire sale: The fallout
Discussion:
Laptops and Desktops Blog, The Mobile Gadgeteer Blog, Inquirer, Guardian, InformationWeek, PC World, Digits, Bits, TeleRead, CloudAve, The Digital Reader, TUAW, @harrymccracken and @triciad

Motorola's Identity Crisis — Hundreds of framed patents hang on two separate walls at the headquarters of Motorola Mobility in Libertyville, Ill. They testify to the pride in innovation at Motorola, a luminary of American business that has survived corporate crises and enormous technological change.

Federal Push for ‘Cloud’ Technology Faces Skepticism — WASHINGTON — Before cost-cutting became fashionable in Washington, Vivek Kundra, the White House's chief information officer, was working to shrink the federal government's enormous budget for information technology.

Does Groupon Hope To Challenge Amazon With ‘Groupon Goods’? — Last week, daily deals giant Groupon registered a bunch of domain names with ‘groupongoods’ in them (.com, .net, .us, .info, .biz and interestingly, .fr). Evidently, securing those domain names doesn't necessarily mean the company …