Techmeme
June 19, 2012, 5:10 AM

Top News

Microsoft Corporation:
Microsoft Announces Surface: New Family of PCs for Windows  —  Microsoft-made hardware to be available starting with release of Windows 8 and Windows RT.  —  Today at an event in Hollywood, Microsoft unveiled Surface: PCs built to be the ultimate stage for Windows.
Microsoft:
Surface by Microsoft  —  From touch to type, office to living room, from your screen to the big screen, you can see more, share more, and do more with Surface.  Create, collaborate, and get stuff done with Office.  Explore your world with fast, fluid Windows 8 apps.
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Microsoft announces new 10.6″ Microsoft Surface tablets, running Windows 8 in RT and ‘Pro’ flavors  —  Microsoft held an event today at Milk Studios in Hollywood CA, where it announced its new line of Microsoft Surface tablets, devices that it calls a ‘whole new family of computing devices’.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Microsoft Surface with Windows RT hands-on pictures and video  —  Here it is, Microsoft Surface, the all new, Microsoft-made tablet.  We just had our hands on the sleek new device, and we must say — it does feel incredibly well designed.  —  Microsoft is only showing off the Windows RT version …
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Microsoft Surface tablets: the differences between Windows RT and Windows 8 Pro models  —  Surfaces.  Turns out, the plural form of Microsoft's new tablet range rolls off of the tongue with ease, but understanding the differences between the first two models may not be quite as easy — particularly for the everyman.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Watch this: Microsoft's Surface event video now live  —  Microsoft announced one of its more significant hardware products today, a Surface tablet running on Windows 8 or Windows RT. Although the company did not release pricing or availability information, consumers will be able to pick between …
More: Engadget
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Microsoft's First Surface Video Is Super Serious, in a Techno-Funk Kinda Way  —  What does Microsoft's Surface tablet look like?  What kind of specs does it boast?  Head over to Ina Fried's liveblog, for all of those details, right now.  —  How does Microsoft want you to feel about the Surface?
More: Neowin
Sam Grobart / Bits:
Microsoft's Not Competing With the iPad — Not Entirely  —  Microsoft's new Surface tablet computer is not an iPad competitor.  It's an ultrabook competitor.  —  I mean, of course it's an iPad competitor, but it would appear Microsoft is going after other segments of portable computing as well.
Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Where Microsoft's New Surface Tablet Fits in PC Ecosystem  —  While there are plenty of unknown details about Microsoft's Surface tablet, perhaps the biggest open question is what this means for Microsoft and its decades-long relationship with the PC industry.
Gil Hirsch / face.com:
Awesome News - Facebook Acquires Face.com  —  Facebook has acquired Face.com!  Our mission is and has always been to find new and exciting ways to make face recognition a fun, engaging part of people's lives, and incorporate remarkable technology into everyday consumer products.
Zachary Lutz / Engadget:
Nokia 808 PureView announced for US, available soon through Amazon at $699  —  Color us surprised — or whatever the antonym of that word may be — but Nokia has announced the availability of its 41-megapixel 808 PureView smartphone for the United States, which will be distributed through Amazon.
Basil Katz / Reuters:
Ex-AT&T employee admits leaking Apple, RIM info  —  (Reuters) - A former AT&T (T.N) employee admitted on Monday to sharing company secrets such as sales numbers for Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPhone to traders who illegally bought shares on the information.  —  Alnoor Ebrahim, 57 …
Mg Siegler / TechCrunch:
The MacBook Pro Strikes Back (With Retina Power)  —  It was nearly two years ago that I said goodbye to my MacBook Pro.  I loved the device, but the new MacBook Air was that good.  My Pro — which was only six months old at the time! — seemed like total overkill for my computing needs.
Peter Farago / The Flurry Blog:
Microsoft May Be Closer Than It Appears in Android's Rearview Mirror  —  This week, wedged between Apple's WWDC and Google I/O is Microsoft's Windows Phone Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday, June 20.  Additionally, Microsoft is holding a last-minute press conference that “you don't want to miss” tonight in Los Angeles.
Henry Blodget / Business Insider:
Don't Look Now, But Facebook's Stock Is Up 20% In 2 Weeks!  —  Remember two weeks ago, when Facebook's stock had crashed all the way to ~$25?  —  Yes, back then, everyone was absolutely certain that it was going to, say, $18, and they were telling everyone who would listen about that.
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Box Expands to Europe, Hires Infrastructure VP Away from LinkedIn  —  There's always something interesting going on at Box.  Last I looked in on it, the fast-growing enterprise cloud service startup had just moved into new headquarters in Los Altos, Calif. though employees there were trying to coin the name “South Palo Alto.”
Victor Agreda, Jr / TUAW:
Apple removes hints of future products from a key file in iOS 6  —  Once upon a time eager rumormongers would download the latest iteration of the next generation of iOS, and like examining goat entrails to determine the next Caesar, they would delve into the USBDeviceConfiguration.plist to divine upcoming hardware products from Apple.
More: Macgasm and PadGadget
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
Sharp partners with design agency frog to launch Feel UX, another unique Android user interface  —  Sharp has become the latest in a long line of Android smartphone makers to announce that it is to build a customized user interface for the platform, partnering with design agency ‘frog’ to launch “Feel UX” later this summer.
Meghan Kelly / VentureBeat:
Fixing the CAPTCHA: turning jumbled words into a game  —  CAPTCHAs, or those jumbled words you have to enter to prove you're a human on websites, suck.  They detract from a website's flow, and as security researchers at Imperva have found, they're actually easily overcome by spammers.
More: CNET, The Next Web and SlashGear.  Tweets: @qthrul
Andrew Rice / Fast Company:
The Many Pivots Of Justin.tv: How A Livecam Show Became Home To Video Gaming Superstars  —  Five years, four complete shifts in business plan: Entrepreneur Justin Kan will try anything to make his business work.  And that's just the way they like it in the tech world.  —  Photo by Jason Madara
Wall Street Journal:
Apple, Google Push Deeper Into Mobile Software; Towering Over Nokia, Research In Motion  —  Apple Inc. and Google Inc. have brought mobile giants Nokia Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd. to their knees and captured more than 80% of the world's smartphone market.  Now they are going after the rest.

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Cloudflare:
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Zoho:
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Phil Nickinson / Android Central: