Apple seeks $2.5 billion in damages from Samsung, offers half a cent per standard-essential patent  —  With their California trial approaching fast, Apple and Samsung made filings during the last few hours that shed light on what's at stake and on why the parties haven't been able to settle their dispute so far.

Apple Warms Up to Hackers, Plans Presentation at Black Hat  —  Attendees are seen through a Black Hat logo during the Black Hat and Defcon hacker conferences in Las Vegas.  —  In the 15 years that computer hackers have gathered in Las Vegas for the Black Hat conference …

How Many People Use Twitter's Own Apps?  —  On the latest Talk Show, Gruber wondered what the spread of Twitter clients really is.  It made me realise that no one has really explored how many people use Twitter's own apps.  I thought I'd (try to) find out.

Craigslist sues competitor PadMapper over listings  —  Craigslist has followed up on earlier threats and filed a lawsuit against popular apartment listing site PadMapper.  The case raises questions over whether Craigslist is stifling innovation or simply protecting its data.

Airbnb Acqui-Hires Brian Pokorny And The Batch/DailyBooth Team To Boost Mobile Adoption  —  Airbnb has grown dramatically over the last year, announcing last month that it topped 10 million total nights booked, with more than 200,000 active properties listed on its site.

Lytro finally rolls out Windows desktop software, celebrates with free shipping  —  As cool as the Lytro camera's post-picture taking focusing technology is, it's hard to overlook some of the product's shortcomings — not the least of which is the fact that the company only offered a Mac solution …

iOS Soars Ahead of Android Development As Apple Quietly Makes Move Into The Enterprise Market  —  The Apple iOS is surging ahead of the Google Android platform for enterprise development, according to survey results from Appcelerator, the mobile platform development company.

Apple to Update iPod Touch with 4-Inch Display, A5 Chip, Buffed Aluminum Rear Shell?  —  In line with a fresh report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claiming that Apple will be updating the iPod touch later this year with an “all-new” design using the same in-cell touch display technology rumored …

Mark Zuckerberg Wins Approval For His First-Ever Patent Application - From 6 Years Ago  —  In the last few months, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took his company public, got married and scored a nearly $6 million home loan at just over 1%.  What could possibly top all that?

Vizio Co-Star Google TV set-top box is up for pre-order, $100 brings it your way in August  —  As promised, Vizio has starting taking pre-orders for its Co-Star Google TV box.  For a penny less than a Benjamin, it adds the new Google TV experience to your existing setup …

Social: YouTube Fights Horrible Commenters by Naming Names  —  An official Google screenshot featuring test user “Joey Samson,” formerly known as “joeysam87,” which shows the interface for converting an anonymous YouTube account to a Google+ account.  YouTube has begun asking anonymous commenters …

Hardware accelerating everything: Windows 8 graphics … In computer graphics, high performance is a guiding principle.  In the early days of personal computing, discrete, add-on graphics cards were mostly focused on specialized applications such as CAD/CAM and gaming.

Martin Scorsese does Siri commercial in NYC cab  —  This is the fourth ad in Apple's line of popular Siri commercials.  Martin Scorsese (via MacRumors) follows Samuel L. Jackson, Zooey Deschanel, and a pair of stinkers with John Malkovich.  Scorsese is found in his natural environment—on the streets of Manhattan in the back of a cab.

All eyes on Apple's earnings: Estimates are sharply divided  —  The pros are looking earnings of $10.32 on sales of $37.2B.  The indies are at $12.29 and $41.45B.  —  FORTUNE — It's one of the most closely watched corporate events of the season: Apple's (AAPL) earnings report for the most recent quarter …

Verizon and Redbox Start Testing Their New Web Video Service: Here's What to Expect  —  Back in February, Verizon and Redbox announced a joint-venture video service but said little else about it.  —  Now they're back, and they're saying a little bit more: The service has a name …

AT&T posts Q2 profit of $3.9B, sells 3.7M iPhones  —  The telecom giant posted earnings per share that topped Wall Street expectations thanks to cost cuts and lower wireless turnover.  —  Follow @RogerWCheng  —  AT&T posted a modest increase in its second-quarter profit even as it sold 3.7 million iPhones in the period.

Report: Google Strikes Antitrust Deal With EU, Avoids Legal Battle  —  According to a report in the Financial Times, Google and the EU have agreed in principle to the “outlines of a settlement” that will avoid a legal battle over antitrust claims against the company.

And here it is!  Comcast's 305 Mbps tier  —  For $300, people in the Northeast, presumably in areas where Comcast competes with Verizon's fiber to-the-home offering, can soon get 305 Mbps service from Comcast.  Upload speeds will be 65 Mbps.  The nation's largest broadband provider unveiled its rumored …

Silicon Valley Worries About Addiction to Devices  —  Stuart Crabb, a director in the executive offices of Facebook, naturally likes to extol the extraordinary benefits of computers and smartphones.  But like a growing number of technology leaders, he offers a warning: log off once in a while, and put them down.

Benchmark, Greylock And Others Go In For $18.6M On Nextdoor, A Facebook For Local Communities  —  Localized social network Nextdoor is announcing an $18.6 million dollar round today, led by Benchmark Capital and followed on by DAG Ventures, Greylock Partners and Shasta Ventures.

Big Fish unveils $7.99 per month cloud gaming service, streaming titles across tablets, PCs and smartphones  —  Big Fish Games CEO Paul Thelen at Casual Connect  —  Seattle's Big Fish Games today unveiled a new cloud-based gaming service called Big Fish Unlimited that allows game players …

Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba, Samsung to launch Windows RT tablets this year.  Others await Microsoft's permission in January  —  Apart from Surface, which is made by Microsoft itself, we know very little about who else will launch Windows RT based tablets this year.  And there's a good reason for that.

Amazon Cracks Down on Kindle Web Browsing  —  When the Kindle launched in late 2007 it came with an experimental web browser as well as free web browsing over the 3g connection.  As nice as that was to have, all good things come to an end.  There are reports over at MobileRead today that Amazon …

Hacker Hostel ‘Illegal,’ Says Code Enforcement Unit  —  The novel idea to rent beds to engineers and developers per night in Mountain View houses not compliant with city code.  —  Two weeks ago Mountain View Patch wrote about the ‘hacker hostels’ in the city based on an article first published in The New York Times.

Apigee Raises $20M, Looks to Grow API Business Internationally  —  Apigee, the Palo Alto-based company that provides application programming interface (API) support, management and service, today announced a new $20 million round of venture investment, led by Focus Ventures …

Y Combinator startup Chute lands $2.7M, connects dots between developers and media  —  Chute, a startup that helps developers quickly and easily bring multimedia content into their apps, has just sealed a $2.7 million funding deal with a few of the usual suspects in Silicon Valley early-stage investment.

Viber Updates iPhone, Android Apps To Version 2.2: Group Messaging, Improved UI, Enhanced HD Calling  —  Viber has just released version 2.2 of the app for both Android and iPhone, bringing some much-requested features to the platform for the very first time including group messaging and improved call quality.

DJ Shadow distributes through BitTorrent... and gets paid for it  —  Two years ago, DJ Shadow told his fans that “I won't give my art away”.  Now he's become the latest and most high-profile musician to distribute a ‘bundle’ of music and content through a partnership with BitTorrent.  Yes, for free.