Exclusive: Microsoft's Metro branding to be replaced ‘this week’ according to internal memo  —  Microsoft is killing off the use of its Metro design name to describe a tiled interface in Windows Phone and Windows 8.  We brought you news of the change earlier today, but a tipster has provided …

Sharp to start shipping iPhone screens to Apple this month  —  (Reuters) - Japan's Sharp Corp. said it will start shipping screens destined for a new Apple iPhone that is widely expected to be released in October ahead of the pre-Christmas shopping season.  —  “Shipments will start in August …

Facebook Drops Below $20: Worth Less Than What MSFT Offered For Yahoo In 2008?  —  Today, Facebook hit a new milestone, perhaps one that it won't be celebrating much: the stock went down past $20 a share.  In fact, as this post is being written it's trading at $19.99.

LinkedIn Q2 Earnings Beat The Street: $228.2M In Sales; EPS of $0.03  —  LinkedIn has just released Q2 earnings, and the enterprise-focused social network continues to rise.  It's posted revenues of $228.2 million and earnings per share of $0.03 (non-GAAP EPS: $0.16).

Mayer Brings in First Googler — in PR — to Yahoo  —  New CEO Marissa Mayer has brought in her first Googler over to Yahoo — one of her longtime PR staffers, Anne Espiritu.  Espiritu has worked closely with Mayer at the search giant, especially on various media appearances and on consumer products.

Final copy of Windows 8 leaks online  —  The final build of Windows 8 has leaked to the internet, just a day after Microsoft confirmed it had finished the development cycle for the new operating system.  Although MSDN and TechNet customers won't officially receive access …

Apple initially wanted an iPhone with shaped glass, deposition reveals  —  The Apple-Samsung trial has provided us with an absolute treasure trove of information regarding Apple's iPhone prototypes.  Below is why Apple initially shied away from shaped glass and why an iPhone prototype resembling …

Amex Knocks Google for Misleading Comments About Its Role in Google Wallet  —  American Express has not formally agreed to participate in Google Wallet, which is why it was surprised yesterday when Google said it, along with Visa, Discover and MasterCard, were now forms of payment in Google's mobile payments application.

Marc Andreessen Steps Down From Dalton Caldwell's Mixed Media Labs Board  —  Wednesday was an ugly day for infighting in the Valley, after Dalton Caldwell, a Silicon Valley veteran and serial entrepreneur, posted a withering missive to his personal blog on Wednesday, in which he accused Facebook …

Apple seeks patent for Smart Cover with embedded secondary display  —  According to an application to the USPTO this morning, Apple believes it's possible to build a flexible display into an iPad cover in order to “greatly enhance” the functionality of the tablet itself.

BlackBerry: other manufacturers could license our new BB10 platform  —  Thorsten Heins, chief executive of Research in Motion, has told the Telegraph that manufacturers such as Sony or Samsung could licence the new BlackBerry operating system.  —  New RIM CEO Thorsten Heins introduced BlackBerry 10 in Florida

Facebook Stories: A Facebook Site With Collected Stories and Infographics  —  A lot of people — close to 950 million, in fact — are sharing their lives on Facebook.  As it turns out, Facebook thinks many of them have some interesting stories.  Some of them are so interesting that they could be part …

BREAKING: David Pogue Has Lost His iPhone  —  New York Times technology writer David Pogue has lost his iPhone.  He has posted a screenshot of where it might be on Lockerz.com, though.  Won't anyone help him find it?  Or help him sign up for PhotoBucket?

3-week old Jelly Bean hits 0.8% Android device adoption, as Ice Cream Sandwich reaches 15.9%  —  It's been just over a month since Google officially announced Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) and barely three weeks since the first rollout, but already the latest flavor of Android is installed …

Apple requests ruling in its favor over Samsung press leak, judge prohibits 2001: A Space Odyssey references  —  At the beginning of the week, we reported Samsung leaked slides to the press that Judge Koh excluded as evidence in the Samsung-Apple trial currently underway.

Demonoid Starts Redirecting to Ads and Malware  —  Demonoid is one of the world's largest and longest standing sites that not only indexes torrents, but also operates its own tracker.  —  Although the site has a reasonable uptime record, there have been a few occasions where it has not only gone down, but has disappeared completely.

IDC: Apple's iPad Grew Q2 Tablet Share To 68% As It Braces For Windows 8, Amazon And Nexus Competition  —  After Amazon launched its $199 Kindle Fire tablet last autumn, a lot of observers thought it could prove to be the competition to Apple's iPad that other Android tablets had so far failed to deliver.

Cortica gets $7M to bestow computers with the power of sight  —  Israeli startup Cortica raised $7 in a second round of funding.  The investment was led by Horizons Ventures, not to be confused with Silicon Valley's Horizon Ventures.  Horizons Ventures (mind the “s") is owned by the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Ching.

Bye bye Tweetdeck - Tweetbot for Mac's new alpha has multiple, docking timelines, a menu bar icon and more  —  Tweetbot for Mac Alpha has been updated to version 0.6.3 with some fantastic new features, including the ability to pop out separate timeline windows and dock them together …

Stellar growth sees China take 27% of global smart phone shipments, powered by domestic vendors  —  Shanghai, Palo Alto, Singapore and Reading (UK) - Thursday, 2 August 2012  —  Canalys published its final Q2 2012 country-level shipment estimates to clients yesterday.

Deutsche Telekom Invests $9 Million in Mobile Payments Player LevelUp  —  It's takes money to make money: Boston-based LevelUp, a mobile payments service, has raised $9 million from T-Venture, Deutsche Telekom's investment arm and other investors.  This cash injection will be added …

Getaround, Flush With $13.9M, Will Now Pay You $1,000 Per Month to Rent Your Car Full-time  —  Getaround, a peer-to-peer car-sharing service, has raised $13.9 million in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures and including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Ashton Kutcher's A-Grade Investments and Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors.