Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good Morning! Here's the most important tech news of the day:

* Microsoft blew out earnings on the back of strong Windows sales.

* Amazon had a huge miss on earnings, sending the stock spiraling after hours.

* Disney is about to acquire social gaming company Playdom.

* The long awaited HP Slate will come in the fall as an enterprise focused tablet.

* Dell is paying $100 million to settle its case with the SEC. Michael Dell is paying $4 million personally.

* Is hot iPad reader startup Flipboard legal?, asks Gizmodo.

* None of the major handset makers or wireless carriers would fess up to Slate about calls dropped on each handset.

* Google TV isn't even on the market, and it's already making Hollywood a little bit nervous.

* Apple is starting to process bumper refunds for iPhone 4, and it should be starting its free bumper program today, so keep an eye out.

* Droid X users are eating up 5X the usual amount of data from Verizo

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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Great morning! Here's the news:

* Walt Mossberg really liked the new Samsung Android-based phones, calling them "worthy competitors" to the iPhone.

* Nokia reported a 27% drop in earnings per share, which is in line with consensus.

* Microsoft reports earnings today after the close. Bloomberg speculates the company could raise its dividend since the stock has been flagging and the company has a lot of cash.

* Amazon is also reporting earnings today.

* Big time NYC VC Fred Wilson says Apple is Evil, Facebook is just a photo sharing site, and it's tough for Gowalla to be second-fiddle to Foursquare.

* We have less than one year until the internet runs out of addresses thanks to the smart grid, mobile expansion, RFID, and other Internet connected devices. We need a new Internet Protocol.

* Microsoft will give out Windows Phone 7 units to all employees.

* Twitter is opening its own data center to deal with its surging user base.

* Motorola is accusing Chinese mobile rival Huawei of stealing trade secrets.

* Google hired a superstar music deal lawyer to handle the opening of Google Music.


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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good morning, here's the big news:

* Apple delivered blowout earnings, with strong sales of Macs, iPads, and iPods. iPhones were good but lighter than expected.

* Yahoo's earnings were mediocre. It beat EPS by a penny, but missed on revenue because it couldn't monetize search.

* HP's Slate WILL run on Windows, according to specs leaked on HP's website.

* Some Droid X screens are flickering. If that happens to you, just return it.

* Verizon is rumored to have two e-readers/tablets available in the fall.

* Facebook's lawyer is "unsure" if Mark Zuckerberg signed an agreement with the man claiming to own 84% of Facebook.

* Message board 4Chan has been trying to attack Gawker the last few days.

* eBay reports earnings today after the close.

* Adobe is trying to create a peer to peer mobile video chat service called "FlashTime."

* Skype is trying out a new ad unit called pay per call. It will put a phone number on websites, and you can call the number using Skype.


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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good Morning! News:

* Nokia is hunting for a new CEO.

* Asus is dumping Windows for Android on its EEE Pad EP101TC.

* A bunch of tech and media companies are inching closer to a big cloud based media operation called UltraViolet.

* Amazon says Kindle sales were up 3X in the first half of the year, and Amazon is dominating e-book sales.

* Steve Jobs wanted to ditch AT&T half a dozen times, according to a great feature in Wired.

* Yahoo is looking at buying url shortener bit.ly.

* Apple reports earnings today after the close. Tune in for coverage, in the meanwhile, here's 12 stocks that move based on Apple.

* Want another search engine? You got it. Here's Blekko.

* Sales of this year's Tiger Woods video game fell by 32%.

* The FCC seems to be approving a new Apple Magic track pad. It's like a laptop track pad, but designed for the desktop instead of a mouse.

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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good morning! Here is your news:

* Microsoft shipped a few early previews of Windows Phone 7. Engadget says it's "a little scary" how many technical issues need to be ironed out before the phone hits the market.

* Google will stop selling the Nexus One after it clears out of its most recent shipment of Nexus One phones.

* Now that Facebook has 500 million users, it has to figure out what to do when one of them dies.

* A Chinese glass manufacturer is holding up the production of white iPhone 4s.

* Verizon is ceasing sales of the Kin and shipping its inventory back to Microsoft.

* Motorola is selling off its networking wireless business for $1.2 billion.

* HTC and Samsung are disputing Apple's antenna claims.

* Mark Cuban is wildly bullish on facial recognition as the next form of check-in apps.

* Quicken appears set to screw over its customers, as it transitions to Mint.com.


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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good morning, here's the news. No LeBron mentions!

* Google says China has renewed Google's web page license.

* Google founder Sergey Brin still uses Friendster.

* Facebook is shuttering its virtual goods store, which generated tens of millions in sales.

* Facebook acquired travel startup Nextstop to gain access to two former Google engineers.

* Apple wants to be able to push $0.99 rentals through the next version of Apple TV.

* Gerson Lehrman Group says, "It is highly likely that after the KIN fiasco, Microsoft will exit the mobile OS space within the next year." We don't think that happens, but this is a pretty harsh assessment of Microsoft's mobile prospects.

* Social gaming company Playdom bought Metaplace, a smaller, different sort of social gaming company.

* Yahoo farmed out its real estate listings to Zillow.

* Apple is an underdog in China says the NYT.

* MobiTV has streamed 88 million minutes worth of World Cup footage on mobile phones
. That's impressive since most people haven't historically watched TV on their phones.


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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good morning! Here's some news:

* Microsoft was rumored to have sold just 503 KIN phones, but Pocket Now weighs in with a pretty definitive answer of 8,810 based on the Kin Facebook page.

* Forget the mobile woes, Microsoft's Xbox Live probably did over $1 billion in revenue.

* Microsoft cut hundreds of jobs yesterday around the world.

* Here's what the PC market would look like if iPads were included. And by the way, Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi says Apple
could sell 25 million iPads next year.

* Foursquare is absolutely pounding Gowalla.

* MySpace mulls a subscription service for its music offerings.

* YouTube revamped its mobile site, making the YouTube app on the iPhone obsolete.

* Facebook is partnering with Asian company MOL Global to sell Facebook credits. MOL has 500,000 outlets throughout Asia according to the release.

* A blogger wound up with a prototype of a Nokia phone and now it wants the police to help get it back. (Sounds like the Gizmodo/Apple story, except without any intrigue.)

* T-Mobile's roadmap for the rest of the year has leaked. Get ready for 5 more Android phones.


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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good Morning. News time:

* Microsoft is planning on cutting a few people.

* Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg were seen driving off together at Sun Valley. Maybe they were going to talk about Google Me?

* On Monday, the NYT ran a very negative Microsoft story. Tim O'Reilly was featured prominently in that story. Now he says he was misquoted throughout.

* Mini-Microsoft, the popular unofficial blog for Microsoft employees has weighed in on the KIN disaster.

* Amazon now has a patent on e-readers with LCD and e-ink screens. This could screw Barnes & Noble's Nook.

* Eric Schmidt's partner at TomorrowVentures, which is his personal investment company, has been involved in numerous failed startups and involved in many lawsuits.

* Skyhook wireless gets a nice write up in the WSJ. It provides location services for many smartphones.

* Foursquare introduced a new feature called "layers." You can follow HuffPo or IFC, and as you walk through a town, their recommendations about what to do can be pushed to your phone.

* Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg wrote a post explaining advertising on Facebook. The best part? The comments.

* AppleCare reps are telling people that Apple's software
fix won't address the fundamental issue with the iPhone 4 antenna.


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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good Morning! Welcome to the news:

* Twitter's next revenue plan is reportedly to use the account @earlybird to tweet daily deals.

* Netflix entered into an agreement with movie maker Relativity Media, giving it exclusive streaming rights to Relativity movies.

* Prince says the internet is toast. Prince says it's like MTV. It was once hip, but now its outdated.

* MySpace is looking to sign a new ad deal to replace the Google deal which is ending.

* News Corp is looking to sell the Fox Audience Network (FAN), which runs many of MySpace's ads. If News Corp. sells FAN, then expect it to sell MySpace, reports Michael Arrington.

* The Apple versus Google battle is expected to dominate conversation at the annual Sun Valley mogul-fest.

* Apple is reportedly planning for iPads to hit a run rate of 2 million per month now.

* The price of labor in China is about to rise, and along with it, the price of smartphones, netbooks, and digital cameras will also rise.

* Daily Deal site Woot! (recently acquired by Amazon) wants the AP to pay it $17.50, for using too much of a Woot blog post in a story.

* Watch out for earnings estimates to start getting cut by analysts.


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Business Insider: The Shocking Media Habits Of 8-18 Year Olds

Kids are leading the world's transition to digital media
.

This is in part because kids aren't afraid of technology, and in part because kids haven't spent years getting use to anything else.

So if you want to get a sense of where the world's media habits are headed, it makes sense to watch what kids are doing.

The Kaiser Family Foundation did just that in a comprehensive survey released early this year. Kaiser surveyed more than 2,000 families
, and turned up all sorts of interesting information about the media habits of 8-18 year olds.

Some key points:

* Kids consume a heck of a lot of media--and more all the time. Basically, if kids are awake, they're consuming media. And, increasingly, they're consuming multiple forms of media at the same time.

* Kids' print media consumption is tiny and falling.

* Kids' digital media consumption is going through the roof.

No big surprise there. What is a surprise is how little parents seem to care about this. (Or, alternatively, how much parents encourage this media consumption by consuming a huge amount of media themselves.)

* In 2/3 of households, TVs are on during meals

* In 75% of households, TVs are on when no one is watching them.

* More than 70% of kids have TVs in their bedrooms

* Only 1/3 of households have media-consumption rules

No surprise, more media is consumed in households in which TVs are always on, where there are no media consumption rules, and where kids have TVs in their bedrooms.

And, no surprise, kids who consume the most media get the worst grades (but is this cause or effect?)

It's a long presentation, but it's awesome.
Flip through the presentation here >

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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good morning! Here's the news:

* Google is acquiring travel software company ITA for $700 million.

* Apple hasn't banned Google ads from the iPhone yet, say developers.

* comScore also made an acquisition picking up Nexius a mobile analytics company.

* IBM is going with Firefox as its default browser.

* Apple's iAds are popping up in apps now.

* The two execs at Microsoft and Yahoo responsible for making the search deal work are grilled by Kara Swisher.

* Asked if he wishes he bought Facebook, Viacom Boss Philip Dauman says, "It wasn’t for sale. I’d be interested in buying Buckingham Palace, but that’s not for sale either."

* Disney acquired top iPhone game company Tapulous.

* Remember Diaspora, the open-source Facebook competitor? They're celebrating a one month anniversary.

* Google CEO Eric Schmidt basically admits Google's trying to make another social network.

* (Enjoy the fourth of July weekend everybody in the USA!)


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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Welcome to July! Here's the news:

* Microsoft killed its failed Kin phone. Engadget's report on what killed the Kin is pretty troubling for Microsoft's mobile future.

* Amazon cut the price on the Kindle DX to $379 and it says it improved the screen's contrast.

* Amazon acquired daily deals site Woot for $110 million in cash.

* Yahoo announced authorization for a $3 billion stock buyback.

* IPO filings are the highest they've been since 2007, with 89 companies filing last quarter.

* Details are leaking on the next version of Android software. There's hints of tablet love in the new version.

* USV backed startup Wesabe is shutting down. It was a Mint.com competitor.

* Finland made access to broadband a "legal right."

* Mozilla submitted a cool app to the App Store called Firefox Home. It connects your desktop browsing to the app. Let's see if Apple approves it.

* Google is tacking on extra pay for its gay employees who have domestic partners. The extra pay is to cover the tax on health benefits that straight employees don't have.
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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-you-need-to-know-this-morning

Good morning! Here's the news you need to end June:

* iPhone is said to be coming to Verizon in January. If true, one analyst thinks it equals 12 million new iPhone sales, or $7 billion in revenue next year, as well as an additional $3.00 EPS.

* Sony is recalling 500,000 Vaio laptops
because they run too hot and melt the laptop.

* YouTube is going to offer skippable ads to users. If an ad is skipped, then advertisers don't get charged.

* MapQuest got a make-over. New logo, new look.

* Foursquare raised $20 million at a $95 million valuation.

* Hulu made its subscription service available to a select audience. $10 per month for more shows and access on the iPad/iPhone and other gadgets.

* Yahoo promoted Erin McPherson from biz dev at Yahoo Media to "original programming chief." She'll be in charge of ramping Yahoo's content strategy.

* Remember Chatroulette? Well, Salon is saying it's dead, which probably means its going to flourish once again.

* Twitpic is threatening legal action against Posterous, because Posterous is offering to put all your TwitPics on Posterous.

* Amazon.com was down for hours yesterday. It's back now, but so far it gave no details on what went wrong.


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Business Insider: Check Out The 27 Brands That Will Dominate The Future

A good brand is a tremendous advantage for a company, but its potential is difficult to forecast.

According to a new study done by Credit Suisse, efficient branding
is a vital indicator for investors. They came up with 27 brands that will be big in the next years. Among them are well-known brands like Apple or Facebook, but the study shows that many of these brands are from Asia or the Middle-East.

Pay attention.

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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning (GOOG, DELL, MSFT, VZ, EBAY, AMZN)

Good morning, here's the news:

* Google is in more trouble with the Chinese government. China doesn't want Google automatically redirecting Chinese users to the unfiltered results served up from China in Hong Kong.

* Google is hard at work on a Facebook killer called "Google Me" according to Facebook's ex-CTO.

* Tesla priced its IPO shares at $17, raising around $226 million.

* Dell is being sued for faulty computers
, and the NYT uses it to "explain the decline of one of America’s most celebrated and admired companies."

* Microsoft's Windows 8 plans were leaked to the web. Microsoft plans an app store, tablet computers, facial recognition technology, faster computers and much more.

* Verizon cuts the price of the Microsoft Kin after one month.

* Insiders on why PayPal produced so many entrepreneurs.

* Foursquare has another big business deal, getting window sticks at Whole Foods that tell customers to "check-in."

* AT&T says it has improved service in New York.

* Jeff Bezos tries to downplay the iPad, saying it is totally different from the Kindle.


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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good Morning! Here's the news:

Foursquare is about to close a round of funding at an $80 million valuation, after coming thisclose to selling itself to Facebook.

Kevin Rose of Digg started a big rumor this weekend saying that Google will take another stab at social networking with something called "Google Me".

Elevation Partners has purchased $120 million worth of Facebook shares on the secondary market.

Amazon has updated the Kindle iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch apps to allow more embedded video and audio.

Palm has lost another exec. Lynn Fox, an ex-Apple employee and Palm's VP of Public Relations, decided to leave.

The giant, expensive Plastic Logic Que e-reader, which was supposed to be a Kindle for the business folk is pretty much dead.

After Apple conceded there was an issue with iPhone 4's antenna, Steve Jobs contradicted himself saying there "is no reception issue. Stay tuned." So keep an eye out for what happens next.

Doodle Jump has had over 5 million downloads, which probably makes it the most popular paid iPhone app of all time.

Gadget factory Foxconn has handed over control of its dorms to another company.

Google's Android app market, for all its freedom, is a bit of a mess.

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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning (AAPL, RIMM, YHOO, GOOG, NWS, DIS)

Good morning, enjoy this hot news:

iPhone 4 is out, but there's a weird glitch with the metal band surrounding the phone. If you hold it just so in your left hand, covering certain parts of the antenna, the signal strength drops. Apple is telling people to not hold it like that that, or buy a rubber casing.

Research In Motion reported earnings last night, missing on sales and subscriptions last quarter.

In a demo at Cannes a Microsoft VP says Windows Phone 7 is coming in October.

Hulu's subscription service could be coming next week for a 10,000 early testers. It will cost $9.95 per month for access to more shows on more devices.

Facebook is including its open graph web pages in its search results, opening its most direct assault against Google. The amount of "likes" a page gets determine its search ranking.

Yahoo's VP of search consumer products, Larry Cornett, is leaving.
Playdom has acquired Hive7, a little gaming studio.

USA v. Algeria attracted the largest ever online audience for a game with 1.1 million unique visitors tuning in for 43 minutes on average.

Texas Instruments is releasing the "Blaze" tablet this fall.

Google remotely killed two apps from the Android store that were put in there by a researcher.

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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning (HPQ, MSFT, AAPL, EBAY, MOT, VIA, GOOG)

Good morning!

* iPhone 4 goes on sale in stores today. Expect long lines, and lots of tweets about it. We got ours yesterday. Our snap reaction to it: It's as nice as everyone says. Also, iMovie for iPhone is out, and white iPhone 4s aren't coming until July.

* Viacom lost its $1 billion copyright infringement case against Google and YouTube.

* Hulu is in talks with CBS and Viacom about adding shows when Hulu launches its paid subscription service.

* HP has acquired music streaming service Melodeo for between $30 and $35 million. Presumably it will be used for Palm in the future.

* Cisco announced plans to invest $1 billion in Russia. (Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was touring Silicon Valley yesterday.)

* Windows 7 is selling like hotcakes. Every second Microsoft rings up 7 sales of Windows and 150 million copies have been sold to date.

* eBay acquired Red Laser, a bar code scanning app.

* Twitter added the ability to follow all your friends on Facebook and LinkedIn. Except, it doesn't work at Facebook. Facebook says it's trying to fix that.

* Motorola released the latest Android phone, Droid X. With its big screen the emphasis is on video.

* Apple decided to sue HTC again, over more patents.


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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good morning! Here's all that matters in tech:

* Bing continues to introduce cool features. The latest is an upgraded "Entertainment" section that lets you search for your favorite TV shows, movies, and watch some of them right at Bing.

* iPhone 4 reviews went live yesterday. Everyone loves the phone, they just hate AT&T.

* If you want to see an iPhone 4 torn apart, iFixit has done just that.

* Firefox released a new version of its browser which is supposed to protect the browser from Flash caused crashes. The only catch -- it's for Windows and Linux only.

* John Watkinson, a mobile app developer for Larva Labs, estimates Android developers have only been paid $21 million from the Android Market, or 2% of what they make in the Apple App Store.

* Verizon has killed the Droid Eris, the cheaper Droid phone that came out last holiday season.

* EA is having a big sale on its iPhone games, slashing the prices to $1. Go get them while you can.

* Motorola, Verizon, Google and Adobe have a big event planned today in New York. We'll be on hand to cover it. We're expecting the Droid X to be unveiled.

* Zynga gamers are hardcore -- 90% of them play on a daily basis.

* Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook revenue is in the range of $1.1 billion, and he shouldn't have become as obsessed with Twitter as he did.


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Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Good morning! Here's the news:

* Super buzzy Q&A site Quora has officially launched. The site was started by two ex-Facebook engineers.

* Another Palm exec is moving on. David Temkin is leaving his post as VP of developer platform to move onto AOL where he will head mobile.

* There's a big e-reader price war going on. After Barnes & Noble cut the price of its 3G Nook to $199, Amazon retaliated by cutting its Kindle price to $189. It's a race to the bottom, and it's unclear if anyone, other than consumers, will win.

* Speaking of Jeff Bezos, he delivered the commencement address at Princeton titled "We are what we choose."

* Adobe Flash is fully launched for Android phones.

* Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will lead a multistate investigation into Google's WiFi data collection screw-up.

* Apple's iOS 4 is out. Ars Technica did a seriously deep dive into it. If you want the quick version, click here for our take.

* As part of Apple's updated OS, it is now collecting the "precise" "real-time geographic location" of users, reports the LAT.

* Social gaming startup Playdom raised $33 million from Disney's Steamboat Ventures, Bessemer, and New World.

* Microsoft is running ads telling people to switch away from Google Docs to Microsoft Office.


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