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Facebook said that mobile ads represented 59 percent of its ad revenue in the first quarter, up from 30 percent in the year-ago period. Facebook’s overall revenue grew 72 percent year-on-year to $2.5 billion in the first quarter, above the $2.36 billion expected by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

“They’ve got the right products for what advertisers are looking for and that’s manifesting itself in the results you’re seeing,” said JMP Securities analyst Ronald Josey.

Remember, you are the product being sold.

It would be great to win best in customer satisfaction at one or two carrier, but all four is beyond impressive.

Apple on Tuesday announced a $10.2 billion profit for its fiscal second quarter on revenue of $45.6 billion. These results compare to revenue of $43.6 billion and profit of $9.5 billion, in the year-ago quarter. […]

Federico Viticci did a nice job on bringing together some features he would like to see in the next version of iOS. One thing I’ve learned over the years is how different people’s wish lists for an operating system can be. Also, Viticci did a nice job on the site redesign.

. Matt Haughey:

Like Steve Jobs, I grew up in California, and though I knew he attended (and dropped out of) Reed College in Portland, Oregon, I was surprised to read that Steve took frequent trips to an apple farm-slash-hippie commune near McMinnville, Oregon established by his friend (and Reed College student president) Robert Friedland.

The part that surprised me was I was sitting in my house in McMinnville, Oregon when I read that. McMinnville is a fairly small town about 35 miles southwest of Portland, Oregon, but thanks to farm roads and small two lane highways, it takes over an hour to get to Portland. Often people I meet in other parts of Oregon have never heard of it. It’s rare to meet anyone in California or beyond in any other US state that has heard of the city. When I read that Steve Jobs spent time near the place I’ve called home since 2003, I did some more research.

Interesting story about an area where Jobs spent a lot of time.

iTunes Radio is bulking up its content. On Tuesday the company added First Play’s of Ray LaMontagne’s new album “SUPERNOVA” and the new Damon Albarn album “Everyday Robots.” The new “Ones to Watch 2014” station has many acts including Betty Who, The 1975, Wild Cub, Mø, London Grammar, Courtney Barnett, Chet Faker, and SOHN. […]

A huge update. I really like Marketcircle and its products—they work hard and care about what they do.

Big news today from Apple: the company is opening its OS X Beta Seed Program to its customers. In the past, you needed to be a developer to access beta builds of OS X, but as of OS X 10.9.3, released earlier today, customers can also apply for access.

Details of the new profile are available on Twitter’s Web site.

Om Malik wasn’t overly enthusiastic about the new Web site, but we’ll see how it goes.

Auto-Tune EFX 3’s new variable Retune Speed and Humanize controls provide an entirely new level of natural, realistic pitch correction. And with our unique Auto-Motion Vocal Pattern Generation, stunning new vocal effects are only a mouse click away.

I’ll be interested to see how the Humanize function helps.

Some great shots. Much respect, Apple.

Apple says there are improvements to Touch ID, a bug fix for keyboard responsiveness and a fix for using Bluetooth keyboards with VoiceOver. The update can be downloaded on your iPhone by going to Settings > General > Software Update.

This is so great.

Just as impressive is the amount of time the experts have spent on the case. Rinard said he had spent just over 800 hours on the case, for a total bill of $765,000, while Chris Vellturo, a damages expert who testified for Apple, revealed he’d been paid a stunning $2.3 million by Apple over the past few years for all his work on the case. That’s a lot of iPhones.

The jurors aren’t making quite as much money. The court provides them $40 per day with a raise to $50 per day after the 10th day of the trial.

Where do I sign up?

I must admit, the more I like at these, the more I like them.

I’ve always wanted to have a ride in an F/A-18 Hornet but not this close to other F/A-18 Hornets.

It’s a “freemium” pay model, or a “reverse paywall,” that adds features for subscribers rather than substracting them for nonsubscribers. But it still creates classes of haves and have-nots: those who have to click the “single page” button to see a story on a single page and those who don’t.

This is based on Slate’s new membership system.

Lisa Jackson, Apple’s Vice President of Environmental Initiatives, wrote a letter updating the public on the company’s progress.

The company has been meeting with potential applicants for two new positions at Apple focused exclusively on building a business around the hundreds of millions of credit cards it already has on file. Apple is seeking to fill head of product and head of business development positions, one of these people said.

The biggest thing that Apple has is trust—they have my credit card and have for years. I trust them with that information, so I would use a its payment system.

Gazelle saw iPhone trade-in volumes drop 35% compared to where they were last year on the day the Galaxy S4 launched in the U.S. Interestingly, the Galaxy S4 didn’t even go on sale at all U.S. carriers on the same day last year, so the Galaxy S5 saw fewer trade-ins from a much larger group of potential customers.

So, current Samsung owners are trading up to the new phone, but they aren’t attracting iPhone customers to trade down.

Justin Williams recently moved his Web site to Azure. Microsoft has been getting a lot of play recently with Azure hosting apps and Web sites.

This is such a great app.

Both the companies are trying to lure game developers by offering premium placement to these games on their app stores’ home pages and features lists

Considering the reports of how few people spend money on Android apps, I’d be surprised if Apple didn’t win this battle.

Apple today has added three new channels to the Apple TV lineup: A&E, The History Channel, and Lifetime. Each channel does require a cable subscription to unlock full content. At the time of launch, each channel only supports DirecTV, Verizon FiOS, and Cablevision Optimum, but the network says it will add support for more providers soon.

I always get excited about the new channels, until I see that you need a cable subscription.

If it’s real, it’s the literary find of the century. New York antiquarian booksellers Daniel Wechsler and George Koppelman believe they have found William Shakespeare’s annotated dictionary.

An incredible find.

Steven Levy gets a rare inside look at Apple’s data center in Nevada.

Typo-Painter for Adobe Photoshop will quickly become your absolute favorite plugin in your artistic toolbox! This plugin lets you create a typographic painting from any image, using any text you’d like! What’s more, it can also save your file as a vector EPS for easy editing and resizing! Now, read our lips… for a limited time only, thanks to this Mighty Deal, you can get this fantastic app for a mere $5!

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Slate:

When it was built in 1977, Citicorp Center was, at 59 stories, the seventh-tallest building in the world. You can pick it out of the New York City skyline by its 45 degree-angled top.

But it’s the base of the building that really makes the tower so unique. The bottom nine of its 59 stories are stilts.

This thing does not look sturdy. But it has to be sturdy. Otherwise they wouldn’t have built it this way.

Right?

I’ve been reading about this story for years and it’s a fascinating one of design, ethics and responsibility.