With its bigger, excellent Retina display and a still-unmatched app store, the iPad still has the edge over the Nexus 7. But if you want a tablet in a smaller package for a lot less money, the Nexus 7 is worth thinking about.

First intelligent thing they’ve said in years.

“Our role is to imagine products that don’t exist and guide them to life,” he told the jury.

As opposed to Samsung, who look at products that do exist and copy them.

Alexandra Chang for Wired:

On the same day the Obama campaign launched its iOS app Obama for America, the Romney campaign released a smartphone app Tuesday that provides an alert the moment Mitt announces his Vice Presidential candidate. Aptly named “Mitt’s VP,” the iOS and Android app will be the first place to find out who will run alongside the presumptive Republican presidential candidate.

We’ll see if this works out any better in practice than the Obama campaign’s attempt in 2008, when they offered to notify phone users of his running mate choice by text message but were beaten to the punch by the New York Times.

The free app is available for iOS and Android.

They decided to get some “man on the street” comments from tourists in front of Buckingham Palace, and one of them was Evander Holyfield! Blink and you’ll miss him—Holyfield thought the segment was “wonderful”—but the NBC crew didn’t seem to recognize the former world heavyweight champ (and Olympic medalist).

Great coverage NBC.

Julien’s Auctions, the world’s premier sports and entertainment auction house, announces the auction of exclusive Property From The Life and Career of Evander Holyfield, an unprecedented array of boxing memorabilia, household items, vehicles, jewelry and personal property being offered at auction on Friday, November 30th, 2012. This historic collection of memorabilia from the world’s only five-time heavyweight champion in boxing history.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin unfurl the first U.S. flag on the moon. Of the six flags planted, this is the only one that does not remain upright.

Arnold Kim:

Apple has quietly launched a Hulu Plus channel on Apple TV this morning.

You have to reboot for the channel to appear.

Sarah Frier for Bloomberg:

“They’re [Apple] more in a dictatorship mode where they say, ‘This is what you have to do or you don’t get the iPhone,’” Vasyl Latsanych, the Russian company’s vice president of marketing, said at the event. “Being arrogant with your partners in big markets doesn’t pay off.”

Latsanych works for MTS, Russia’s biggest regional cell phone carrier. Latsanych complains about the phone’s cost and about Apple’s requirements that “the carrier’s retail locations meet its standards, imposing additional burdens.”

Some great stuff.

iMore has learned that Apple is planning to debut the new iPhone at a special event on Wednesday, September 12, 2012, with the release date to follow 9 days later on Friday, September 21.

Yep.

The microblogging service suspended Guy Adams, the Los Angeles correspondent for London-based daily The Independent, after he sent a tweet on Friday revealing NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel’s email address.

The solution is simple — just don’t suck so bad, NBC.

Stories now include inline links as well as the “Sources” at the end of the article. Good. Justin Ellis and Joshua Benton from Nieman Journalism Lab have the details.

Steven Sande:

Samsung attempted to show how certain iPhone prototypes were influenced by Sony designs. However, Judge Lucy Koh ruled yesterday that Samsung’s lawyers could not bring up the topic in opening arguments.

Let the games begin.

BuzzMachine:

Reading the #nbcfail hashtag has been at least as entertaining as much of NBC’s coverage of the Olympics. It’s also enlightening — economically enlightening.The people formerly known as the audience have a voice and boy are they using it to complain about NBC’s tape delays of races and the opening ceremonies, about its tasteless decision to block the UK tribute to its 7/7 victims, and about its commentators’ idiocies.The counterargument has been an economic one: NBC has to maximize commercial revenue, which means maximizing prime time viewership, to recoup the billions paid for the rights to broadcast, billions that pay for the stadiums and security and ceremony. The argument is also made that NBC’s strategy is working because it is getting record ratings.

What do you think? Are you watching the Olympics live, either on TV or online? Or are you waiting for the evening recaps? Thanks to Dan Frakes for the link.

The Telegraph:

Apple might be the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalisation of $556bn, but its design chief insists it is not in it for the money.Sir Jonathan Ive, whose personal fortune stands at an estimated at $130m, said yesterday that Apple’s guiding principle was nothing to do with its balance sheet, and that it simply wanted to make “great products”. “Our goal isn’t to make money. Our goal absolutely at Apple is not to make money. This may sound a little flippant but it’s the truth,” said the British designer.

Adam Engst:

But it’s important to distinguish the marketing discussion of new features from release notes about precisely what has changed, and one change might have escaped your notice: the elimination of the Web Sharing options in the Sharing pane of System Preferences.

Adam gives a couple of suggestions on how to bring the feature back for those that need it.

Dan Pearson for GamesIndustry.biz:

The ESA has confirmed that E3 will remain in the city of Los Angeles for at least the next three years, with next year’s show taking place from “June 11-13, 2013, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, L.A. LIVE and a plethora of venues throughout downtown Los Angeles and the City.”

The annual video game trade show is a huge gathering for the industry and a big media event too. But the city of Los Angeles plans extensive renovations to convention center facility in order to accommodate a new sports stadium. As recently as last month the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which puts on the E3 show, had indicated that it might leave Los Angeles all together unless they received assurances on a number of issues ranging from square footage to signage.

Non-media are asked to write in a “diary-type format” and “not in the role of a journalist.” They “must not report on competition or comment on the activities of other participants,” which sounds like a pretty dull diary. Athletes and others who take pictures inside the Olympic Village are supposed to get the subjects’ permission before sharing anything.

So when it came time in the opening ceremony for something that has been widely interpreted as a tribute to the 52 victims of terrorist attacks in London in 2005, it’s not shocking NBC didn’t see lingering on that as helping its overall marketing effort. When asked why NBC didn’t show the memorial, NBC spokesman Greg Hughes on Saturday said only that “our programming is tailored for the U.S. audience. It’s a tribute to (opening ceremony producer) Danny Boyle that it required so little editing.”

Kara Swisher:

Apple and Twitter did do some courting, but it was a while back, so the Journal was right.

Twitter don’t need the dough — it has a big amount of money in its kitty, so the Times was right.

Nothing to see here.

Some stunning pictures from the 2012 Olympic Games.

John Moltz weighs in on Apple’s new ads.

Not Apple’s best effort.

Between tours, gold and platinum albums, licensing deals, and merchandise—not to mention presumed medical care spending—the Rolling Stones are a virtual economic engine that’s been going strong for 50 years. And, with rumors of an upcoming anniversary tour, they show few signs of slowing down. Here are a few ways to break down their inexhaustible output.

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The Igloo team is always working to make their platform better. In fact, they update the platform every 90 days. Pearl, Igloo’s latest software update, instantly brings over 20 new features to every Igloo customer. Updates include social content archiving, support for multi-lingual content, instant translations of user generated content and social analytics.

Igloo for teams starts at just $99 a month for up to 25 users.

You can also sign-up to win a Krups Heineken tap of your very own.

A special poem for Peter.

CNN:

The first world records of the London 2012 Olympics have been set by a blind South Korean archer — hours before Friday’s much-anticipated opening ceremony was due to begin.

Im Dong Hyun is legally classified as blind and cannot see out of his right eye, but it did not stop the two-time gold medalist bettering his own leading 72-arrow score in the qualification competition at Lord’s cricket ground in the British capital.

Pretty remarkable! The guy can’t read a newspaper very well but he can still make the arrow hit its mark. Good for him!