Matt Brian for The Next Web:

Pushing ahead with plans to invest $304 million in Austin, Texas, Apple has secured a deal for three large patches of land adjacent to its existing campus, which — when developed — will expand its presence in the area and result in the creation of more than 3,600 jobs.

Apple uses the Austin facilities for customer service and other operations. Apple plans to double its Austin workforce over the next ten years.

The guys at Pixelmator have posted another video of their upcoming release, this time showing the Vintage Effect in action.

Mallory Simon for CNN:

Their new crossover model the Fiat 500L boasts a whole range of accessories, but the one drawing the most attention and perhaps concerns, is their built-in espresso machine. That’s right. Forget your Starbucks runs, or trying to rush out the door to work with your homemade brew. Instead, inside your console you’ll find a “new coffee machine created in collaboration with Lavazza,” considered to be the Starbucks of Italy.

You can’t brew a cup unless the vehicle is stopped, according to Fiat. The espresso maker is a single-cup pod system. Also, Fiat hasn’t committed to bringing the pod system to its cars in the United States, so this novelty will be, to start anyway, just for Italian owners.

Chris Ziegler for The Verge:

Just over a month after Verizon announced Share Everything, AT&T is getting into the burgeoning shared data game (as it’s been saying it would) with Mobile Share, a tiered set of plans that allow subscribers to split a single bucket of gigabytes across up to ten devices with unlimited messages and voice.

Good move on AT&T’s part. It may not make sense for heavy data users, but for families looking to stretch the budget, it could make a big difference.

This was just posted to Fender’s Web site.

According to the latest data from online advertising network Chitika, Chrome for iOS currently has a market share of about 1.5% on its network. Safari, of course, continues to have a virtual monopoly on iOS browsing, but according to Chitika, Chrome continues to see moderate growth on Apple’s mobile platform. Not bad considering it’s only been out for a month.

An import ban on Motorola Android devices ordered by the US International Trade Commission is scheduled to take effect tomorrow. Motorola Mobility says it has a plan to make sure its Android phones and tablets remain available to US consumers—but the company isn’t revealing just what that plan is.

I wonder what they have up their sleeve?

David Edwards for The Raw Story:

The 7-Eleven convenience store chain is now featuring a Slurpee-type machine that dispenses mashed potatoes and gravy.

The Huffington Post on Monday confirmed that the Maggi mashed potato vending machines were beginning to show up in stores in the U.S.

I used to think the Fleshlight attachment for the iPad (NSFW) was the end of civilization, but I’m pretty sure this takes the cake.

Can’t wait to hear what Patton Oswalt has to say about this. His rant on the “KFC Failure Pile in a Sadness Bowl” is epic (NSFW language).

Fortune:

In a note to clients issued Tuesday, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster reported the results of his annual cell phone survey. The key takeaways: – Asked what phone they were going to buy next, 65% said an Apple (AAPL) iPhone, 19% said a Google Android, 6.5% said “not a smartphone,” 6% said “I don’t know,” and 2.5% said a Research in Motion Blackberry. – 94.2% of iPhone users plan to buy an iPhone for their next phone.

Eddie Makuch for GameSpot:

A third Penny Arcade Expo has been strongly hinted at, and may come to Texas capital city Austin. Speaking during the Penny Arcade Panel at Comic-Con this weekend, Penny Arcade webcomic artist Mike Krahulik responded to a fan question asking if PAX would expand to Austin, Texas, saying the company is “aggressively exploring a third PAX very near you.”

Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX, has become the major consumer gaming event of the year for residents of the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast – filled with video games, board, table and card games, and many vendors showing off new games in development and offering wares for sale.

The midwest is typically underserved by many major events, which favor coastal cities instead. So a PAX in Texas would undoubtedly attract many, many fans who aren’t willing or able to travel to the coast just to go to a show.

Checkmark is the fastest way to remind yourself of all the things you have to do in your busy life. Add location or date & time-based reminders in seconds.

I’ve been testing this app and really like it a lot.

Peter Bright for Ars Technica:

These are not touch applications, and you will not want to use them on touch systems. They’re designed for mice and they’re designed for keyboards, and making the buttons on the ribbon larger does nothing to change that fundamental fact.

This is exactly what I’ve said all along. Desktop apps do not transition to a touch-enabled environment very well at all. No matter how much Microsoft wants it to work, it’s not going to happen. This is why Apple developed touch-enabled versions of Keynote, Numbers and Pages.

Kyle Baxter:

Microsoft, then, is attempting to extend the PC into different areas through new form-factors while maintaining the PC interface (both software and hardware) as we’ve known it for its power. This fundamentally maintains the PC’s intent as we’ve known it, whereas Apple’s vision is to change it altogether.

I could not have said it better myself.

Fred Wilson:

The Yahoo! board went out and got Marissa to join the company. And they kept their mouths shut in the process and the news surprised everyone. That’s how you run a company, a board, and a process. Well done.

Agreed, Yahoo did a good job with that one. Now let’s see what Marissa can do.

Sean Buckley for Engadget:

Sick, perhaps, of denying the project, Valve has created a Linux blog to document its efforts — outlining its history with the open-source OS and making its goals public. The plan is simple: get Steam ported to Linux with full functionality, optimize Left 4 Dead to run at a respectable clip with OpenGL and port additional Valve titles.

Steam is Valve Software’s gaming technology – it lets gamers download and play major commercial releases, chat with each other, form clans and more. Originating on Windows, Steam has been available on the Mac platform since 2010.

This is big news for Linux users, who have long been left out of the party when it comes to attracting major commercial game releases, forcing users into hacks with WINE or multi-boot systems running Windows in order to get their gaming fix.

Steam isn’t a panacea, by any stretch – not all game developers and publishers use the technology – but there’s little question that it’s a powerful ecosystem in its own right. Steam on the Mac has resulted in a lot more games on OS X than would be available otherwise; hopefully it’ll result in much the same for our Linux-using friends.

Jim Tanous for The Mac Observer:

Former Apple Senior VP and head of Apple’s Mac OS X development team Bertrand Serlet is joining the board of directors at software virtualization company Parallels, the company announced early Tuesday. Mr. Serlet will take the position of a “non-executive director.”

Parallels makes virtualization software which lets Mac users install Windows and other non-Apple operating systems without having to reboot their computers using Boot Camp. The software’s been a popular way to get Windows on the Mac almost since the start of Apple’s transition from PowerPC to Intel microprocessors.

Serlet left Apple in early 2011.

A look at 28 Olympic stadiums.

Chris Breen, Macworld:

Macworld has learned that when the new Office launches, Microsoft will deliver an update to Office for Mac 2011. With this update, Office for Mac licenses can count as part of an Office 365 Home Premium subscription, making it possible to access your Office documents in the cloud.

There will also be Office Mobile for iOS.

Andrew Ross Sorkin and Evelyn M. Rusli for the New York Times:

Marissa Mayer, one of the top executives at Google, will be the next C.E.O. of Yahoo, making her one of the most prominent women in Silicon Valley and corporate America.

The appointment of Ms. Mayer, who was employee No. 20 at Google and was one of the few public faces of the company, is considered a surprising coup for Yahoo, which has struggled in recent years to attract top flight talent in its battle with competitors like Google and Facebook.

Yahoo’s previous CEO, Scott Thompson, resigned in May after a shareholder showed that he’d lied about his academic credentials. That CEO office has had a lot of turnover in the past decade, though, so Mayer certainly has her work cut out for her.

Tarmo Virki for Reuters:

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd increased its lead over Apple Inc and Nokia Oyj in the global cellphone market in the second quarter, helped by strong demand and large marketing campaigns for its latest flagship model, the Galaxy S III, according to a Reuters poll.

Samsung and Apple have been neck-and-neck for several quarters in the battle to be the largest smartphone vendor, but the May launch of the new Samsung model created a clear gap between the two, the poll of 41 analysts showed.

Of course, the poll is of analysts, whose numbers may be wildly off, so take it all with a grain of salt. Apple’s offerings are getting long in the tooth, even though they’re selling very strongly, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens later this year, ostensibly when Apple introduces a new iPhone model.

Lord, who co-wrote many of the group’s legendary songs including Smoke On The Water, had been receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer since last August.He co-founded Deep Purple in 1968 and also played with bands including Whitesnake during his career.

Well, the kid didn’t pass the test, but he got an A+ for creativity.

You never saw Woody like this in Toy Story.

Composed of 40 fraternities, Muxi offers its users a platform where they can share their experience, ask questions, find colleagues and more generally connect with people doing the same job.

Not the first professional social network, but they seem to be incorporating some of the things that have worked in other networks. It’ll be interesting to watch.

Mother nature can be scary.