Where the hell is the beer?

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Dana Mattiolo for the Wall Street Journal:

Orbitz Worldwide Inc. has found that people who use Apple Inc.’s Mac computers spend as much as 30% more a night on hotels, so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see.

Orbitz says that users can overcome the issue by ranking results by price. If this leaves as nasty a taste in your mouth as it does in mine, though, the better solution might be to skip Orbitz all together in favor of a different site that doesn’t discriminate based on your platform. (The article suggests that Expedia, Priceline and Travelocity do not, by the way.)

Byron Kutchera and Ian Fleming (my daughter’s longtime boyfriend) are premiering their DVD this Friday. They are having a Facebook event as well. Very talented guys.

Kyle Baxter on building products to last:

The issue is that the computing industry, and especially the mobile computing industry, are developing very quickly, so hardware and software that’s as good as it gets today simply won’t be in a year’s time.

Good point.

Dilbert.

Karen Haslam:

Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak has spoken out about his recent visit to the founder of MegaUpload, who is currently under house arrest. Woz accused the US government of a “poorly thought out attempt to extradite” MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom, with prosecutors “attempting to take advantage of loopholes.”

I love seeing schools using the latest technology to teach students.

Sales at restaurants, stores and other outfits rose 7.5 % between December and March compared to the same time frame ending in March 2011, Nancy Marshall, director of Grand Central development at the MTA, said.

[Via Techie Buzz]

I agree with Gruber on this.

The U.S. International Trade Commission said it will review ITC Judge Thomas Pender’s findings that Apple was violating one Motorola Mobility patent. The commission is scheduled to issue a final decision on Aug. 24, and has the power to block devices made in Asia from entering the U.S. The iPhone, iPad and related devices generate 78 percent of Apple’s revenue.

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The stock closed at $9.11 on the Nasdaq. The 7.6 percent fall is its steepest since late May, when it said it expected to report an operating loss for its fiscal first quarter and said it had hired investment bankers as part of a strategic review.

SHOOT IT ALREADY!

I just finished reading TechCrunch Managing Editor Peter Ha’s “The Future Of Microsoft Is Sunny With A Chance Of Thunderstorms,” which is his take on the Microsoft Surface announcement. I wanted to reach out and strangle him when he said the iPad is a consumption, not a creation device though.

Overall, this is probably the most balanced article I’ve read on the subject.

I’ll admit it, I laughed.

I’ll be honest, I had no idea you could do this.

[Via DF]

I’ve never owned a V, but that looks really nice.

Sounds to me like this is a no-brainer purchase.

Our team has been working hard to bring your most-requested features to the Gmail app for iOS. Today, we’re excited to add three new improvements to that list of updates: full notification center support, the ability to send messages from your alternate email addresses and an improved login experience.

Rags Srinivasan:

If Apple sees no change in total number of units sold from the current quarter, this ASP bump will still result in a minimum additional profit of $200 million. If you include net new purchases and higher percentage up-sells, this number could easily become $1 billion in additional profit.

A good bit of humor on a Monday. I especially like the “Find My Socks” feature.

The report mentions Facebook and Amazon as potential buyers, but on Sunday several people close to RIM dismissed the news as “a silly fantasy,” and “one of the most ridiculous ideas I have heard in a while.”

The Globe and Mail’s headline says that “RIM dismisses report of splitting firm in two,” but that’s not actually true. It’s unnamed sources that said that.

So if they’re not going to split the company, how about just shutting it down.

Marketing Land:

After seeing yet another “hands-on” review of the Microsoft Surface tablet, I thought it would be interesting to shed more light on what exactly the journalists who assembled in Hollywood this week for the Surface launch event actually got to do with the tablets. In short, not a lot. Come along as I explain the hands-off reality of what I saw.

Nice to see someone calling a spade a spade. No matter what you’ve read, none of the assembled media got any real “hands on” with the Surface.

Our Mac and iOS support has now become so mainstream that we realized we just don’t need to keep Mac news on its own blog, so we won’t be posting here any longer.

The Verge:

In US federal court this evening, Judge Richard Posner just ruled that the case of Apple v. Motorola will be dismissed in its entirety. The case, in which Apple alleged Motorola was in violation of four of its patents and Motorola was left with one claim in return (the patent counts had originally been higher on both sides), had been in litigation since 2010, most recently with a hearing in Chicago this past Wednesday.

Renena Joy talked to iPhone in Canada about how she uses the iPad as a learning tool for her daughter.

David Roth:

I would argue that, in many instances, the record companies’ desire to force people to buy (or rent) music in a way that contradicts their desires as consumers “justifies” (in the users’ minds) the continued stealing.

Great post.

Om Malik:

Google is very likely to launch a cloud services platform at its annual developer conference, Google I/O next week in San Francisco. It was one of the topics of discussion in the hallways of our Structure 2012 conference. We have since confirmed with multiple sources who are familiar with Google’s plans which include a more comprehensive offering that its current app engine and storage offerings.

This will be very interesting.