These are very cool.

This robust expansion covers the entire scope of time from founding your first Pantheon of the Gods and spreading religion across the world, to deploying your spies in enemy cities in order to steal information and technology.

Sam Grobart for The New York Times:

Microsoft’s answer to this question seems to be: “Of course you can!” The new Surface runs Windows — either a lightweight, tablet-friendly Windows RT version or the original gangster Windows 8. It has a keyboard. The Pro version has a stylus.

Usually with these stupid articles, I highlight a paragraph for the readers. With this one, I could have just put brackets around the whole thing.

Sam, Microsoft and its partners tried the tablet-as-a-PC-replacement thing for a decade and it didn’t work. Consumers didn’t like it because tablet computing is different than desktop computing.

Apple knows that it’s different and so do consumers — it’s time Sam and Microsoft faced that too.

Well, here it is if you’re interested.

Jessica E. Vascellaro for Wall Street Journal:

Paul Dunahoo went on a business trip to San Francisco last week, where he attended technical sessions at Apple Inc.’s AAPL +2.03% developer conference, networked with other programmers and received feedback from Apple engineers on his six productivity apps.

Then, Mr. Dunahoo, chief executive of Bread and Butter Software LLC, returned to Connecticut to get ready for the eighth grade.

For the first time this year, Apple opened up WWDC to the 13-17 year old set by providing student scholarships. They even set up a special area for them at the show. The 150 teens joined other underaged developers who attended the show. Most of them were attracted to it by their experience developing apps for iOS.

Andrew Wallenstein for Variety:

CBS has emerged the winner of a bidding war for the pilot of a primetime gameshow based on the Zynga mobile game “Draw Something” from Sony Pictures Television, Ryan Seacrest Prods. and Embassy Row.

The pilot is in development, but that doesn’t mean the show will actually be broadcast (yet).

Draw Something made a huge splash earlier this year – the game pairs players who take turns drawing pictures based on clues, then guessing the clue based on the picture. Unfortunately Draw Something hasn’t sustained the same huge interest as it saw at the outset – many players have cast it aside for more novel game experiences.

Will Draw Something have any staying power as a game show? We’ll see.

Reuters:

Ebrahim was part of a so-called expert-network ring where some employees of specialized firms such as Primary Global Research (PGR) helped funnel corporate secrets from consultants at companies to hedge funds.

It must have been pretty easy to calculate RIM’s sales figures.

Gruber got this right calling the Netflix API changes a “huge shit sandwich.”

Neil Hughes:

Developers were asked to indicate, on a scale of one to 10, how difficult it might be for them to change their applications for the new screen sizes. On average, developers at WWDC said the difficulty would be just a 3.4 out of 10, suggesting they don’t see it as a major issue.

I’m not a developer, so I don’t know how difficult this would be, but if they’re not worried, neither am I.

“After investigating isolated reports of WiFi connectivity issues in the HTC One X, we have identified a fix that strengthens the area of the phone around the WiFi antennae connection points.”

I’m sure Consumer Reports is all over this.

Sidecar re-imagines the traditional phone call for your smartphone.

Sidecar lets you call and share:

• See What I See Video: Share amazing real-time videos.

• Photos: Snap brilliant pictures, or share photos from the phone’s gallery.

• Locations: See where you are in relation to others, and share locations.

• Contact: Information: Pass along and integrate contacts from their phone’s address book.

• Whisper Text: Send a private text message to another Sidecar user during a call.

And the price is unbeatable:

• Sidecar users can call each other anywhere in the world for free

• Sidecar users can call regular phones numbers in the US or Canada for free over Wi-Fi.

Download the app for free in the App Store:

Available for iPhone, iPad and Mac. I can’t wait to try this out.

No matter which version you choose, you’ll get Slash’s apocalyptic signature sounds and tones. From the Marshall® JCM Slash Silver Jubilee to the Slash signature “Wah-Distortion” pedal, rest assured they’re all Slash certified and approved. We worked closely with Slash in reproducing the sounds that inspire the legendary player himself, and the sound quality you’ve come to expect from AmpliTube.

The Telegraph:

Rock music such as Jimi Hendrix-style electric guitar excites us because it recreates the sound of primal distress calls and “brings out the animal in us”, scientists claim.

Works for me.

This is hilarious. Joseph Rooks made a Tumblr blog where people can download my beard and put it on other people.

Much respect Joseph.

Vlad Savov for The Verge:

Linus Torvalds isn’t someone you’d accuse of excessive diplomacy and his answer to a question about Nvidia’s lack of support for Linux with its Optimus technology has been far from compromising. When posed with that query during a Q&A session at Aalto University in Finland, Torvalds begins by identifying Nvidia as “the single worst company we’ve ever dealt with” and goes on to give his assessment of its actions with a resolute “fuck you” and an accompanying middle finger gesture to the camera.

Nvidia’s Optimus is power-saving technology designed to enable the computer to swap between the GPU and integrated graphics on the motherboard. At least part of Torvalds’ frustration may be that Nvidia is now a member of The Linux Foundation, ostensibly to better support its technology in Linux. Yet Optimus technology only works partially, thanks to reverse-engineered drivers developed by the community itself. Nvidia has been AWOL.

Nvidia rival AMD provides open source support for its own GPU-switching technology.

Such power-saving tech has been a cornerstone of Mac (and Windows) hardware and software for a while now. Torvalds’ frustration is understandable under the circumstances, but either way, it’s one less problem we OS X users have to deal with.

Many thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring The Loop.

This is Piezo:

Piezo helps you record any audio on your Mac. Whether you want to record a Skype conversation, save a streaming radio program, or just record a quick voice memo, Piezo can do it. It runs on Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7 and it can capture audio from any application (yup, even sandboxed App Store apps).

Download Piezo free, then buy it in the App Store or directly through our store.

TIME:

It’s one of the many great things about the NHL’s Stanley Cup: Every member of the winning team gets to keep the trophy for a full day. What they do with it is for the most part their business, so long as they stay on the right side of the law.So it’s hard not to watch this video of Los Angeles Kings captain Dustin Brown’s children, Jake and Mason, drinking chocolate milk out of the gigantic trophy’s cup without imagining the gigantic awwwws going up from all corners of the Internet.

There’s great history and tradition that goes along with the Stanley Cup (did you know players whose names aren’t on the Cup won’t touch it or be photographed with it?) and the idea each player gets the Cup for a day to share with friends, family and fans is certainly one of them.

Jordan Crook for TechCrunch:

Despite the rapid growth of the smartphone market (41 percent YOY, to be exact), Samsung and Apple are the only smartphone makers really enjoying this growth. Combined, they took home 55 percent of global smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2012. More importantly, they’re walking away with 90 percent of the market’s profits.

In case you were wondering why Apple and Samsung are at such loggerheads, it’s only partly over patent issues. Right now these are the two companies with the most to win or lose in the market, so it makes sense that they fight tooth and nail for every advantage over each other.

Ars Technica:

Though the new 15″ Retina MacBook Pro has probably garnered the most attention this week, Apple did refresh its existing MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines. If you’re in the market for a 13″ model, it can be tough to decide between the Air or Pro, especially since prices for both start at $1199.In what follows, we explore the general ramifications of the difference between the two, for those of you who can’t wait for a more in-depth examination. This is only going to be part of the story, but our two lead characters reveal most other hand by their specs alone.

If we gave you the money (we’re not going to so don’t ask), which one would you choose?

Macworld Lab Test:

The MacBook Air models rolled out as part of this week’s complete overhaul to Apple’s laptop line include next-generation Intel processors, faster integrated graphics, and USB 3.0 connectivity. And the latest models show a marked increase in performance, according to Macworld Lab’s tests.

Small, sexy, powerful – what more could you want?

Forbes:

The Apple Store pays attention to every detail. You might think that Apple positions all its notebook computers for aesthetic reasons. That’s partly true.The tables are uncluttered and the products are clean. But the main reason notebook computers screens are slightly angled is to encourage customers to adjust the screen to their ideal viewing angle—in other words, to touch the computer!

I know some people who work in this division. They are completely insane about these kinds of details. One of the reasons why the Apple Store experience is so special and unique.

The New York Times:

Time Inc., once the magazine industry’s most ardent opponent of selling subscriptions through Apple, will make all of its magazines available via Apple’s newsstand, the two companies said.Laura Lang, Time Inc.’s chief executive, and Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president for Internet software and services, said in a phone interview that they had reached an agreement that would allow readers to subscribe to 20 Time Inc. magazines, including People, Sports Illustrated, InStyle and Entertainment Weekly, through the newsstand section of Apple’s App Store.

For those of us who still cling to our dead tree issues, this may be another step towards no longer needing to.

Joel Mathis for Macworld:

Go ahead and grab the new MacBook Pro with Retina display, but be warned: It might be a little while before most of your apps look as sharp as the screen showing them.

While Apple is already updating its own apps for Retina display, officials with third-party developers Adobe and Autodesk said they’ll need time to ship Retina-optimized apps to the public. Their Photoshop and AutoCAD applications, respectively, were shown in Retina form during Apple’s Monday keynote at WWDC, along with Diablo III from Blizzard Entertainment.

I expect that we’ll see a similar buildout as we did with iPad Retina Display-optimized apps last year. It shouldn’t be too long, but if you bought a spiffy new Retina Display-equipped MacBook Pro at an Apple Store this week or have one on order, you might experience just a wee bit of frustration as developers struggle to catch up.

Neil Hughes for AppleInsider:

The ability of third-party developers to create transit apps for iOS 6 was highlighted by Apple’s iOS software chief Scott Forstall at Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. He noted that a new application programming interface for transit apps to interface with Maps is a part of iOS 6.

“When building Maps, we looked around and realized the best transit apps for metros, for hiking, for biking, are coming from our developers,” Forstall told developers. “And so instead of trying to develop those ourselves, we are going to integrate and feature and promote your apps for transit right within the Maps app in iOS 6.”

Apple has been rightly criticized in the past for adding features to their operating system software that effectively kills the market for third-party applications that filled that gap before. So it’s good to see Forstall and Apple recognize an opportunity to help third-party developers fill the gap.

Still, if I were just getting started developing a transit app today, I might be concerned that somewhere down the road in the not too distant future, Apple might try to fill this gap themselves.

Edmond Lococo for Bloomberg:

A Chinese court will delay its decision on Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s appeal of a ruling denying its ownership of the iPad trademark in China to let the company pursue mediation with Proview Technology (Shenzhen) Co.

The procedural delay gives Apple time to work out a deal with Proview. Proview says it owns the iPad trademark in China; Apple says it licensed the brand name from Proview. Proview contends that Apple negotiated the license with its Taiwanese subsidiary instead. A Proview technology lawyer says that Apple has offered Proview a settlement, but that a “big gap” exists between the two sides.

Proview is desperate for capital. The company’s stock stopped trading in 2010 and its creditors have demanded it file for bankruptcy.