Also: Samsung unveils new Galaxy S IV; inside Microsoft's poor Surface tablet sales.
Dropbox buys Mailbox, an app with some buzz [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
"We felt we could help Mailbox reach a much different audience much faster," said Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, who said both companies shared the goal of making people's lives easier.
He said Dropbox will keep the Mailbox service running as a stand-alone app, and over time Dropbox will also use Mailbox's technology to enhance Dropbox features, like email attachments. The deal came together, he said, after the companies started talking about email attachments a few months ago.
Samsung unveils the Galaxy S IV [CNNMONEY]
The Guts: The Galaxy S IV sports a five-inch screen with incredibly high resolution. The 1920x1080 pixel display is as good as you're going to find on any smartphone right now (HTC, LG, and Sony all have similar displays as well).
But it doesn't feel overly big. The Galaxy S IV's bezel occupies so little space, the smartphone isn't much bigger than its predecessor, the 4.8-inch Galaxy S III.
Q&A with Samsung's mobile chief [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
WSJ: What about your relationship with Microsoft? Has it changed after Nokia began to work more closely with Microsoft on Windows devices?
Mr. Shin: Smartphones and tablets based on Microsoft's Windows operating system aren't selling very well. There is a preference in the market for Android. In Europe, we're also seeing lackluster demand for Windows-based products.
Larry Page shuffles management, product groups at Google [FORTUNE]
On Wednesday, Page announced that Sundar Pichai, the senior vice president in charge of Chrome and apps, was also taking over Android, as the founder and leader of that unit, Andy Rubin, would be stepping aside. On Thursday, Google confirmed a report in the Wall Street Journal that Jeff Huber, who headed maps, commerce, and payments, would be moving to the company's skunk works unit, Google X. As a result, the mapping efforts are being merged with the search group, under the leadership of Alan Eustace, and the commerce and payments initiatives are folded into the advertising products unit, headed by Susan Wojcicki. (The other two product area leaders of the L-team are Vic Gundotra, who oversees Google+, and Salar Kamangar, who is in charge of YouTube.)
Microsoft's Surface tablet is said to fall short of predictions [BLOOMBERG]
The poor reception for Surface, unveiled last year, adds to challenges facing Microsoft's Windows unit, which brings in a quarter of the company's revenue. The devices are Microsoft's first direct attempt to grab a slice of the surging market for tablets, seeking to take on Google Inc. and Apple Inc. and prove that Windows has a place in a world of touch screens and smartphone applications. That hasn't happened so far, said Alex Gauna, an analyst at JMP Securities LLC in San Francisco.
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Also: Microsoft's Surface gets priced; Apple to unveil the iPad mini Oct. 23?
Apple event set for Oct. 23. Investors await the iPad mini [FORTUNE]
If the price were right, a smaller tablet that could run 700,000 iOS apps -- 250,000 of them customized for the iPad -- would be, in the words of Sterne Agee's Shaw Wu, the "competition's worst nightmare."
UberTAXI in NYC shutting down for now [UBER BLOG]
Unfortunately, as many MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Oct 17, 2012 6:30 AM ET
Apple's ongoing quest to conquer TV; a new survey reveals our increasing dependency on phones.
Apple's new front in battle for TV [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
Apple is in talks with some of the biggest U.S. cable operators about letting consumers use an Apple device as a set-top box for live television and other content, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks represent Apple's most ambitious crack at infiltrating the living room MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Aug 16, 2012 1:24 PM ET
Apple's latest laptops feature an extremely crisp screen -- and PC makers are likely rushing to follow suit. Problem is, most people might not really be able to tell the difference.
FORTUNE -- We always want our gadgets to be better. At one time, that meant a push for the fastest processor, better RAM, more hard drive space. Then the MacBook Air arrived, and attention turned to thinner and lighter notebooks. MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jul 3, 2012 10:06 AM ET
The secret to Reddit's massive success; 3 reasons why Microsoft's Surface warrants a serious look.
YouTube's gigantic year is already here, Citi says [ALLTHINGSD]
The video site should generate more than $3.6 billion in gross revenue this year, says Citi's Mark Mahaney. After distributing some of that to partners, Google probably records net revenue of $2.4 billion, he says.
How Reddit got huge: Tons of fake accounts [MOTHERBOARD]
But in terms of power, not traffic, MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jun 22, 2012 1:10 PM ET
LCD TV shipments fall for the first time; Microsoft kept its Surface tablet under wraps, even from PC partners.
NPD: Global LCD TV shipments fall for first time [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
Global television shipments fell 8% in the first quarter from a year earlier, as LCD-TV volume posted its first year-over-year drop, according to research firm NPD Group. LCD TV shipments fell 3% to 43.1 million units from a year earlier and MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jun 20, 2012 12:16 PM ET