Simon Cowell wants to find the next Mark Zuckerberg; why Apple "Mapgate" is over.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison wants to take on Amazon with its own public infrastructure as a service (IaaS) business.
Shocker! Oracle takes on Amazon with all-Oracle-all-the-time cloud [GIGAOM]
Oracle cloud will use "our OS, our VM, our compute services and storage services on the fastest most reliable systems in the world — our engineered systems, Exadata, Exalogic, Exalytics, all linked with Infiniband," Ellison told thousands of Oracle customers, partners and others at San Francisco's Moscone Center Sunday night. For banks and other companies with requirements to run infrastructure in house, Oracle will offer a private cloud based on the exact same technology and run and manage it customer data centers, Ellison said.
Simon Cowell and Will.i.am are teaming up to create an X Factor to find the next Mark Zuckerberg [TECHCRUNCH]
Details are sparse on when the show will debut and the exact format, but if the tech-focused show is anything like X Factor, it sounds like would-be entrepreneurs will be pitching their ideas to an all-star panel of judges. It also appears that the show will be based in the UK.
As Will.i.am told The Sun, "Singing and performance create a couple of jobs. But this will create lots…It's about getting in touch with youth and giving them a platform to express themselves — whether that's in science or mathematics."
Mapgate is over. Apple won. Customers won. Google, not so much. [PANDODAILY]
There was no better way for Apple to have handled this royal screw-up. I was not expecting it. I'd grown used to another, more aloof Apple, the sort of company that apologizes as a last resort, and even then makes you feel bad for it. In other words, I'd grown used to Steve Jobs' Apple. This note illustrates that Tim Cook's Apple is a more clear-eyed, pragmatic, and—not that it's important, but it's not nothing—a nicer place.
Facebook's new pitch to brand advertisers: forget about the clicks [REUTERS]
Fewer than 1 percent of in-store sales tied to brand advertising campaigns on Facebook come from people who clicked on an ad, according to a new study that Facebook has conducted through a partnership with Datalogix, a data mining firm that tracks real world retail sales.
"We ended up in this world where the click is king," said Brad Smallwood, Facebook's head of measurement and insights, who will present some of Facebook's findings at one of the advertising industry's biggest conferences in New York on Monday.
The Paperwhite is a great ereader, and the superb screen quality, easy-to-use frontlight, and improved capacitive controls make it an easy choice. The only reason to not get it would be if you really love physical buttons, in which case you should probably look to the Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight, which is now $120—in line with the Paperwhite's Special Offers model. Otherwise, the Kindle Paperwhite is the best ereader out there.
YOU GUESSED IT: We switched to iPhone yesterday [POLITICO PLAYBOOK]
BlackBerry was amazing over several jobs and three presidents. We have had one for so long that we remember the days when people would say: "Your calculator is ringing." ... But BlackBerry stopped serving us: The last several models we tried would freeze all the time, held only a couple of photos, and were set for some foreign alphabet, producing odd automatic MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Jun 8, 2012 10:34 AM ET
Fortune's curated selection of tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the round-up delivered to you each and every day.
* As All Things D first reported, expect Yahoo (YHOO) to lay off thousands of employees tomorrow, largely from from the company's international division. (All Things D via PandoDaily)
* Oracle (ORCL) and Google (GOOG) are going to trial in two weeks. The former is suing the latter over Java-related patents and technology that appear in Google's popular MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Apr 3, 2012 12:06 PM ET
Fortune's curated selection of tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the round-up delivered to you each and every day.
* In a new report, Consumer Reports says Apple's (AAPL) new iPad can run as hot as 116 degrees while running some games -- 10 degrees warmer than its predecessor. This in turn caused somewhat of a kerfuffle in the tech blogosphere, with some outlets conducting independent tests of their own, some MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Mar 21, 2012 3:30 AM ET
Fortune's curated selection of newsworthy tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the round-up delivered to you every day.
"People like to talk about war. ... Google, I think, in some ways, is more competitive and certainly is trying to build their own little version of Facebook." -- Mark Zuckerberg on Charlie Rose (Business Insider)
* Besides appearing on Charlie Rose recently with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Zuckerberg also MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Nov 8, 2011 3:30 AM ET
Fortune's curated selection of newsworthy tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to you every day.
* After months of intense speculation, Apple (AAPL) and CEO Tim Cook announced the comparably-priced iPhone 4S for AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ) and Sprint (S), with the same dual-core processor featured in the iPad, an improved 8-megapixel camera, a major operating system update in iOS5, and Siri, a voice recognition "assistant" MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Oct 5, 2011 3:30 AM ET
The board sealed the fate of HP's personal systems group when it hired the CEO of SAP
What the hell happened to Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) last week?
The simplest explanation is the one suggested Thursday by Techcrunch's MG Siegler and picked up Sunday by Daring Fireball's John Gruber: HP's board put an enterprise software guy in charge of a low-margin PC business and a high-risk play to outflank Apple (AAPL) in smartphones and tablets. When MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Aug 22, 2011 8:02 AM ETJim Goodnight, CEO of software maker SAS, talks about a changing competitive environment, rising medical costs for employees, and the company's succession plans.
FORTUNE -- Software maker SAS gets a lot of love for its laid-back corporate culture (it ranked No. 1 on Fortune's Best Companies to Work For list in both 2010 and 2011). But no amount of on-site massages, car washes and Zumba classes can alleviate the increasing pressure MORE
Michal Lev-Ram, writer - Jul 15, 2011 9:53 AM ET
A change in sales strategy is behind a drop-off in revenues, but Mark Hurd says it's all in service of more profit down the line.
FORTUNE -- Mark Hurd may have an impressive track record selling hardware for his former employer, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). But that hasn't translated to immediate success at Oracle Corporation (ORCL), where Hurd now serves as president. The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company's hardware business fell short of expectations in an MORE
Michal Lev-Ram, writer - Jun 24, 2011 12:27 PM ET
Is Oracle getting into the acqhiring game?
FORTUNE -- Oracle's (ORCL) acquisition of FatWire is all about the company putting itself in front of end customers. That is, it's more or less a retail play.
FatWire is a "customer experience management company," which means that it helps businesses make their online services work better. Its products include content management, community forums, mobile platforms and the like. ReadWriteWeb says Oracle is "deepening its MORE
Dan Mitchell, contributor - Jun 22, 2011 12:28 PM ET