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Today Google has their final logo for the Olympics, the London 2012 closing ceremony logo (aka Doodle). It is a nice basic Doodle but I wanted to share all the past logos from Google over the past couple weeks…

Today Google has their final logo for the Olympics, the London 2012 closing ceremony logo (aka Doodle). It is a nice basic Doodle but I wanted to share all the past logos from Google over the past couple weeks.

Google had logos for Open Ceremony, archery, diving, fencing, rings, hockey, rafting, tennis, shot put, pole vault, synchronized swimming, hurdles, basketball, slalom canoe, soccer/football, rhythmic gymnastics and today’s closing ceremony. The hurdles, basketball, slalom canoe, soccer/football logos were all addictive interactive logos that probably wasted countless hours of employee productivity.

Here are all the logos on one page…

Google Closing Ceremony Logo:

Opening Ceremony:

Archery:

Diving:

Fencing:

Rings:

Hockey:

Table Tennis:

Shot Put:

Pole Vault:

Synchronized Swimming:

Javelin:

Hurdles (interactive):

Basketball (interactive):

Slalom Canoe (interactive):

Soccer (interactive):

Rhythmic Gymnastics:

Google Closing Ceremony Logo:

Een paar weken geleden doken al wat specs en foto’s op van een nieuwe Sony Xperia smartphone. Nu zijn daar een hele sloot, veel betere, kiekjes bijgekomen. Het toestel in kwestie is de Xperia T, ook bekend als de LT30i Mint. Die zal naar alle……

If you’re looking to upgrade your router, you won’t likely go wrong with the Asus RT-N66u (aka, “Dark Knight”). The dual-band RT-N66u not only tops the charts for speed, it has an excellent long range and supports custom firmware like DD-WRT and Tomato. More »

Louis Vuitton's Core Values campaign isn't just about classy celebrity photos. Well, OK, it kind of is. But the fashion brand knocks it out of the park with its latest effort in the campaign—a tribute to Muhammad Ali by Ogilvy France, Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) and Niels Shoe Meulman. Bey's charming recitations of Ali's classic interviews mesh well with graphic designer Meulman splashing ink all over a boxing ring for what turns out to be really sharp calligraphy. It's a great visual metaphor for how a handsome, quick-witted poet like Ali stood out in the gritty, messy sport of professional boxing. The campaign also includes a print ad in which Ali, 70, poses with one of his grandsons, seen wearing boxing gloves. When you recall how pretty Ali always said he was, he's not so out of place in a Louis Vuitton ad. Second spot after the jump.

Burf aka Simon Burfield is an iOS programmer and Lego experimenter who tries to take building blocks to the next level. Interestingly, if this wild rideable Lego wheelchair is any indication, he’s left the next level and is now firmly in the distant future.

Made with 12 Lego NXT motors and 12 multi-directional wheels, this carefully designed prototype can carry around a 198 pound person and is controlled via a small joystick. It can move in multiple directions and even roll side to side to “strafe” through a room.

Obviously this is a one-off DIY project, but it’s amazing how far a little ingenuity, a whole lot of Lego, and an underdeveloped sense of the dangers associated with sitting on a bunch of little plastic blocks can get you.

via Burf.org

Facebook has become known for making a good number of talent-focused startup acquisitions, aka acqui-hires — but the cost of each deal is normally kept under wraps. In a regulatory quarterly filing the company made today with the Securities and Exchange Commission, though, it put an aggregate pricetag on all those “non-material” sized deals it made in the first half of this year: $24 million.

Here’s the wording from the document:

“During the six months ended June 30, 2012, we completed business acquisitions for total consideration of $24 million. These acquisitions were not material to our condensed consolidated financial statements individually or in the aggregate.”

From January through the end of June, Facebook made six acquisitions, two of which — Instagram and Face.com — were of material size. That leaves Tagtile, Glancee, Lightbox, and Karma as the buys on which Facebook spent $24 million total.

It bears mention that this does not mean that there was a $24 million cap on what the founders of these startups received as part of their decision to join Facebook. Salaries, bonuses, and the like are not included in this figure.

Here’s the breakdown of where that money went (click to enlarge):

Facebook also broke out the exact amount of money it spent on acquiring patents and IP, that it was pretty significant: $633 million. The bulk of that — $550 million — went to its purchase of hundreds of AOL patents from Microsoft. Facebook spent $83 million total buying 750 patents from IBM . The remainder was spread across other deals. The company detailed the spending in the document like this:

“During the six months ended June 30, 2012, we acquired $633 million of patents and other intellectual property rights. We completed the largest of these acquisitions in June 2012 under an agreement with Microsoft Corporation pursuant to which we were assigned Microsoft’s rights to acquire approximately 615 U.S. patents and patent applications and their foreign counterparts, consisting of approximately 170 foreign patents and patent applications, that were subject to an agreement between AOL Inc. and Microsoft entered into on April 5, 2012. We paid $550 million in cash in exchange for these patents and patent applications.”

Josh Constine contributed reporting to this article.

Apple’s release of Mountain Lion (aka OS X 10.8) has dominated the news since yesterday’s release, but have no fear, Windows fans: Lifehacker’s got your back. The new version of OS X has some slick features to be sure. Here’s how to get them in Windows. More »

Google’s 1000Mbps (aka insanely fast) internet, called Google Fiber, is live today in Kansas City. Alongside that launch, the Verge is reporting that Google has also released something called Google Fiber TV. More »

Apigee, the API management company that was most recently spotted powering that new “print to Walgreens” feature in half a dozen or so mobile applications, is now acquiring the technology assets of WAC, aka the Wholesale Applications Community. WAC, an alliance of global telecom companies, like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Deutsche Telecom, China Mobile, Orange, and others (and pegged by TechCrunch writer Jason Kincaid back in 2010 as “a disaster in the making“) was intent on building a platform that would allow mobile developers to build an application once, then run it on any carrier, OS or device. The group also developed network API technology, which is another key piece to today’s acquisition.

WAC itself is now being folded into the GSMA, while its assets and the personnel behind the program (14 or 15 folks) are being acquired by Apigee. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Apigee CEO Chet Kapoor confirms that there are no new investors as a result.

WAC was started at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2010, and was backed by 60 operators and others involved in the mobile industry, including Samsung, Intel, Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm, Fujitisu, NEC, HP, HTC, LG, RIM and more. Notably absent? Apple and Google, of course – the makers of the app store successes which WAC aimed to topple with its web runtime technology.

WAC’s web platform used standard technologies like HTML, JavaScript and CSS and built upon the work of JIL (the a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_innovation_lab”>Joint Innovation Lab, another joint venture between operators). In short, it was a bet on web standards besting native applications – which, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. But the HTML-based WAC applications were limited – they couldn’t access the phone’s hardware, like the accelerometer or gyroscope, for example. And they didn’t appeal to developers, already too busy building apps for iPhone and Android, and maybe BlackBerry or Windows Phone. Not surprisingly, no WAC apps have yet to launch.

Kapoor agrees that the web runtime was not well thought out. “It’s a noble cause, but it needs to be clear what purpose it serves,” he says. “There are a certain set of operators that are very interested in the web runtime. We’re going to work on converting it to HTML5 and making it more relevant to what developers are doing today,” he adds.

But there was another big component to WAC’s technology, and it’s an important piece to today’s deal. “[WAC] created what they called network APIs, and the first they implemented was the payment API across operators, and that was in beta,” explains Kapoor. “That project was based on Apigee…and that program will continue,” he says. This API allows customers to pay for digital goods on their operator bill, aka “carrier billing.” The API is in development now with AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, KT, LGU+, SK Telecom, Smart Communications, Telefónica O2 and Telenor, and an additional twelve operators.

Of course, many operators are already offering their own APIs, and the M-API, as this payments API was called, will not replace those, says Kapoor. “Every operator will still do their own API program – what we’re talking about is providing API interoperability,” he says. The program will also be expanded to include other carrier APIs in the near future, he notes.

Meanwhile, founding WAC member GSMA is also now officially partnering with Apigee to provide its services to the GSMA’s 800 mobile operator members. WAC itself – or whatever’s left of it outside of its technology and its people (that’s um…?) – is being merged with the GSMA.