College graduates want to work for Google, AT&T swallows T-Mobile for $39 Billion, Star Trek fills the empty subway tunnels, Twitter celebrates its fifth birthday, and wonderful photography captivates the SXSW technology parties. Check it all out below for Monday’s technology news!
1. AT&T Buys T-Mobile for $39 Billion. When this deal settles, AT&T will be the largest wireless provider in the United States. Those on a patriotic bender will be happy to know that T-Mobile will switch from a German-based company to U.S. Get ‘em, AT&T. [BusinessInsider]
2. Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs – who’s right? In a speech before the National Governor’s Association, Gates professed that the U.S. should spend their education budget on majors that produce jobs, not the liberal arts. Jobs, on the other hand says that “…technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing, and nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices.” Who do you side with? [TechCrunch]
3. A happy marriage. Facebook decides to buy Mobile App Snaptu, an application that specializes in adapting programs to “featurephones,” phones not as powerful as the smart phones. This move has helped Facebook expand its empire over the social media domain. [NYT]
4. Nine Newsworthy and Captivating Twitpics. Twitter transformed journalism, and has become one of the strongest tools for spreading information. Check out these highly tweeted and stunning photographs. [Mashable]
5. Happy Birthday, Twitter! Five years ago today, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey blasted off his first tweet. In ’07, Twitter averaged 5,000 tweets a day. Today, it’s a staggering 140 million. [CNN]
6. Ford engineers want to know how your car looks in every light. That’s why they’ve developed a synthetic room that can reproduce the sunlight at any given point of the day all year round. It could be an excuse to keep their tans. [Gizmodo]
7. LightRadio: A tiny cube that could cut your cellphone bill! Alcatel Lucent (ALU) has taken all the components of a cell phone tower and downsized them into a small, Rubik cube sized model. ALU used their wizardry to centralize the locations of cell-phone towers, making the size of the wireless network accessible. [CNN]
8. Thrillist merges editorial content and commerce. Thrillist’s founder, Ben Lerer has a big profile on his company Jack Threads and more in the Times today. Read more here! [NYT]
9. Is your phone still drunk from last night? Never fear, for there’s an app for the Morning After that deletes your mistaken texts. Last Night Never Happened monitors your perusals via Facebook, Twitter, and SMS, by starting at a given time (say you’re wasted at 11:30 p.m…start there) and removes them until morning. Sounds like a plan. [Gizmodo]
10. MIT Reviews the Status of Women. After a recent study, MIT states “remarkable progress” has been shown. The number of staff positions given to women have doubled over the years. Many women find, though, that MIT’s methods are a little wacky. [USAToday]
11. Porsche develops $845K Spyder Hybrid. Many of us think of hybrids as dodgy little cars with no claim for performance. Well, Porsche is changing all that with their new line of luxury hybrid vehicles. They debuted the cars at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show. As a result of the enthusiasm, Porsche will be launching their line this year. [DailyTech]
12. Rumors Post SXSW Edition. Fast Society may have Andrew W.K. as an investor, GroupMe’s Steve Martocci buys a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label ($250) for his staff, and much more. [Betabeat]
13. (Founder Stories) Foodspotting’s Soraya Darabi: “Most Social Networks Were Inspired By East Asian Tech Trends” [TechCrunch]
14. Know your enemy, computer style. 18-year-old Steve Mao, entrepreneur of six companies, had his computer stolen last week. He realized he could minimally access the browser history from a machine, and found an array of PhotoBooth photos and a video of the thief dancing to T.I.’s Rubber Band Man. Wonderful! [Betabeat]
15. Seen a movie in 3-D lately? Dolby has announced their lighter, fashion forward 3D Glasses. Perks: thinner lenses and anti-theft protection. [CrunchGear]
16. Top 18 Stories you may have missed over the weekend. From Tumblr’s site glitch to Twitter trends and Retro gaming accessories for your office. [Mashable]
17. Google Tops #1 On List of Desired Employers. Universum conducted a study, interviewing 10,386 college graduates who each had one to eight years of experience. One out of four students want to work at Google, according to the survey. Second in rank was Apple, followed by Walt Disney, U.S. Department of State, Amazon, FBI, Microsoft, and NASA. Subjects were allowed to write-in answers as well. The top write-ins were Facebook and The United Nations. [WSJ]
18. Top 100 Socially Connected Cities. Men’s Health took upon this challenge in a fair and probable way. They averaged people’s LinkedIn and Facebook users per capita, then tapped into NetProspex database and figured out Twitter locations. The top five are D.C., Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, and Seattle. [Mashable]
19. IBM settles with SEC for $10 million over bribes. Over the last 15 years, IBM employees have been bribing foreign officials to score themselves heftier contracts. This includes paying for the vacations of Chinese officials and wooing South Korean representatives with money in exchange for a better contract. [Engadget]
20. Photos from SXSW Tech Parties! Thrillist, Tumblr, FourSquare, Nikon, Vimeo and more via Nick McGlynn. [Tumblr]
