Apple freebies, #Music killed and Capt America back: #StuffToKnow this week

So Apple is giving away its desktop operating system for free, but you’ll still have to fork out for a thinner, lighter iPad. The site they shutdown the US government for keeps crashing. Mark Zuckerburg could make Scrooge McDuck envious of his money pit and Twitter turned off the mic of the #Music app before it even had a chance to walk on stage.

TECH

From iPad Air to Mac Pro: everything you need to know about Apple’s fall event
Okay so nothing really impressive, the only substantial announcement as far as new gadgets go would be the iPad Air which is a thinner and faster version of the already thin and fast device. Honestly though, the more game changing announcement was that OS X Mavericks, (Apple’s operating system) as well as some of their premium apps, would be now be a FREE download.

Productivity killer: Apple’s free apps take aim at Microsoft and Google
Now this will be a hard move for Microsoft to counter as the Windows operating system brings the Redmond company millions of revenue… even though their latest edition (Windows 8) is not exactly beloved by the masses (by the way, that free update of Windows 8.1 “with the start button” is a façade — the button just launches the app tiles screen, not the traditional Start Menu). It should be noted that since their true cash cow MS Office Suite is also under threat by Google Docs and Quickoffice which offer similar suites for free as well.

In one day, BBM for Android and iPhone was downloaded 10-million times

So BlackBerry gave up the one feature that BBM users held over the other smartphone users. In the common debate of iPhone vs Android vs BlackBerry, team BlackBerry was all but knocked out of the ring, as all they had left was “at least we have BBM”. I think it knows that when it inevitably sells the company off for parts that at least it gave something back to the tech community in its last gasps.

INTERNET

Contractors blame government for Obamacare website woes

After they fought so hard to take down ObamaCare (even the government itself was shut down as a casualty of the war between Democrats and Republicans) the site that handles it all doesn’t work.
www.healthcare.gov was meant to be thoroughly tested before launch but, as with most clients who don’t fully understand the complexities involved in large-scale websites, they launched before it was ready. This is a very common occurrence on the web, unfortunately due to all the media focus already aimed at Obamacare, the site was under an inordinate amount of scrutiny and thus its crashing made a far louder noise than other sites which break down in the initial teething weeks of being online.

Mark Zuckerberg was highest paid US CEO of 2012
Well, the idea paid off. After an initial crash in Facebook’s stock price and the jokes that went around at the social network’s expense at being the latest to get an IPO, they proved their worth. Facebook’s stock is healthy again and Mark is getting paid nicely for it. The young CEO’s received nearly US$2.3-billion for last year, that’s more than double the next guy on the list of epically rich CEOs. To give you an idea of how insane Zuckerberg’s wealth is, Apple CEO Tim Cook only earned US$143-million.

Eric Schmidt: the future of magazines is on tablets
This is not exactly a shock to anyone. The slogan of “print is dead” has been going around for well close to a decade now. Even though there have been some recent speed bumps in its down fall, like the Washington Post being bought by Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos (out of his own pocket by the way) back in August, the decline of print has been rather steady and the rise of the tablet has been practically exponential.

Twitter kills music app following severe lack of interest
Killed before it even had a chance to launch, the #Music service apparently didn’t get enough traction (it not launching would do that, in my opinion but anyway). I thought it would be cool — there were even a few concepts floating around the web as to how it should look. Here was the lead runner:

ENTERTAINMENT

Captain America The Winter Soldier trailer UK — Official Marvel | HD
Finally, the lame guy in the Avengers gang who has a fan club of zip (well except that agent who died) gets a chance to redeem himself after that last attempt at his own movie. If the trailer is anything to go by he seems to be earning his place next to the Thor and Ironman.

NICE FIND

A really well written original song, this is a song of true love. I dare you not to be touched by this.

Lucy Spraggan’s Bootcamp performance in full — Tea and Toast

Let me know if I missed anything in the comments. It’s also a good place to leave any big things I should mention next week.