A round-up of the companies, deals, and trends that made headlines.
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We’ve assembled the morning’s most newsworthy bits below.
- Former HP (HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd made his first public comments as Oracle (ORCL) co-president to discuss the company’s huge growth opportunities. Oracle’s first-quarter revenue rose 48% to $7.5 billion compared to the same time last year. (New York Times)
- In light of weak mobile sales, LG Electronics CEO Yong Nam has resigned, to be replaced by LG International head Koo bon-joon. (Engadget)
- Can Foursquare boost company sales? If McDonald’s recent campaign is any indication, that’s a definite “yes.” During its “Foursquare Day,” foot traffic to restaurants jumped 33%. (Mashable!)
- Samsung announced its Android-powered Galaxy Tab tablet, which will hit all four major carriers at a price and time frame to be determined by each carrier. (But expect them by the holidays.)
- Virtualization software developer VMware (VMW) is one of several companies negotiating to purchase Novell for its Linux assets. (Wall Street Journal)
- R.I.M.’s (RIMM) second-quarter results topped forecasts: the mobile company’s gross profit margin was 44.5% compared to analysts’ expectations of 43.9%. (New York Times)
- Nokia (NOKBF) and mapping division Navteq are working on a 3D rival to Google’s Street View. (Gizmodo)
- Diaspora, an open-source Facebook rival conceived by four NYU students, released the project’s source code to developers. The alpha version, available next month, will have Facebook integration, internationalization and data portability. (Mashable!)
- Verizon Wireless (VZ) senior federal sales exec Bernie McMonagle said the company will launch its Long Term Evolution-based (LTE) 4G network in “30 NFL cities” by the end of the year. (eWeek)
- Meanwhile, AT&T’s (T) operations CEO, John Stankey, stated the company will launch its own LTE network by mid-2011 and will cover 70-75 million customers. (BoyGeniusReport)
- Motorola (MOT) acquired privately-held start-up Aloqa, which develops location-based software and tech designed to enable the discovery of web content by mobile smartphone users. (TechCrunch)
- Beginning October 1, T-Mobile USA will begin charging businesses an additional $.0025 for every SMS delivered to customers over its network. (GigaOM)
- Despite a rather steep $150 price tag, Microsoft (MSFT) expects to move more than 3 million Kinect controllers this holiday season. (GamesIndustry)
- In an attempt to keep pace with social buying leader Groupon’s expansion, LivingSocial announced 25 new cities in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. (It’s currently in 89 cities, while Groupon is in 230.) (BoomTown)
- Greenpeace is criticizing Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg for the social network’s use of coal-fueled electricity in its Oregon-based data center. They even went so far as to create this anti-FB “dirty energy” video. (TechCrunch)
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