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Bezos: Forget profits for now; we're still spending

SEATTLE -- Since its earliest days, Amazon has put investing in new business ahead of expanding its profit margins, often to shareholder chagrin.

At the company's annual meeting here today, Chief Executive Jeff Bezos repeated the mantra, and listed more than a dozen areas into which the online giant is pumping its resources.

"We are still thinking of this as day one," Bezos said of the company that first sold shares to the public 16 years ago and now has 88,000 employees and 209 million active customers. "In fact, I think the alarm clock is … Read more

Synchronize note-taking with recordings, with Pear Note for Mac

For students or professionals who often have to take notes during lectures, organizing them can prove difficult. Pear Note for Mac works well to track audio and typed notes in one program for later reference and organization.

While the full program costs $39.99 to purchase, a free, 14-day trial is available. Download and installation of Pear Note for Mac were fast, and startup occurred without any user interaction beyond accepting a licensing agreement. No instructions were easily available, but the interface is fairly easy to interpret and use. The program's basic graphics were a disappointment, but the layout … Read more

HP sidesteps Autonomy drama; Israel-Palestine makes news

Give Hewlett-Packard's management credit for keeping the company's annual shareholders meeting as uneventful as possible. Considering the soap opera drama leading up to today's event, that was no mean feat.

Earlier in the day, Autonomy founder Mike Lynch published an open letter, suggesting questions that shareholders ought to ask of management in connection with the allegations that HP made against Autonomy after paying $11.1 billion to buy the software company. In November, HP shocked Wall Street when it took an $8.8 billion accounting charge related to the acquisition. At the time, the company said that … Read more

Tim Cook to shareholders: It was the 'mother of all years'

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Apple CEO Tim Cook tried to reassure shareholders today, saying that the company was disappointed by its falling stock price but also that Apple is committed to its long-term strategy.

The meeting itself, which took place here this morning, was business as usual.

As expected, shareholders voted to re-elect all eight of Apple's board members. That includes Andrea Jung, Apple's only female board member, who was forced to resign as the chief executive of Avon last year and now serves as a senior adviser for the beauty products company.

The stakes were a bit higher … Read more

Hot topic at Apple shareholders meeting is off limits

Apple opens up its doors to shareholders tomorrow, an annual event that's been home to everything from group renditions of "happy birthday" to environmental protesters donning giant iPod costumes.

It's also home to formalities like re-electing board members, choosing Apple's accounting firm, as well as a chance for executives to dodge the inevitable shareholder questions about products the company is working on.

This year is a little different though. Shareholders were set to vote on something that's no longer on the table following a lawsuit filed against Apple earlier this month.

Greenlight Capital, a … Read more

Ballmer: We're all about devices and services now

BELLEVUE, Wash.--Microsoft may be best known for Windows. It's Office productivity suite runs on hundreds of millions of computers around the world. But Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer made it abundantly clear at today's annual shareholder meeting that the software giant should be thought of as a devices and services company going forward.

"This is really a new era for our company," Ballmer told shareholders today.

The devices and services line is a refrain that Ballmer has been repeating for the last few months, including in a note to shareholders last month. It's an … Read more

The 404 1,172: Where we heard a rumor on MySpace (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Ben Savage, Danielle Fishel join "Girl Meets World" pilot.

- Wii Mini confirmed, brings cut-price gaming to Canada only.

- HoboJacket.tk lets you donate your RIVAL college's jackets and shirts to the homeless.

- This lamp tells you the weather by recreating it inside your house.

- Why liveblogs outperform other online news formats by up to 300%.

- Follow Sharon Vaknin on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.… Read more

Take control of meetings with Meeting Timer

Let's get right to the point: Meeting Timer from EXP Systems is a software-based visual aid that can help you take control of meetings. This simple freeware helps individuals keep track of the time they've been speaking even as they speak. Just set the allotted time, and Meeting Timer displays a blue bar graph on the far right side of your screen as well as the remaining time in minutes. When the blue is gone, time's up. It's effective not only for keeping meetings from getting out of control but also in classrooms; teachers can use … Read more

How to use AirPlay Mirroring in Mountain Lion

If you've managed to get your hands on Mountain Lion for Mac, there's a really cool feature called AirPlay Mirroring where you can show your desktop and more on a big screen hooked up to an Apple TV. AirPlay Mirroring is something you might use when you want to show your work at a meeting, show your photos to your family, watch video, and so on, but on an Apple TV-connected big screen. Here's how to do it.

Editors' note:Unfortunately, AirPlay Mirroring only works on Macs made in 2011 or later. For those on older machines … Read more

'Heckerty' stories come to life on tablets, phones (podcast)

Heckerty, a 409-year-old green-faced witch, can't seem to get anything right, but fortunately she has a loyal cat named Zanzibar who comes to her rescue. The iOS and Android app, Meet Heckerty, is based on a series of stories by Anne Rachlin. They are narrated by Rachlin's daughter Jan Ziff. Ziff, whose daily radio show Sound*Bytes is heard on CBS Radio News stations, is a longtime broadcast journalist with stints at the BBC and Voice of America (Disclosure: CBS Radio News is owned by CNET's parent company CBS and I also broadcast for CBS News).

There … Read more