Breakfast briefing: Apple avalanche, Bing boosted and tr.im rescued

• After a series of rumours, it’s clear: Apple is definitely holding a product launch event in early September - as mentioned in a previous briefing. Expect iPods, not tablets. Meanwhile there’s plenty of other stuff going on on the Apple front, not least the news that the company did not want the Sunday Times to publish this long profile of Steve Jobs (unsurprising given the attention it pays to his personal affairs - not new information, but still not flattering). More intriguing is this chat between Leander Kahney and Rich Miller (author of Cult of Mac and Data Center Knowledge respectively) which examines Apple’s possible interest in cloud computing.

• According to ComScore figures reported by Silicon Alley Insider, Microsoft’s Bing search engine climbed another half a percent in July, at least in the American market. It seems that Redmond’s m advertising war chest went somewhere after all.

• And after the saga of URL shortener tr.im deciding to close down, it turns out it will instead turn itself over to the community. In a post on the tr.im blog, founder Eric Woodward fires yet another broadside at competitor bit.ly and says that although his company, Nambu, wasn’t willing to fund the short links business, he “will personally guarantee any shortfall in tr.im’s operating expenses, indefinitely”. Huh.

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