"August 24, 2011–To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community: I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come. I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee. As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple."

"Western Digital, which makes hard drives for computers, announced this morning it will buy Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for about $4.3 billion in cash and stock. The hard drive world has been seen as ripe for consolidation, particularly as the rise of tablet computers such as the Apple iPad– which don’t use hard drives for data storage — is casting doubt on the future of the sector. Seagate, for example, was the target of failed takeover talk last year."

Intel’s once-promising plan to take on Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices in chips that deliver high-end graphics was already looking troubled. Now it looks pretty much dead.

A statement Tuesday about that effort, delivered in a blog post on Intel’s website, is the latest fallout from stumbles in delivering a chip dubbed Larrabee that was expected to be used for high-end graphics and other applications.