As many predicted, longtime Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn is leaving the company after being passed over for the top job by Marissa Mayer. “While Mayer might have benefited from Levinsohn’s close ties with key marketing players and his content experience, her intense focus on products and not on media likely means that she will rely on a more tech-heavy leadership team going forward,” AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher reports. “While the move was expected, this could be called the first big blow Mayer has faced since her appointment,” suggests ReadWriteWeb. “While it's likely that Levinsohn was disappointed in not taking …

Just two weeks into the reign of Marissa Mayer, Web watchers are clambering to know what changes are afoot inside Yahoo. Yahoo observer-in-chief Kara Swisher was thrilled to learn that Mayer has added a Friday afternoon all-hands meeting and -- showing her Google roots -- instituted free meals at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale HQ. “Just like it has been done at the search giant for eons,” Swisher exclaims in AllThingsD. “They’re small changes, yes, but they’re likely to improve the morale of a company whose public image and internal image has deteriorated over the last seven years,” Mashable writes. “A …

Competing for attention with Facebook’s first public earnings report, Apple just bought mobile security company AuthenTec for $356 million. “Apple is paying $8 per share, a 58-percent premium, for the Melbourne, Florida-based AuthenTec,” reports Reuters, citing a regulatory filing released Thursday. What really has Web watchers talking is that fact that AuthenTec just signed a deal with Apple rival Samsung to secure its Android devices. “Amid fierce smartphone competition between Samsung and Apple that has spilled into a multinational patent battle, it looks like Apple may have opened yet another front on the M&A side,” TechCrunch writes. Aside …

Streaming video set-top box Roku has secured $45 million in additional funding from new investors News Corp. and BSkyB, along with existing investors Menlo Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners. As part of the deal, News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller is also joining Roku’s board. “This round of financing is a big deal for the streaming device maker,” assures The Verge. “It might seem odd for names associated with older video-distribution methods to team up with Roku,” The Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog writes. “But the world is changing quickly.” “When Roku first entered the streaming video …

Suffering from the highest of expectations and its own rapid rate of innovation, Apple on Tuesday reported its second quarterly miss in less than a year. “It was only the second time in 39 quarters the company reported results that missed analysts’ profit and revenue expectations -- the previous was for its quarter ended September 2011,” notes The Wall Street Journal. “The rare miss highlights how the Apple brand is becoming less resistant to the economic and product cycles that have plagued rivals,” Reuters reports. Quite simply, consumers appear to be putting their Apple purchases on hold until …

Mobile operating systems can’t succeed with flourishing app markets, and app markets can’t flourish without happy app developers.   At least on the enterprise side of things, Apple iOS is currently surging ahead of the Google Android platform, according to new survey results from Appcelerator, a mobile platform development firm. “In the largest survey of its kind, Appcelerator developers were asked what operating system is best positioned to win the enterprise market,” TechCrunch reports. Their response? Developers said iOS over Android by a 53% to 38% margin. Last year, by contrast, the two companies were in a dead heat for …

Already a force in the increasingly key field of mobile computing, Amazon.com reportedly plans to expand its mobile platform and broaden its device offerings beyond e-readers and the Kindle Fire tablet. Amazon is to introduce up to five or six tablet new mobile devices, Demos Parneros, president of U.S. Retail for Staples (which sells the Fire), tells Reuters. “According to the exec, the [devices] will come in a range of sizes and would include a new ten-inch device -- going directly against another popular 10-inch slab,” writes Engadget. “No word on whether these five or six devices would …

Due to its failed aQuantive acquisition, Microsoft posted its first quarterly loss $92 million -- this week. “What would have been $5.3 billion in profit was wiped out from one bad deal,” MG Siegler writes on his paris lemon blog, referring to Microsoft’s $6.2 billion write-down of aQuantive. “Loss per share -- and this is the first time Microsoft reported a negative EPS in its history -- was $0.06,” TechCrunch reports. Still, revenue for the quarter -- $18.06 billion -- was up from $17.41 billion last quarter, and $17.37 billion in the fourth of 2011. “Aside from that one-time …

Showing continued interest in flash-sale sites, design-oriented Fab.com just raised an impressive $105 million in new funding. “The investment was led by Atomico, an international venture firm launched by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom, and values the company at $600 million,” reports The Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog, citing sources. “Much like a marriage, a nine-figure VC investment is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly,” TechCrunch cautions. “In his blog post, [Fab CEO Jason] Goldberg made a point of tempering the flashy funding announcement with a statement of Fab’s grounded focus.” As part of its investment, …

It’s been two days since Marissa Mayer shocked her peers with plans to leave Google for the top spot at Yahoo. Analyst and insider reaction, however, shows no signs of letting up. Getting a lot of attention is an open letter from former Yahoo engineering manager Sririam Krishnan in which he offers up 10 “tactical” suggestions for Mayer. “Marc Andreessen thinks you need to fire over 10K people,” Krishnan writes, referring to the star venture capitalist. “He’s probably right. I would start with anyone with the title ‘Architect’ or ‘Program Manager’ in their title. HR is probably another good …