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Microblogging site Tumblr is now part of the Yahoo Group. Its founder, David Karp, has sold the social media site for over US$1 billion, reports say.

Karp founded the start-up six years ago in his mother’s tiny apartment in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Who would have thought that from its humble beginnings, Tumblr would make it big, boasting around 900 posts per second?

This is a remarkable achievement for a man who did not even finish high school. He reportedly dropped out at age 15 and turned to homeschooling, but failed to receive a diploma.

Professor Paul Levinson, who teaches Media Studies at Fordham University, said, “No one knows much about him at all. It’s interesting he was home schooled. You have Bill Gates, a college dropout, and really the same as Steve Jobs.”

What we now know for sure is that the sale gives Karp deep pockets at just 26 years old. In fact, he made it to the Forbes’ “30 under 30″ list recently. He also remains the CEO of the start-up

Karp assured users, “Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn’t changing.”

Yahoo President and CEO Marissa Mayer welcomed Tumblr to the company while vowing not to change the site. She said Yahoo hopes to make the site faster and better whilst emphasising that it will be operated independently.

Apple is faced with another not-so-sweet controversy. US Senators Carl Levin and John McCain have alleged that the tech giant used its intricate network of offshore companies, particularly three foreign subsidiaries which the company claims are non-taxable, to escape billions of dollars in income taxes.

According to a US Senate investigation, Apple depends on several accounting tactics including its subsidiaries in Ireland, where it bargained for a tax rate of less than two per cent, to slash its tax bill. Comparatively, the corporate tax rate in the US is 35 per cent.

One of Apple’s Irish units, Apple Operations International (AOI), has no presence or employees in Ireland. In fact, the senators noted that it holds it bank accounts and board meetings in the United States.

AOI posted an income of US$30 billion between 2009 and 2011, although its management structure permitted its parent firm to take advantage of a loophole in US and Irish tax law. As a result, the company did not pay any taxes in either country.

From 2009 to 2012, another Irish subsidiary by the name of Apple Sales International recorded US$74 billion in revenue. However, it only paid taxes based on a minute fraction of that sum.

Apple also evaded taxes on its US$44 billion income by sharing the rights to its intellectual property via cost-sharing contracts with its offshore subsidiaries.

These are big accusations, especially for a firm that has achieved great success in the States. The government is looking into tax reforms that will ensure the company cannot shift its profits to offshore entities to avoid paying taxes.

A couple of weeks ago, Opera Software, which makes the Opera browser, was announced to have brought a $3.4 million lawsuit against former longtime employee Trond Werner Hansen.  The suit, filed last year, alleged that he took proprietary secrets to Mozilla, makers of the popular Firefox and other browsers, and demanded 20 million Norwegian Krone (or about $3.4M) in damages.

The lawsuit garnered a few mentions in the blogosphere and a note from Hansen that he would have to leave the states for Norway in order to face the suit, putting his work on a new music album and tour on hold.

The lawsuit was dropped suddenly and settled out of court, with neither party giving details as to what the settlement was.  For its part, Opera says that they’ve “reached an agreement and both parties are satisfied with that.”  Hansen says the lawsuit holding him back and now he’s looking forward to moving ahead.

Hansen says he may spend the summer in his native country before returning to Florida, USA where he planned to open an art gallery and begin promoting his first music album.

So what originated this lawsuit?  Likely it was a combination of things, but Hansen had said in Norwegian news that when he left Opera, he had a lot of good ideas that he wanted to see implemented and that Opera wasn’t interested in.  It’s likely those ideas, subsequently taken to Mozilla, that triggered the suit.

Some people say beauty is only skin deep, but on the internet, people sometimes feel judged based on the photos and videos they post and share. Consequently, some people are left feeling insecure about their looks because of the internet, with some even going under the knife just to fit the social media standards.

A new report by the American Academy of Facial and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS) reveals that social media activity has been a main factor for many patients who requested plastic surgery. In fact, the number of these cases increased by 31 per cent, implying that more and more users want to change their physical appearance to look better on social media.

“We live in a very visual world, and have come to expect that we will be ‘Googled’ or ‘Facebooked’ even before actually meeting someone socially or professionally,” noted Dr Sam Rizk, member of AAFPRS and director of Manhattan Facial Plastic Surgery in New York.

“I see a lot of men and women who are executives or high profile so they are in the public eye. Their photos get taken all the time and they never know where they may end up.”

According to the study, which polled 752 of the AAFPRS’ board-certified facial plastic surgeons, there were more cosmetic plastic surgery cases than reconstructive procedures. The number of cosmetic surgeries increased to 73 per cent, with the most popular procedures including Botox, facelifts and rhinoplasty. This is a marked increase from the figure of 62 per cent noted in 2011.

“Whether you think it is harmful or not, it is a trend and I don’t think we will see it slowing down anytime soon,” noted Rizk.

If you have logged on to your Google+ account recently, you probably noticed a couple of changes. Google has redesigned its networking site to feature a more streamlined look with maximised screen space for a user’s feed in an effort to battle with Facebook and Twitter.

Google has ditched the sidebar and positioned all navigational tools at the top of the screen, in addition to launching several enhancements.

The site now has multi-column view choices reminiscent of Pinterest. Users can view a single column, two columns or three columns, depending on their screen size. Google has also added the ability to switch back to the old design.

Another noticeable new feature is called “Related hashtags”, which allows users to flip through related photos with a simple click on the current photo to find related hashtags. Users can also enjoy “Intelligent hashtags”. This feature analyses the photo and automatically places a hashtag on your post. The hashtag can be removed manually and users can also opt out of the feature altogether.

Photo editing has been made easier as Google+ now offers the new “Highlight” tool, which picks out a user’s best shots to display in photo streams while leaving out the blurry ones. The “Auto Enhance” tool can be used to remove red eye, improve skin tone, correct white balance and more. The “Awesome” tool strings photos together in an animated sequence.

Google also backs up all pictures taken from a user’s mobile device as soon as the photos are taken and is also providing accounts with up to 15 gigabytes of storage to accommodate full-resolution photos.

If you use Google Hangouts, then you undoubtedly know that they are a great, easy way to quickly connect with friends and family via video and voice.  Until now, however, it’s been difficult to use them for serious business meetings and webinar-style get togethers because there has been no good way to pause, rewind, or record live On Air broadcasts except with clunky third-party apps.

That’s changed.

Now you can use TiVo-like controls over a live broadcast you’re watching so you can jump up for that potty break or to grab an important call.

In addition to this great feature, On Air videos can now be published immediately instead of waiting during the “processing..” dialogue.  On Air videos are now processed as they air, in near-real-time.

This means that it takes a few moments longer to get your Hangout started, but otherwise, things are perfect.  For those of us who often use our mobile devices to participate in Hangouts and do On Air shows.. Google has also improved how connectivity is handled so that slow connections or connections that periodically drop for a moment or two don’t mean a closed Hangout.  For viewers, live broadcasts now begin without a page refresh.

With Hangouts now on many of the Google services we use daily, like Android and the new Glass, this is a big step forward towards making it an integrated part of how we communicate.