Weekly Knowledge Dump: Tech News for 10.7.11

The Weekly Knowledge Dump is the weekly tech column that gives you the biggest news in the tech world for the past week, plus a guide to all of the interesting but non-news stories from the past week. It’s like backing up a dump truck of knowledge to your brain.

Steve Jobs Passes Away

The co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, died at his house this Wednesday afternoon. All over the globe, there was an outpouring of condolences for his family and friends, including on the homepages of Google and Microsoft. Apple’s homepage was changed to an image of Steve Jobs with the text “1955-2011″. Probably the classiest tribute came from Wired.com, who’s site was changed to all black for the day and filled with quotes from people remembering Steve Jobs. He was 56.

Would You Like to Know More?

Samsung and Google Postpone Galaxy Nexus Launch

Google was all set to announce their latest flagship phone, the Galaxy Nexus. The reason isn’t clear, but there are rumors circulating that Google and Samung (who manufactured the phone) were having trouble getting journalists to come to their announcement. The trouble is probably due to the fact that the announcement was supposed to take place at CTIA, which is an enterprise-focused conference. The event was also supposed to be the unvieling of Google’s newest version of Android, to be called Ice Cream Sandwich.

Would You Like to Know More?

iPhone 4S Orders Bring Down The Websites of Apple, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon

The iPhone 4S was supposed to become available for pre-order at 3:01 AM EST this morning. Except that it didn’t. The Apple website was so swamped with people trying to pre-order the phone that they could not even get their store back online to start pre-orders until around 3:45 AM. AT&T’s website, on the other hand didn’t start accepting orders until around 4:15 AM. The Sprint and Verizon sites fared a bit better– managing to start taking orders around 3:30 AM, but by around 3:45 AM, people were reporting that the sites were only working intermittently. Twitter was full of angry comments from people who were frustrated with their inability to order the phone. Remember guys, it’s just a phone.

Would You Like to Know More?

Microsoft Kills the Zune HD…No Wait, It’s Still Alive.

Some day, Microsoft will actually kill the Zune HD. It wasn’t this week though. Early this week, Microsoft announced that they were going to stop selling the Zune HD after the current stock is sold through. They removed the device from the Zune online store and posted a note on the support site announcing the end of support for the Zune HD. Then, the next day, Microsoft’s Zune Support Twitter account sent out a message saying that the Zune HD wasn’t being discontinued. So things look uncertain for the Zune HD hardware, but Microsoft has made it clear that the Zune name will live on as part of Xbox Live and Windows Phone 7.

Would You Like to Know More?

Bonus: Interesting Dispatches from the Past Week

Here is a small selection of interesting articles that aren’t really news, but are still worth reading anyway:

• Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot by John Gruber (Daring Fireball)
• By Any Other Name by Marco Arment (Marco.org)
• Review: The 2011 $79 Kindle with Ads and Buttons by Marco Arment (Marco.org)