ATD Week in Review: Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Plans and Zynga’s New Org Chart

The week in AllThingsD, in one convenient post. You’re welcome!
hyperloop

Elon Musk Will Likely Build His Own Hyperloop Prototype

A smaller version of the real thing, of course.

News Byte

MakerBot Unveils Desktop Scanner Prototype for Amateur 3-D Printing

MakerBot, a company specializing in selling 3-D printing hardware to individuals and smaller companies, unveiled a small, desktop-sized 3-D scanner prototype at SXSW on Friday. MakerBot founder Bre Pettis said the device uses a series of cameras and lasers to scan an object, and then creates a digital file that can be read and used to fabricate a 3-D printed object on one of MakerBot’s Replicator printers. The company aims to launch the product by the end of the year. Inexpensive 3-D scanning was also a major focus at Microsoft’s recent TechFest.

RIM Says Some Developers to Get Prototype Next-Generation BlackBerrys in May

RIM also says that it will have a beta version of the software tools needed to write apps for the devices.

Voices

iPhone Runner (Comic)

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.)

S.F. Police Comment on Latest Lost Apple iPhone Prototype

After much mishegas, here is the San Francisco Police Department report on yet another missing Apple iPhone prototype. Insert joke [here].

Voices

Police Search for Missing Apple Prototype

Police officers and Apple Inc. employees recently visited a San Francisco residence in a search for a prototype of one of the tech giant’s devices that had been traced to a local home, but left empty handed.

News Byte

Charges Finally Near in Case of the Wayward iPhone 4 Prototype

It has taken over a year, but the iPhone 4 prototype caper is finally moving toward resolution. CNET reports that the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office is pressing charges against the men who found the device in a bar last year and sold it to Gizmodo, which then revealed it to the world. The gadget blog, however, is off the hook.

Voices

Apple Works on Line of Less-Expensive iPhones

Apple Inc. is working on the first of a new line of iPhones and an overhaul of software services for the devices, people familiar with the matter said, moving to accelerate sales of its smartphones amid growing competition.

News Byte

iPad 2 Spotted at Daily Launch?

The future of journalism wasn’t the only thing on display at News Corp.’s launch event for the Daily today. The future of the iPad was as well. A “Reuters eyewitness”claims to have seen the next iteration of the device at the gathering. Reuter’s describes it as a working prototype and says it features a front-facing camera, which has been endlessly rumored. But it offers no photographic proof (evidently its eyewitness is unfamiliar with the intricacies of the smartphone camera). Odd that Apple would allow something like this to be taken to an event filled to bursting with media. Good thing News Corp. didn’t hold it at a German beer garden….(Disclosure: News. Corp. owns this Web site.)

Tablets Flying Fast and Furious at CES

Is This Apple’s Next iPhone?