Veteran tablet maker Archos has released a teaser video of a new tablet they’re going to be releasing (we presume) later this year.

Facebook updated its event creation flow so that fewer fields are required to make a new event. Posts on an event page Wall are now sorted by activity, as they are in groups, so posts get pushed to the top of the page when they receive comments. These changes and others introduced today are meant to make Facebook’s event product more useful for planning casual get-togethers in addition to more formal events

500Friends , the social loyalty solution for e-commerce retailers, is announcing it has completed a $4.5 million Series A round led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from Intel Capital as well as company CEO (and angel investor) Justin Yoshimura .

There’s been more than a little bit of Verizon Wireless news making the rounds today, and on the surface, it all seems like good stuff. Verizon will cover 200 more markets with LTE by the end of the year? Awesome! The next iPhone Verizon carries will probably have LTE?

Here is the second half of our two-part interview with inventor and thought leader Ray Kurzweil (you can see part one here .) Kurzweil, of course, is the technology icon known among many other things for his Law of Accelerating Returns , which maintains that society is moving at exponentially increasing speed toward the “ technological singularity ,” which is a time when human beings and artificially intelligent machines will sync up to push innovation forward at an unprecedentedly fast rate. We were delighted to have the opportunity to sit down with Kurzweil in Austin, Texas this week while he was attending South By Southwest Interactive — his first time at the conference. There are so very many things to possibly discuss with Kurzweil, and I urge you to read his books and check out other interviews with him for a more complete look at the man and his ideas.

As South by Southwest Interactive is ending and the music festival is begins, there’s a new app offering a fans a chance to explore Austin’s musical history. The app is called ACL Archive , and it comes from Austin City Limits, the public television show that first started in 1976 to showcase live performances.

Microsoft has just posted an overview of the Windows 8 version of Internet Explorer 10, which shows off the features you’d expect from a modern touch-based browser: navigation gestures, full-screen content, and the expected Metro-style multitasking.

Just in time for SXSW Music, Facebook has updated its Events interface .

If you’re looking to get a new iPad and happen to have an old one (and by old, I mean the iPad 2), Apple just made it that much easier. Apple’s Reuse and Recycling Program has been updated today to reflect the values for various models of the iPad 2. The program offers Apple gift cards in exchange for your old gadgetry, which will hopefully entice you to trade-in instead of lopping your perfectly good components into a land fill.

What is the future of medicine? The distinguished cardiologist and author, Dr Eric Topol , believes that the 20th century medical industry is about to be creatively destroyed by today’s digital economy. We are at the end of the era of doctor-knows-best, Topol told me when we Skyped earlier this month