“These things that happened in the past two weeks aren’t surprising for us.

It’s no secret that New Zealand’s always harbored a little bit of a “baby brother” complex. First, to their trans-Tasman ( I looked it up ) neighbors, Australia, who apparently have a reputation for taking credit for Kiwi singers and desserts , amongst other things. But now that they’ve shot a ridiculously successful trilogy of films about some magic Hobbits who are deeply in love with each other , it seems that they’re ready to fire a few shots in our direction as well

Shares of Microsoft ( MSFT ) have been under pressure this morning, and one thing appearing to contribute to downturn are rumors the company would step in to purchase Nokia ( NOK ) for $19 billion, according to remarks by Eldar Murtazin , a blogger widely credited with scooping Microsoft’s deal with Nokia earlier this year. Murtazin’s blog appears not to have that claim today, but he is cited as stating such by Todd Haselton in a piece this morning on BoyGeniusReport .

Startup FitnessKeeper , the parent company of the RunKeeper smartphone app, has raised $1.11 million and will use the money to build out its nine-person operation and dive into the highly competitive world of now-fashionable mobile fitness applications. The RunKeeper iPhone app uses GPS locating to track your distance, time, elevation, pace and path on a map and has caught the eye of several major investors since the company was founded two years ago, primarily because it has kept up with rapidly developing technologies.