Happy Cog and Airbag Industries, two important web design firms, announced the merger of the two companies. The resulting company Happy Cog will continue to work on client services, web design and development. Moreover Happy Cog will continue publishing A List Apart and organising design conference An Event Apart. (Via Happy Cog News and Jeffrey Zeldman)

Dr. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, is resigning from Apple’s Board of Directors. As the two companies become rivals in several businesses there are more potential conflicts of interest. (Via Apple Press Release and Macworld)

Design Observer, a weblog focusing on writings about design and visual culture, announced its makeover. The new Design Observer Group serves four channels: Observatory (design essays), Change Observer (design for social innovation), Places (essays from the Places magazine) and Observer Media (audio and video). (Via Observatory: Design Observer)

TheTWiT Netcast Network started a new show called This Week in Google. Leo Laporte, Lifehacker founder Gina Trapani, journalist Jeff Jarvis and guests talk about latest Google-related news and cloud computing.

Twitter starts blocking bad URLs. Unfortunately shortened malicious links are not identified. (Via ReadWriteWeb)

NewsGator announced Google Reader syncing for the new version of NetNewsWire. Moreover a send to Instapaper feature was added. NewsGator will stop NewsGator Online and some other services. The company recomends migrating to Google Reader before the end of August. (Via NewsGator Daily Blog)