Weekly Highlights: Gmail Crashed, iPhone XL Hype, Galaxy S5 Tease And More

This may have been a shorter work week for some, but that didn't stop the tech industry from pumping out some notable headlines. Google GOOG took the lead this week, but not for the most positive reason. Gmail, its hugely popular e-mail service, went down for the first time in 2014. The search engine giant also made headlines after a rumor claimed that Bitcoin will come to Google Wallet. In the land of all things Apple AAPL, TrendForce told Benzinga how a larger iPhone will pose a significant threat to Samsung SSNLF. Activist investor Carl Icahn purchased $500 million worth of Apple stock. Lenovo LNVGY acquired IBM's IBM x86 server business. eBay's NASDAQ CEO said that he would like to keep PayPal within the eBay family (despite an offer from Carl Icahn to spin it off). Amazon AMZN denied a rumor claiming that it wanted to get into the pay-TV business. Microsoft MSFT was voted the most trusted and reliable company in technology. Hewlett-Packard HPQ revived Windows 7. Last but not least, Verizon VZ purchased the pay-TV tech that Intel INTC developed but no longer wanted. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.