Weekly Tech Highlights: Apple's Pay-TV Service, Apple 3D Printer Chatter And More

Will there ever come a time when

fails to provide one of the top stories of the week? Absolutely -- it happens a few times a year. Other than that, the Cupertino, California-based tech giant tends to be a dominant (if not

dominant) force in technology. Read on for the latest info on Apple's unconfirmed TV plans -- and so much more.

What will the future hold for Apple's long-awaited TV set and accompanying pay-as-you-go TV service? It seems the TV plans may have been scrapped or put on hold for now, but that doesn't mean Apple is getting out of the space. Rather, Apple is now expected to launch a pay-TV service along the lines of Sling TV from

. "Steve Jobs" biographer Walter Isaacson isn't too concerned about the

, however. Investors might find that a bit ironic given his history in promoting Apple's

.

rose more than 10 percent in after hours trading Thursday (and closed up 16.36 percent Friday) after the company reported its quarterly results. "They crushed the quarter," Sean Udall, CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies and author of The TechStrat Report,

. Cody Willard, chairman of

(a financial social network), told Benzinga that he owns Twitter because he thinks it's a "revolution investment." The quarter reinforced his belief.

Twitter has officially teamed up with

to monetize the hundreds of millions of people who use Twitter in some capacity but don't log in. "Google's already crawling Twitter for tweets, so they're showing up in organic search because Google is being Google," MKM Partners analyst Rob Sanderson

. "That's how Google works. This is just opening the data pipes so that it's easy. You're probably gonna rank higher, you're probably gonna get more traffic via organic search than you're getting now. But they're already getting some."

wants to buy

for $6.3 billion. Regulators quashed the original merger when the two firms attempted to unite several years ago. This time is likely to be different. "The world has changed quite considerably since the '90s when that merger was first proposed and not allowed to go forward," SEC Commissioner Steve Wallman

. "My guess is it will be allowed to forward now. Both Staples and Office Depot have [not] been the most fast-growing companies over the last few years. There have been some real problems for them and I think that market is going to get more and more challenging."

There has been a lot of talk surrounding Apple and its

to develop a 3D printer. "I would not be a bit surprised if at some point we see Apple either be a big user of 3D technology or a maker or a designer of 3D-type technology," Sean Udall, CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies and author of The TechStrat Report,

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