Five Things You Need to Know Today: Aug. 22

1. Looking like the week is going to start off on a generally sunny note. After some morning clouds, the sun will come out and the high will be in the low 80s.

2. You can tell the new school year is just around the corner (Sept. 6 for most Wayland schools). There are back-to-school sales everywhere and there’s some kind of excitement in the air. Here are some tips to ease anxiety as your kids transition back to school.

3. There are a couple of meetings at the Town Building tonight. The Board of Selectmen, Board of Public Works, Board of Assessors and Finance Committee will all meet tonight. Check out the individual listings for details.

4. Are you keeping up with Patch on Facebook and Twitter? We’re just short of 200 followers on Twitter — Can you help us get there? Check out twitter.com/waylandmapatch and facebook.com/waylandpatch to keep us with Patch in the social media world.

5. On this date in 1902, what U.S. president became the first to ride in an automobile? If you have an answer, share it with us in the comments.

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Morning Tech Wrap: Skype, HP, Facebook

Image via CrunchBase

Skype is buying the group-messaging service GroupMe, just a year after it was founded by Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci. The terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. The service allows conference and private group phone calls and group texting from mobile devices

A couple of months after its creation, GroupMe closed an $850,000 round of financing from a number of angels. Earlier this year, the company raised a further $10.6 million. Skype CEO Tony Bates says he’s been in talks with the company for months.

“GroupMe creates a very sticky, instant feeling. Like Skype, it is an everyday interactive form of communication,” Bates told TechCrunch. “Skype’s goal is to get to 1 billion users. Mobile is the place to do that.”

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Retailers like Best Buy were selling the Hewlett-Packard TouchPads at a firesale price of $99 each on Saturday, with many selling out. It comes two days after HP announced it would be selling or spinning-off its Personal Systems Group and immediately stopping production on TouchPads and smartphones.

The HP tablet, which saw slow sales in recent months, were already sold out by Saturday morning from Best Buy and Staples outlets in New York City’s Union Square. Heavily reduced prices for the soon-to-be axed line of tablets encouraged shoppers, PC World reports. The 16-GB TouchPad was just $99, with the 32-GB model at $150.

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