Techmeme
October 3, 2012, 11:30 PM

Top News

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Turning to Select Retail Store Employees to Help Improve Maps for iOS 6  —  MacRumors has learned that Apple is piloting a program to tap into its vast number of retail store employees to help improve the company's new Maps app for iOS 6.  Details on the initiative remain unclear …
Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:
The Forgotten Mapmaker: Nokia Has Better Maps Than Apple and Maybe Even Google  —  It's impossible to create a perfect map, but that hasn't stopped Nokia from trying.  Here, we go inside the company's neverending drive to create a digital copy of the world.  —  Apple's maps are bad.
Walter S. Mossberg / AllThingsD:
Google Moves Ahead in Fight to Dominate the Map Apps  —  Apple has been taking lots of justified heat for its decision to replace Google Maps on the iPhone with a fledgling, and flawed, maps app of its own.  In my otherwise favorable review of the new iPhone 5, I called Apple's maps app …
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Confirmed: Google Maps Mobile To Get Street View, Probably Tomorrow  —  Google's confirmed to Search Engine Land that Google Maps Mobile will be gaining Street View photography.  It won't confirm the exact timing, but a Wall Street Journal report that is will happen tomorrow seems pretty likely.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Xbox Music to launch on October 26th with free ad-supported streaming  —  Spotify-like service on the way  —  Microsoft is preparing to launch its Xbox Music service on October 26th.  Multiple sources familiar with Microsoft's plans have confirmed the new service will launch at the same time as Windows 8.
Jordan Kahn / 9to5Google:
Google officially launches Google Wallet for web content  —  We knew it was coming when Google leaked a rough draft of its blog post announcing the feature, but today Google is making things official for Google Wallet for web content.  The experimental feature will allow Google Wallet users …
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Ellen Pao's Lawyer: Kleiner Perkins Firing Was Retaliation  —  Ellen Pao, the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers venture capitalist who is suing the firm for gender discrimination, will now add termination for the purposes of retaliation to her claims, said her lawyer on Wednesday.
Kyle Wagner / Gizmodo:
How to Look Inside Any Building in the World  —  People take Instagram photos everywhere.  Even—especially— in places you can't easily get into.  That's why it seems like the most natural thing in the world for something like Worldcam to exist.  —  Worldcam's premise is simple …
More: Co.CreateTweets: @josephjpeters
Phil Dzikiy / iLounge:
Apple tightens MFi rules, stalls 3rd-party Lightning add-ons  —  Following up on prior reports that Apple had not made Lightning connectors available to developers, multiple reliable sources have confirmed to iLounge that Apple has made significant changes to its Made For iPad/iPhone/iPod …
Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:
13-inch Modbook Pro Mac tablet priced at $3,499, preorder now  —  Back in June we told you that the OS X based Mac tablet dubbed “Modbook” would be making a return almost 5 years after the launch of the original device in 2007.  The company recently revealed that the new Modbook Pro will include …
T-Mobile Newsroom:
T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS to Combine, Creating Value Leader in U.S. Wireless Marketplace  —  Combination Establishes the Leading Value-Focused Wireless Carrier  —  Accelerates T-Mobile's Challenger Strategy with Increased Scale, Spectrum and Financial Resources
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Apple Stores Get the Glory, but Retail Partners Shoulder Load  —  Apple's stores are among the most successful brick-and-mortar shops around, generating more revenue per square foot than any other retailer in the United States, including Tiffany.  —  During the company's last earnings call …
Robin Wauters / The Next Web:
A VC opens up: Union Square Ventures starts sharing internal market research publicly  —  Here's an interesting move: New York City-based Union Square Ventures (USV), an investor in a few companies you might have heard of (Boxee, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, Meetup, Kickstarter and Twilio …
Steven Musil / CNET:
Apple offered patent licensing deal to Samsung before trial  —  iPhone maker proposed a reciprocal agreement to license Samsung's 3G/UMTS patents for what it considered FRAND terms, a letter from Apple to its smartphone rival reveals.  —  Apple proposed a reciprocal patent agreement to Samsung …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Mobile gaming firm CrowdStar names co-founder as its chief executive  —  Jeff Tseng, co-founder of CrowdStar, has been named as the chief executive of the mobile gaming company.  —  In an interview, Tseng said the company has made a big pivot from social games into mobile games and is now poised …
Kyle Wiens / iFixit:
Chemical Analysis Reveals that New Phones Have Fewer Toxics  —  High technology feels so clean—no coal or steam or mess, just cool aluminum, sleek plastics, and polished glass.  But that clean surface hides an interior that is far messier and more toxic.  In partnership with HealthyStuff.org …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Take That Amazon!  Target Adds QR Codes In Retail Stores To Help Shoppers Buy Toys On Mobile Devices  —  Retail giant Target is adding a new technology to its mobile initiatives—QR Codes.  Target will debut QR codes in stores for the season's 20 most popular toys.
More: Gizmodo and Mashable!
Jillian C. York / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
A Dark Day for the Philippines as Government Passes Cybercrime Act  —  A Dark Day for the Philippines as Government Passes Cybercrime Act  —  The government of the Philippines today has passed the troubling Cybercrime Prevention Act.  The Act covers a range of offenses, but—as we wrote last month …
More: Daily Dot
Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:
Kindle Paperwhite sold out until November  —  Amazon's new front-lit e-reader, the Kindle Paperwhite (our review here), only started shipping on Monday to those who'd pre-ordered it, but it's already sold out.  If you order a Kindle Paperwhite today, it won't ship for four to six weeks.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Confirmed: Google's Motorola Mobility Acquires Image And Gesture Recognition Company Viewdle  —  Earlier this week, we heard rumors that Google was in the process of acquiring the augmented reality and image recognition firm Viewdle.  Turns out those rumors were true.
More: CNET and EngadgetThanks:@fredericl
Steve Lohr / NYT Bits:
A Big Data Road Map for Government  —  No entity produces, gathers and stores more data than the American government.  So the challenges and opportunities of so-called Big Data loom large for the many agencies and departments of the United States government.
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
MegaDroid: 300,000 Androids clustered together to study network havoc  —  Sandia researcher David Fritz standing in front of a cluster of Android virtual machines, holding two Galaxy Nexus phones.  —  Sandia National Laboratories  —  Anyone who builds an Android app knows that testing on real devices is important.
Ed Bott / ZDNet:
Ad industry blasts Microsoft over Do Not Track defaults in IE 10  —  Summary: In an open letter, an influential U.S.-based lobbying group for the advertising industry has sharply criticized Microsoft's decision to enable Do Not Track as the default setting in Internet Explorer 10.
More: TechSpot and GeekWire
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Now Lets US Users Pay $7 To Promote Posts To The News Feeds Of More Friends  —  Facebook is expanding to the U.S. the controversial Promoted Posts feature that lets users pay to get their posts more visibility in the news feed.  It will cost $7 per post and Facebook hopes it will be used …

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Lorraine Luk / Wall Street Journal: