Techmeme: SNL's Sketch Pits iPhone 5 Factory Workers Problems Against The Tech Critics (Mike Butcher/TechCrunch)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

October 14, 2012, 6:40 PM

Top News

David Faber / CNBC:

Softbank to Buy 70 Percent Stake in Sprint: Source — Softbank and Sprint have reached a deal under which Softbank will pay $20 billion for a 70 percent stake in the wireless telecom operator, according to people close to the situation. — The deal is expected to be announced Monday morning …

More: Engadget, VentureBeat, Computerworld, CNET, The Verge, MacRumors, Business Insider, 9to5Mac, Bloomberg and 24/7 Wall St.

Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

Dark Social: We Have the Whole History of the Web Wrong — Here's a pocket history of the web, according to many people. In the early days, the web was just pages of information linked to each other. Then along came web crawlers that helped you find what you wanted among all that information.

More: A VC, Felix Salmon, Chris Saad, SocialTimes and Business Week

Tweets: @dannysullivan and @buzzfeedben

Thanks:@megangarber. See also Mediagazer

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

AT&T Starts Six-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan Next Month, Will Block Websites — Last year the MPAA and RIAA teamed up with five major Internet providers in the United States to launch the Center for Copyright Information (CCI). — The parties agreed on a system through which subscribers …

More: TechCrunch, Joho the Blog, Engadget and SlashGear

Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:

SNL's Sketch Pits iPhone 5 Factory Workers Problems Against The Tech Critics — Saturday Night Live's latest parody sketch gives life to that oft-quted phrase ‘first world problems’. (Here's an alternative link if the one above doesn't work). In a biting take-down of some of the legitimate …

More: Examiner, SiliconBeat, VentureBeat, Computerworld, Mediaite, The Verge, AllThingsD, CNET, The Huffington Post, The Loop, TUAW, 9to5Mac, Gizmodo, BetaNews and Mashable!

Brad Sams / Neowin:

Windows 8 campaign kicks off with first official television commercial — Microsoft has just released its first official Windows 8 commercial that highlights the upcoming release of Windows 8. The advert, which you can see above, first ran at about 12:50 PM EST.

More: CNET, GeekWire, The Verge and Business Insider. Thanks:@bdsams

Charles Duhigg / New York Times:

Campaigns Mine Personal Lives to Get Out Vote — Strategists affiliated with the Obama and Romney campaigns say they have access to information about the personal lives of voters at a scale never before imagined. And they are using that data to try to influence voting habits — in effect …

More: CNET, Chickaboomer, Hillicon Valley and Forbes

Tweets: @nytjim, @victorylab and @counternotions

Fruzsina Eördögh / ReadWriteWeb:

[Infographic] YouTube's Top 1,000 Channels Reveal An Industry Taking Shape — YouTube is still the pesky younger sibling of television, which is the wicked uncle of Hollywood. But the social video site is slowly becoming a formidable medium in its own right, creating new business models …

Joab Jackson / Computerworld:

Apache Lucene/Solr expands across many servers — The Apache Software Foundation's widely used open source Lucene/Solr search engine package has been upgraded to accommodate its users' seemingly insatiable need to collect and use ever-larger amounts of data.

More: TechCrunch and The H Open Source

Robert Wiltbank, PhD / TechCrunch:

Angel Investors Do Make Money, Data Shows 2.5X Returns Overall — Editor's note: Robert Wiltbank, PhD, is a professor at Willamette University, where he and Wade Brooks run an angel investing fund managed by second-year MBA students. He is on the board of the Angel Resource Institute …

Tweets: @cdixon

T.C. Sottek / The Verge:

Reddit leaders deflect censorship criticism and defend hands-off policies — In wake of the Gawker ban controversy, Reddit's powerful moderators test commitment to free speech — Reddit's prides itself on its decentralized meritocracy —"subreddits are a free market.

More: digitaltrends.com, BuzzFeed, VentureBeat and Gawker. Tweets: @jwherrman. See also Mediagazer

New York Times:

U.S. Suspects Iranians Were Behind a Wave of Cyberattacks — WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials are increasingly convinced that Iran was the origin of a serious wave of network attacks that crippled computers across the Saudi oil industry and breached financial institutions in the United States …

More: Foreign Policy, Slate, digitaltrends.com, Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat and Slashdot

Ben Geman / Hillicon Valley:

Reid vows fresh effort to pass stalled cybersecurity bill in November

Geoffrey A. Fowler / Wall Street Journal:

When the Most Personal Secrets Get Outed on Facebook — AUSTIN, Texas—Bobbi Duncan desperately wanted her father not to know she is lesbian. Facebook told him anyway. — One evening last fall, the president of the Queer Chorus, a choir group she had recently joined …

More: Slashdot. Tweets: @davewiner, @jerkob and @dsilverman

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

F5:

Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit — Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23. Register now to save your spot.

Zoho:

Don't Do. Just Tell. With Zoho MCP for Bigin. — Dear small business owners,This one's a little different.We're not here to walk you through a checklist of features. We're here to tell you about something …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Invest Like the Best:

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Lenny's Podcast:

Father of the iPod and iPhone on building taste, judgment, and creativity in the AI era | Tony Fadell

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Big Technology Podcast:

Will Apple (Finally) Get AI Right At WWDC?, Anthropic's Worry, Microsoft vs. OpenAI

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

The Upstarts Podcast:

Vanta's Christina Cacioppo: The Underdog Turning 'Nonsense' Compliance Into A $4.2B Security Standout

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

Hard Fork:

Hot I.P.O Summer + What Is A.I. Doing to Math? + HatGPT

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:40 PM ET, October 14, 2012.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.