Techmeme: Two Days Before MIT and Cambridge Cops Arrested Aaron Swartz, Secret Service Took Over the Investigation (Marcy Wheeler/emptywheel)

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January 14, 2013, 10:05 PM

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Joshua Topolsky / The Verge:

Exclusive: CBS forced CNET staff to recast vote after Hopper won ‘Best in Show’ at CES — The Dish Network's Hopper wasn't simply in the running: it had actually taken the top prize — On Friday, news broke that CNET had been forced by its parent company CBS to remove the Dish Network's Hopper set-top box …

More: Digits, Examiner, BetaNews, Media Decoder, PC Magazine, AllThingsD, Salon, Techdirt, Stop the Cap!, Ars Technica, Electronista, TechCrunch, iLounge, Deadline.com and Betabeat. Tweets: @dannysullivan. See also Mediagazer

Lindsey Turrentine / CNET:

The 2013 Best of CES Awards: CNET's story — The true story of what happened before last week's Best of CES Awards unveiling — Last week, about 40 members of the CNET editorial staff met in the CNET trailer in the parking lot of the Las Vegas Convention Center to vote on our official Best of CES winner.

More: The Verge, Hillicon Valley, PandoDaily, Bateman Banter and Bloomberg Tech Blog

Tweets: @starfire2258, @megan, @edmundlee and @acedtect

See also Mediagazer

Bloomberg:

Dell Said to Be in Buyout Talks With Private-Equity Firms — Dell Inc. (DELL), the personal-computer maker that lost almost a third of its value last year, is in buyout talks with private-equity firms, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The shares surged.

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Dell Considers Going Private, Again — Shares of computer and IT company Dell are soaring and were briefly halted on word of a report by Bloomberg News that the company is in talks to go private. — Bloomberg's chatty banker sources say that Dell is in talks to do a deal with at least two private equity firms.

More: DailyFinance.com and Reuters. Tweets: @spencerchen

Ryan J. Reilly / The Huffington Post:

Aaron Swartz's Lawyer: Prosecutor Stephen Heymann Wanted ‘Juicy’ Case For Publicity — WASHINGTON — The federal prosecutor who reportedly insisted on jail time for the late Aaron Swartz was “very, very difficult to deal with,” Swartz's lawyer told The Huffington Post.

Tweets: @trevortimm and @mikeelk

Marcy Wheeler / emptywheel:

Two Days Before MIT and Cambridge Cops Arrested Aaron Swartz, Secret Service Took Over the Investigation — The public story of Aaron Swartz' now-tragic two year fight with the Federal government usually starts with his July 19, 2011 arrest. — But that's not when he was first arrested …

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

More: ReadWrite and Guardian. Tweets: @nikcub

Orin Kerr / The Volokh Conspiracy:

The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 1: The Law)

More: BuzzFeed and PandoDaily. Tweets: @medialawprof, @abeaujon, @paulg, @kevinmarks and @binarybits. See also Mediagazer

Marcia Hofmann / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

In the Wake of Aaron Swartz's Death, Let's Fix Draconian Computer Crime Law

More: Ars Technica, BuzzFeed, Hillicon Valley, TechPresident, Business Insider, Gawker, nbcnews.com and The Tech Report. See also Mediagazer

Brendan Sasso / The Hill:

Justice Department drops charges against Internet activist Swartz

More: ReadWrite, WebProNews, Boing Boing and Geekosystem. See also Mediagazer

Tero Kuittinen / BGR:

The strange math of Apple's alleged massive iPhone 5 order cuts — The Sunday evening Wall Street Journal article claiming that Apple (AAPL) had cut its iPhone 5 display orders drastically for the March quarter made quite a splash. The WSJ piece seemed to support the original Nikkei claim …

More: AppleInsider, Bloomberg, The Loop, The Technology Chronicles, Mercury News, Daring Fireball, iDownloadBlog.com, Tabbloid, Pocketnow and everythingiCafe

Tweets: @panzer, @benedictevans and @benedictevans

Josh Lowensohn / CNET:

Apple stock drop lingers following iPhone parts reports

More: New York Times, AllThingsD, Wall Street Journal, Betabeat, Digits, ZDNet, Los Angeles Times and Forbes

Apple:

Wi-Fi + Cellular Models of iPad mini & Fourth Generation iPad Available in China This Friday — BEIJINGJanuary 15, 2013Apple® today announced the Wi-Fi + Cellular versions of iPad® mini and the new fourth generation iPad with Retina® display will be available in China on Friday …

More: Engadget, MacRumors, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, The Next Web, AllThingsD, iDownloadBlog.com, Pocket-lint and iPhone Hacks

Kim Zetter / Wired:

Cybersleuths Uncover 5-Year Spy Operation Targeting Governments, Others — An advanced and well-orchestrated computer spy operation that targeted diplomats, governments and research institutions for at least five years has been uncovered by security researchers in Russia.

More: Securelist, BBC, Ars Technica, The Register, NYT Bits, Computerworld, ZDNet, Washington Post, PandoDaily, PC Magazine, TechSpot, TechWeekEurope UK, HotHardware.com News, SiliconANGLE, Gizmodo, Computerworld, SecurityWeek, VentureBeat and Softpedia News

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Chrome 25 beta launches with voice support and new tab page, now blocks silent extension installs — Mere days after releasing Chrome 24 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Google on Monday announced the release of Chrome 25 beta. Among the new features is voice support via the newly added Web Speech API …

More: Chromium Blog, BGR, The Register, chrome.blogspot.ca, BetaNews, HTML5Rocks Updates, VentureBeat, PC Magazine, Computerworld, Pocket-lint, gHacks Technology News, Softpedia News, 9to5Google, Gizmodo, SlashGear and Engadget

Douglas MacMillan / Bloomberg:

Twitter's $1 Billion Target Helped by Turkey as IPO Nears — Turkish pop sensation Murat Boz is closing in on 2 million followers on Twitter Inc., a sign that the U.S.-based microblogging service is gaining popularity overseas as growth slows in its home market.

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft just teased the next Xbox at CES — More signs point to a future of augmented reality Xbox gaming — Microsoft didn't have a booth or even an official press event at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, but that didn't stop the company from jumping on stage twice.

More: Business Insider

Dina Bass / Bloomberg:

Microsoft Surface Estimate Cut in Half to 1 Million Units at UBS — Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s fiscal second- quarter earnings will be less than previously expected due to weak demand for personal-computers and the company's new tablet, Surface, according to Brent Thill, an analyst at UBS AG.

More: Business Insider, The Next Web, digitaltrends.com, Computerworld, LAPTOP Magazine, TechSpot, BGR, Inquirer, Mashable! and Neowin

Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:

Apple Thunderbolt Display inventory dwindles, may hint at upcoming redesign — A number of resellers have run dry of Apple Thunderbolt Display inventory, suggesting the 27-inch monitor may be due for an upgrade, perhaps with a thinner design that takes cues from the latest iMacs.

More: Apple Bitch, MacRumors and TUAW

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Janrain Raises $33M From Salesforce, And Others For Social Log-In Management Platform — Janrain, a company that develops a social log-in management platform for developers, has raised $33 million in funding led by Millennium Technology Value Partners with Split Rock Partners, Epic Ventures …

More: Oregonian

Ben Kersey / The Verge:

BlackBerry 10 sees 15,000 app submissions in less than two days — RIM will be facing an uphill battle when it does eventually launch BlackBerry 10, but the company is making sure it'll have a healthy selection of apps from the get-go by incentivizing developers.

More: CNET, Computerworld, FierceMobileContent News, IntoMobile, Pocketnow, VentureBeat and SlashGear

Craig Lloyd / SlashGear:

Amazon Instant Video now available on Nintendo Wii — If you haven't yet upgraded to Nintendo's newest console, the Wii U, and are still stuck on the original Wii, not all hope is lost. The company is still supporting the older console. Case in point: they just announced availability …

More: Amazon.com, Engadget, The Next Web and Joystiq. Tweets: @nintendoamerica

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft delivers updated test build of embedded Windows 8 for point-of-sale systems — Summary: Microsoft is updating its Windows embedded roadmap again this week at the National Retail Federation show. — At the National Retail Federation (NRF) show in New York City this week …

More: BetaNews, MSDN Blogs, Engadget and SlashGear

Wired:

The FBI Needs Hackers, Not Backdoors — Just imagine if all the applications and services you saw or heard about at CES last week had to be designed to be “wiretap ready” before they could be offered on the market. Before regular people like you or me could use them. — Yet that's a real possibility.

Tweets: @matthew_d_green, @prophet_profit and @mattblaze

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

HP Memo Confirms Layoffs and New Directions at Autonomy — Hewlett-Packard just let employees in its Autonomy business unit know that there are going to be some layoffs and some further changes to the business, including a boost to research and development spending.

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