Techmeme: Tencent Approaches Facebook Value Amid China Web Boom (Lulu Yilun Chen/Bloomberg)

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September 17, 2013, 9:05 AM

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Chris Welch / The Verge:

Apple quiet on iPhone 5c pre-orders as stock price slides — Apple is clearly positioning the upcoming iPhone 5c as its next smartphone for the masses. The colored, plastic device is the first thing you see when visiting Apple.com or the company's iPhone page.

More: Digits, Business Insider, CNET, AppleInsider, MacRumors, AllThingsD, MarketWatch, www.pocketgamer.biz, iPhone Hacks, Mercury News, Mobile Marketing Watch and Josh Kerr

Tweets: @joshuatopolsky and @pkedrosky

Digits:

Preorders Show Weaker Demand for New iPhones in China — Just days before the new iPhones are set to go on sale in China, there are indications that demand for Apple Inc.'s iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C may not match up to its previous model. — The country's second largest wireless carrier China Unicom …

More: AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, AllThingsD, App Advice, The Next Web, I4U News, IntoMobile, iDownloadBlog.com, Phones Review and Electronista

Nathan Olivarez-Giles / The Verge:

Google is done selling the Nexus 4 in the US — The Nexus 4's run in Google Play is now over. On Monday, Google's online storefront sold out of the 16GB version of the flagship phone in the US, and a trusted source with knowledge of the company's plans tells The Verge that this marks the end for the LG-built device.

More: 9to5Google, Digital Trends, Unwired View, PhoneArena, I4U News, Gizmodo, Softpedia News, AllThingsD, Phones Review, Gotta Be Mobile, Android Beat, Ars Technica, PhoneNews.com, Electronista, Pocket-lint and Lastest ITProPortal news

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:

Angry entrepreneur replies to patent troll with racketeering lawsuit — FindTheBest CEO Kevin O'Connor and Director of Operations Danny Seigle. — FindTheBest.com — Most business owners sued by patent trolls don't talk about it to anyone other than their lawyer; a typical response …

Tweets: @jeffjarvis, @dangillmor and @cdixon

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Bing gets a new logo and modern design to take on Google — Microsoft's Bing search engine is getting a new look. A year in the making, Bing is dropping its curly blue logo for a modern design that closely matches the rest of Microsoft's recently redesigned product branding.

More: Search Blog, Bing, Inquirer, The Next Web, Engadget, Gizmodo, BetaNews, Search Engine Land, TechCrunch, LiveSide.net, VR-Zone, Digits, I4U News, ZDNet, CNET, Softpedia News, Ubergizmo, Beyond Search, Bloomberg and memeburn. Tweets: @le3ky

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple airs new ‘Plastic Perfected’ ad to showcase iPhone 5c colors — Apple has started airing a new advertisement for the iPhone 5c. The ad is called “Plastic Perfected” and it focuses on the colors and materials of the new iPhone model. Much of the advertisement is reminiscent of scenes …

More: Electronista, MacRumors, AllThingsD, Apple, iLounge, MacRumors, AppleInsider, The Next Web, TUAW, Softpedia News, iPhone Hacks and iMore

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Gabe Newell: Linux is the future of gaming, new hardware coming soon — Gabe Newell speaking at LinuxCon today. — Linux Foundation — Gabe Newell, the co-founder and managing director of Valve, said today that Linux is the future of gaming despite its current minuscule share of the market.

More: ZDNet, The Verge, ITworld.com, The Tech Report, Electronista, GeekWire, Gearburn, TechCrunch, Gamasutra, VentureBeat, Kotaku, Softpedia News and Blue's News. Tweets: @counternotions

Thomas Erdbrink / New York Times:

Facebook and Twitter Blocked Again in Iran After Respite — TEHRAN — Internet users in Iran lost access Tuesday to Facebook and Twitter, a day after they were surprised to find that they could get on the sites without having to evade a government's firewall that had blocked direct access to the Web sites for years.

More: Quartz, AllFacebook, BBC, Digits, Business Insider, Reuters, Reuters, T3 News, SocialTimes, Reuters, GigaOM, WebProNews, ABC News, Valleywag, AllThingsD, Nextgov and The Verge. Tweets: @washingtonpost. See also Mediagazer

Brian Roemmele / Quora:

“Secure Enclave” in new A7 is where Touch ID biometric data is encrypted, stored, and secured — What is Apple's new Secure Enclave and why is it important? — ·clave noun \en-klv, än-klv\ : A group that is set off from a larger population by its characteristic or behavior.

More: Daring Fireball. Tweets: @jensimmons, @craigmod and @anildash

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

YouTube starts testing Chromecast support for third-party websites — YouTube quietly started to add support for Chromecast to its embedded web player, allowing users of Google's TV dongle to beam videos displayed on third-party websites straight from their browser to their TV.

More: Softpedia News and Engadget

Bruce Schneier / Schneier on Security:

Surreptitiously Tampering with Computer Chips — This is really interesting research: “Stealthy Dopant-Level Hardware Trojans.” Basically, you can tamper with a logic gate to be either stuck-on or stuck-off by changing the doping of one transistor. This sort of sabotage is undetectable by functional testing or optical inspection.

Lulu Yilun Chen / Bloomberg:

Tencent Approaches Facebook Value Amid China Web Boom — Tencent Holdings Ltd. (700)'s market value surpassed $100 billion within a decade of going public as Asia's biggest Internet company capitalizes on China's explosion in online gaming and messaging. — Tencent rose 2.5 percent …

More: Bloomberg, iDownloadBlog.com, AppleInsider, ZDNet and Business Insider. Tweets: @luluyilun

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Google Acquires Bump for at Least $30M — Google has acquired the mobile startup Bump. A source close to the transaction said it was worth at least $30 million, and perhaps as much as $60 million. — Bump had raised about $20 million from backers including Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz …

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Bump Mobile Contact Sharing App Acquired By Google, Will Stay Alive For Now

More: TechnoBuffalo, SocialTimes, BetaNews, 5by5 Master Audio Feed, PE Hub Blog, 9to5Google and silicontap.com

Tweets: @joshconstine and @caseynewton

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

“That's The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard Of.” — When Twitter broke the news last week about its forthcoming IPO, I got a bit sentimental. In 2006, when Twitter was entering the world as a side project of the podcasting startup Odeo, I had just left my first “career” in the film industry to try to make it in the tech industry.

Tweets: @dtrinh

Alex Williams / TechCrunch:

CipherCloud adds AES 256-bit encryption to Box — Box Gets A Little More Palatable With Some Added Encryption From CipherCloud — Box appears on the verge of becoming a publicly traded company. It may not happen until next year but the file storage and collaboration company …

More: Ars Technica and PR Newswire

Cade Metz / Wired:

Box.com Melds Google and Microsoft Into Document Engine of the Future

More: Wired, CITEworld, GigaOM and The Technology Chronicles. Thanks:@randall1976

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