Techmeme: Illinois court throws out ‘Amazon tax’ online sales law (Donna Tam/CNET)

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October 20, 2013, 12:25 PM

Top News

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Twitter Likely to Kill Its Music App — Just six months after launching it, Twitter is strongly considering killing off its Twitter #Music mobile application, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. — It is unclear what Twitter's time frame is for ultimately ending support …

More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, SlashGear, Gizmodo, I4U News, Engadget, Pocket-lint, The Verge and MobileSyrup.com

Tweets: @mikeisaac, @mathewi and @panzer

See also Mediagazer

Leslie Picker / Bloomberg:

Twitter's Lack of Patents Seen as a Risk to Investors — Profits aren't the only thing lacking at Twitter Inc. ahead of its planned initial public offering. It's got a dearth of patents, too. — The microblogging service said in its prospectus this week that it has nine issued U.S. patents.

More: Softpedia News. Tweets: @qthrul and @zolbayarsays

Business Insider:

CONTROLLING CHAOS: Twitter's Wild Ride From Doodle To IPO — In the fall of 2010, Twitter was in chaos. — The micro-blogging site, which had been founded four years earlier, still wasn't generating much revenue despite having 145 million users. The site was still crashing constantly.

More: CNET, Fayette Advocate and The Verge

Tweets: @ajs and @apoorvnarang

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Anonymity of Bitcoin transactions a boon to ransomware crooks — You're infected—if you want to see your data again, pay us $300 in Bitcoins — Malware that takes computers hostage until users pay a ransom is getting meaner, and thanks to the growing prevalence of Bitcoin …

More: CoinDesk, Naked Security, VentureBeat, Geek.com and BGR. Tweets: @superamit

Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:

Apple inventory snapshot suggests new MacBook Pros imminent, non-Retina iPad mini may live on — A near last minute snapshot of Apple's indirect channel inventory ahead of Tuesday's media event supports expectations of new Retina MacBook Pros, 9.7-inch fifth-gen iPads, and a redesigned Mac Pro …

More: 9to5Mac, App Advice, SlashGear and MacNN

Donna Tam / CNET:

Illinois court throws out ‘Amazon tax’ online sales law — The Illinois Supreme Court struck down a state law Friday that required online retailers, like Amazon, to collect sales tax if they have in-state Web affiliates, according to Associated Press. — The court decided …

More: Chicago Tribune, Associated Press and Forbes

Ron / WinBeta:

Microsoft pulls Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store due to ‘a situation’ — Microsoft has apparently removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store, citing a situation as the culprit for some users. Microsoft is investigating the issue and will provide further details once the update is ready to be released again.

More: Annoying stuff I figured out, Ars Technica, VentureBeat, WindowsObserver.com, TechCrunch, BetaNews, Network World, The Verge, AllThingsD, PC Magazine, The Next Web, Pureinfotech Newsletter, Engadget, ZDNet and PC World

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Seene Uses Computer Vision To Create Unique And Eerie 3D Images On iPhone — It's not often that I use a new ‘photo capture’ app and impressed by it within seconds. It's not that there's not a lot of cool stuff being built out there, it's just that the frontiers are getting closer and easier to predict.

More: Gizmodo, TUAW and LAPTOP Magazine

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Walmart Labs' Subscription Snack Service Goodies.co Will Shut Down — Last year, Walmart Labs jumped on the subscription commerce bandwagon with a new service called Goodies.co in order to compete with a range of startups offering monthly boxes of goodies to customers.

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

US Companies Raised $8.1B In 806 VC Deals In Q3, Capital Raised, M&A Activity And IPOs All Up From Previous Quarter — Dow Jones Venture Source released its quarterly report on the state of venture capital, including data on number of VC deals, funds raised, M&As and IPOs in the technology sector.

More: GigaOM and DailyFinance.com

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Megaupload Raid ‘Destroyed’ (Way) More Than 10,000,000 Legal Files — When the U.S. Government took down Megaupload it branded the company as a pirate site with seemingly few legitimate uses. Up until now, however, there has been no research to back up this claim.

More: Gizmodo UK and Digital Music News

Phil Goldstein / FierceWireless:

SoftBank to take majority stake in big U.S. wireless device distributor Brightstar — SoftBank makes $1.26B investment in wireless distributor Brightstar — Sprint (NYSE:S) parent SoftBank said it agreed to take a 57 percent stake in U.S. wireless device distributor Brightstar Corp. for $1.26 billion …

More: Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Seeking Alpha, AllThingsD, Brightstar Corp., Computerworld and MobileBurn.com

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