Techmeme: Google identifies house numbers in Street View using a neural network for image recognition (Emerging Technology From the arXiv)

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January 7, 2014, 12:10 PM

Top News

Apple:

App Store Sales Top $10 Billion in 2013 — Record-Breaking December with Over $1 Billion in Sales — CUPERTINO, CaliforniaJanuary 7, 2014Apple® today announced that customers spent over $10 billion on the App Store in 2013, including over $1 billion in December alone.

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Apple: $10B In App Store Sales In 2013, $15B Paid Out To Developers To Date

More: 9to5Mac, BGR and Softpedia News

Steven Levy / Wired:

How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet — Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and the other tech titans have had to fight for their lives against their own government. An exclusive look inside their year from hell—and why the Internet will never be the same. — Washington Post reporters called …

More: The Verge. Tweets: @pmarca, @csoghoian, @tobie and @stevenlevy

Sean Buckley / Engadget:

Intel's Edison: a 22nm dual-core PC the size of an SD card, runs Linux, has built-in WiFi and Bluetooth modules — Intel announces Edison: a 22nm dual-core PC the size of an SD card — Four months ago, Intel unveiled its Quark SoC at IDF. Today at CES 2014, company CEO Brian Krzanich wants …

More: The Verge, The Verge, Engadget, Computerworld, IntoMobile, Geeky Gadgets, The Register and Mercury News

Tweets: @zyx2k and @benkershner

Quentin Hardy / NYT Bits:

Intel CEO focuses on wearable and connected devices in CES keynote speech — Intel: Inside, Upon, Within, Around — Intel is trying to make good on its promises, fast. — Speaking at the preshow keynote of the International Consumer Electronics Show, Brian Krzanich, Intel's chief executive …

More: Engadget, Guardian, Bloomberg, Computerworld and TechCrunch

Tweets: @brij and @qhardy

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

Intel unveils series of wearable devices, including a smartwatch and fitness-tracking earbuds

More: ReadWrite, Intel, Data Center Knowledge, Re/code, The Verge, Ars Technica, VentureBeat, Intel Newsroom, The Next Web, The Register, Softpedia News, Engadget and USA Today. Tweets: @verge

Mark Mazzetti / New York Times:

Anonymous burglars who exposed FBI's spying program in 1971 come forward for the first time — Burglars Who Took on F.B.I. Abandon Shadows — Stealing J. Edgar Hoover's Secrets: One night in 1971, files were stolen from an F.B.I. office near Philadelphia. They proved that the bureau was spying on thousands of Americans.

More: The Verge, Nextgov, Business Insider, Guardian, Mashable, Freedom of the Press …, Talking Points Memo, Gizmodo and Your Anon News

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announces McAfee brand name will be replaced by Intel Security — At CES 2014 today, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced the McAfee brand name will be phased out and replaced by “Intel Security,” which will identify Intel products and services in the security segment.

More: VentureBeat, SiliconANGLE, CNET, VatorNews, ZDNet, Inquirer, The Verge, Softpedia News and Graham Cluley. Tweets: @theromit

Emerging Technology From the arXiv:

Google identifies house numbers in Street View using a neural network for image recognition — How Google Cracked House Number Identification in Street View — Google can identify and transcribe all the views it has of street numbers in France in less than an hour, thanks to a neural network that's just as good as human operators.

More: Motherboard. Tweets: @nypl_labs

Meghan Kelly / VentureBeat:

Sony announces Oculus Rift virtual reality headset competitor — Sony Entertainment president Mike Fasulo briefly shows off the company's new virtual reality headset. — CES 2014 … Movie watchers and gamers who just like to enjoy their content alone may like Sony's latest product: a virtual reality headset.

More: NBC Bay Area and VG247

Ina Fried / Re/code:

T-Mobile CEO on Being Thrown Out of AT&T's Party: “I Just Wanted to Hear Macklemore” — T-Mobile CEO John Legere has been trying to crash AT&T's party metaphorically for a while now. — On Monday, he decided to do it literally, working his way into a party that the telecom giant was throwing for its developers at the Palms Hotel.

More: CNET, Betabeat, BGR, GeekWire, Gigaom, Business Insider, The Switch, Phandroid, iDownloadBlog.com, The Daily Beast, iMore, The Verge, TmoNews, iClarified, BuzzFeed, 9to5Google, VentureBeat and AndroidHeadlines.com

Tweets: @rogerwcheng and @inafried

Steven Sinofsky / Re/code:

The Four Stages of Disruption — Innovation and disruption are the hallmarks of the technology world, and hardly a moment passes when we are not thinking, doing, or talking about these topics. While I was speaking with some entrepreneurs recently on the topic, the question kept coming up …

Tweets: @pmarca and @balajis

Robin Wauters / Tech.eu:

Breakdown in progress: Fab narrows its European business down to only selling custom-made furniture — Big changes appear to continue to be afoot at highly valued U.S. e-commerce company Fab, which has recently been in the news pretty much exclusively when something negative happens …

More: Betashop Quarterly, Re/code, The Verge, Mashable, Valleywag, Business Insider and The Next Web

Ina Fassbender / Reuters:

China suspends ban on sale of foreign video game consoles — (Reuters) - (Adds context, size of China's video game market, company comments) — China's State Council said it has temporarily lifted a ban on selling foreign video game consoles, paving the way for firms like Sony Corp …

More: CNET, Guardian, Bloomberg, Mashable, T3 News, Polygon, VG247, Ubergizmo, MCV: Home Stream and WinBeta

Sean Hollister / The Verge:

Android on Windows gets another supporter in AMD — It's not just Intel — Last week, we told you about Intel's plans to join Windows and Android at the hip, possibly launching a new brand of computer at this year's Consumer Electronics Show that can run both operating systems simultaneously.

More: The Verge, Gizmodo, Computerworld, SiliconANGLE, InfoWorld, Computerworld, VentureBeat, Tech in Asia, TechEye, Engadget, The Seattle Times, Inquirer, GeekWire and CNET. Thanks:@johnnotjon

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Linksys resurrects classic blue router, with open source and $300 price — Now owned by Belkin rather than Cisco, Linksys joins its past to its future. — A year after purchasing the Linksys home networking division from Cisco, Belkin today brought back the design of what it called …

More: Electronista, Belkin USA Site, CNET, ZDNet and Maximum PC

Dennis Fisher / Threatpost:

Bruce Schneier Joins Startup Co3 Systems — UPDATE-Bruce Schneier, the famed cryptographer and author who recently left his longtime post at BT, has taken a new position as CTO of Co3 Systems, a startup that provides incident response systems. Schneier, a central figure in the security industry …

More: Schneier on Security, ZDNet, darkREADING, Computerworld, The Register, Inquirer, co3sys.com and Co3 Systems

Jeff Chu / Fast Company:

Can Apple's Angela Ahrendts Spark A Retail Revolution? — When the Burberry CEO takes over as Apple's retail chief this spring, she'll arrive with a sterling track record and an open, collaborative spirit that's sure to shake things up in the executive ranks.

More: Fortune and MacRumors. Tweets: @a_wittenbergcox. Thanks:@_trendspotter

Evelyn M. Rusli / Digits:

When Mark Met Evan — It's safe to assume that Evan Spiegel and Mark Zuckerberg are not best buds. — Spiegel, the Snapchat CEO, Monday tweeted a screenshot of an e-mail exchange from November 2012 with the Facebook chief. The exchange, confirmed as authentic by a Snapchat spokeswoman …

More: Valleywag, Forbes, Forbes, CNET and Business Insider

Tweets: @evanspiegel, @evanspiegel, @evanspiegel, @evelynrusli, @fmanjoo, @dmac1 and @evelynrusli

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Samsung's Ultra HD TVs will stream 4K video from Amazon, Comcast, DirecTV, Netflix and more — Samsung's Ultra HD TVs won't sell themselves — they need the content to justify all those extra pixels. To that end, the Korean tech giant has just announced partnerships with companies that will deliver 4K to the masses.

More: Amazon.com, The Register, CNET, Softpedia News, The Verge, The Next Web, Gizmodo and The Verge

Andrew Liszewski / Gizmodo:

Polaroid's Socialmatic Camera Is All About Sharing Your Shots — We were cautiously optimistic when the concept for the real-life Instagram camera, the Socialmatic, popped up online last year. Now, despite a few concerns, Polaroid is officially making the design a reality.

More: TechCrunch, IntoMobile, Electronista, Business Wire, CNET and iMore. Tweets: @dannysullivan

Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:

Sony's new Core fitness tracker will be the ‘heart’ of its wearable experience (hands-on) — Sony's not new to the wearable market, but the company just entered the fitness-tracking market in a big way — during its CES press conference, the company announced Core.

More: BGR, IntoMobile, Engadget and TechCrunch

Amanda Hess / Pacific Standard:

The Next Civil Rights Issue: Why Women Aren't Welcome on the Internet — I was 12 hours into a summer vacation in Palm Springs when my phone hummed to life, buzzing twice next to me in the dark of my hotel room. I squinted at the screen. It was 5:30 a.m., and a friend was texting me from the opposite coast.

Tweets: @danagoldstein, @digiphile, @adrianchen, @nytimesbits, @abrams, @jessicakroy, @codinghorror, @viggles, @jessicavalenti and @jaredbkeller

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Researchers warn of new, meaner ransomware with unbreakable crypto — Security researchers have uncovered evidence of a new piece of malware that may be able to take gigabytes' worth of data hostage unless end users pay a ransom. — Discussions of the new malware, alternately dubbed PrisonLocker …

More: Help Net Security, Malware Must Die! and Threatpost

Jungah Lee / Bloomberg:

Samsung Posts First Profit Decline Since 2011 Amid Apple Battle — Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) posted its first profit decline in nine quarters as Apple Inc. (AAPL:US)'s newest iPhones won high-end handset sales and competition from cheaper makers crimped prices.

More: Computerworld, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Android Beat, Electronista, Reuters and CNET

Tweets: @turleymuller and @satariano

Joe Ryan / Newsday:

Verint to acquire KANA Software for $514 million — Verint Systems Inc., one of Long Island's largest and fastest-growing software companies, has reached an agreement to buy a Silicon Valley competitor for $514 million. — The pending purchase of KANA Software Inc. from private equity firm Accel-KKR marks …

More: Globes Online, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press and bizjournals

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

TiVo Moves Storage Of TV Shows Into The Cloud With New Network DVR Service — DVR manufacturer TiVo has spent most of the last 15 years building hardware that would allow consumers to record their favorite TV shows and watch them later. Now the company is working toward building products …

More: Engadget, Gizmodo, The Next Web and Variety. See also Mediagazer

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