Techmeme: The Tech Bubble's Silver Lining: Cheap Services for Everyone (Farhad Manjoo/New York Times)

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March 30, 2014, 7:45 PM

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Adam Levitin / Credit Slips:

Last week's IRS ruling means bitcoins are not fungible, therefore unworkable as a currency — Bitcoin Tax Ruling — The IRS has spoken: Bitcoins are property, not currency. This was hardly a surprise, but it has some important implication that tells us a lot about what it takes to make a currency work.

More: The Atlantic Online and Forbes

Danny Bradbury / CoinDesk:

What the IRS Bitcoin Tax Guidelines Mean For You — The US Internal Revenue Service finally announced its guidance for virtual currencies yesterday, explicitly referring to bitcoin (see the announcement here and notice here). The increased clarity - provided three weeks before the end of the US tax year …

Kashmir Hill / Forbes:

Entrepreneurs step up to help taxpayers track Bitcoin transactions, comply with IRS guidance — The Bitcoin Taxman Cometh: Calculating How Much Crypto-Investors Owe IRS Could Be Easy — With April 15 just weeks away, the IRS dropped its long-awaited “virtual currency guidance,” …

Marcella Bombardieri / The Boston Globe:

Court documents reveal ambivalence in how MIT assisted Aaron Swartz's prosecution — The inside story of MIT and Aaron Swartz — More than a year after Swartz killed himself rather than face prosecution, questions about MIT's handling of the hacking case persist

More: Mashable. Tweets: @bostonglobe, @matthewkeyslive, @declanm, @caleb_crain and @mattblaze. See also Mediagazer

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Longtime Windows and Office Executive Antoine Leblond Leaving Microsoft — Antoine Leblond, one of several Windows unit executives sidelined in a reorganization last year, is leaving Microsoft. — Leblond, who spent nearly 25 years at Microsoft, will leave the company after Monday — his 9,000th day at the company.

More: The Verge, VentureBeat, GeekWire, WinBeta and TechCrunch. Tweets: @stevesi

Laszlo Bock / Harvard Business Review:

Google is two years into gDNA, a long-term study to understand employees' work-life balance — Google's Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance (and Much More) — More than 65 years ago in Massachusetts, doctors began a longitudinal study that would transform our understanding of heart disease.

More: Business Insider, The Verge, BGR and GovExec.com

Threes:

Frustrated by popular fast following rip-offs like 2048, creators of Threes tout advantages of their 14-month development process — The Rip-offs & Making Our Original Game — It's been a weird and awesome couple of months. Our expectations for our tiny game were well, fairly tiny.

More: VentureBeat, PC Magazine, Business Insider, Los Angeles Times, Geekosystem, Tech2, Polygon, The Verge, iPhone in Canada Blog, Android Community, Business Insider and Los Angeles Times

Tweets: @gruber, @aeiowu and @ashervo

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:

The Tech Bubble's Silver Lining: Cheap Services for Everyone — Box is losing money. A lot of money. In documents it filed for its initial public offering, the cloud-storage firm disclosed this week that it took in $124 million in 2013, but it spent $257 million.

More: VentureBeat. Tweets: @noahelkin, @carriemantha and @pkedrosky

Timothy B. Lee / Washington Post:

In new case, Supreme Court revisits the question of software patents — If you write a book or a song, you can get copyright protection for it. If you invent a pill or a better mousetrap, you can patent it. But for decades, software has had the distinction of being eligible for both copyright and patent protection.

More: New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @samaaron, @seldo and @checker

Reuters:

Exclusive: Mt. Gox faced questions on handling client cash long before crisis — (Reuters) - Two years before Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy, a half dozen employees at the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange challenged CEO Mark Karpeles over whether client money was being used to cover costs …

More: Ars Technica, VentureBeat, CoinDesk and newsBTC

Felix Salmon:

Grand, immersive designs, increasingly common in journalism, vastly oversell smaller stories — Against beautiful journalism — Have you seen that site's gorgeous new redesign? Every article has a nice big headline, huge photos, loads of white space, intuitive and immersive scrolling …

More: Teaching Online Journalism. Tweets: @clarkstream, @feliciasonmez, @nycsouthpaw, @kgittleson and @dylanlathrop

Eric Mack / CNET:

HTC admits boosting One M8 benchmarks; makes it a feature — Some suspected the HTC One M8 of pumping up its processor for better benchmarks. HTC's response: Of course it does. In fact, it's now a feature. — If this phone wore pants, some think they would be on fire. — Brian Bennett/CNET

More: PC Magazine, AmongTech, I4U News, Engadget, GSMArena Blog and AnandTech. Tweets: @geekyranjit. Thanks:@ericcmack

AnandTech:

HTC One (M8) review: great build quality, as much as 70% more battery life vs. predecessor

More: The Verge, The Droid Guy, BGR and Android Beat

Martha Mendoza / Associated Press:

Apple and Samsung renew patent infringement fight in San Jose court on Monday — Another Apple-Samsung skirmish heads to court — SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The fiercest rivalry in the world of smartphones is heading back to court this week in the heart of the Silicon Valley …

More: MacRumors, The Economic Times, AppleInsider, PC World, Wall Street Journal, iPhone in Canada Blog, Re/code, The Droid Guy, Financial Times, Mercury News and Patently Apple

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