Techmeme: Why iPad plateaued: tablets are eroding the PC market, but the smartphone is the transformative new category (Benedict Evans)

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April 27, 2014, 7:15 PM

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Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

RadiumOne Confirms That It Has Fired CEO Gurbaksh Chahal — RadiumOne just announced that its board of directors terminated CEO and Chairman Gurbaksh Chahal on Saturday night. The company said in an emailed statement that Chief Operating Officer Bill Lonergan will be taking over the CEO role.

More: Re/code, PC Magazine, VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed, Forbes, CNET, Ars Technica, The Raw Story, Fortune, Valleywag, Business Insider, Mashable and Talking New Media

Tweets: @owenthomas and @danprimack

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal Says He Didn't Do It: “I Didn't Hit Her 117 Times” — It is hard to know where to start in this astonishingly vehement account that RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal just posted on his personal site, titled “Can You Handle the Truth?,” in which he defends himself from charges of domestic violence.

More: Gurbaksh Chahal, TechCrunch, Fortune, TechCrunch, AdAge, TechCrunch, Business Insider, thedrum.com, Re/code and San Francisco Citizen

Tweets: @shouviknyc, @ryanlawler, @graubart, @pkafka, @danprimack and @fmanjoo

Jason Tanz / Wired:

How Airbnb and Lyft Finally Got Americans to Trust Each Other — In about 40 minutes, Cindy Manit will let a complete stranger into her car. An app on her windshield-mounted iPhone will summon her to a corner in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, where a russet-haired woman …

More: New York Magazine and Fast Company. Tweets: @pmarca, @epicureandeal, @lyft and @stevesi

Gary Kamiya / San Francisco magazine:

San Francisco Is Dead. Long Live San Francisco. — Yes, the city we know is going away. But, as has happened throughout its history, a new one will arise. Let's give it a chance. — In 1999, my wife and I saw a For Sale sign on a small house on Nob Hill, two blocks away from the apartment where we'd been living for years.

Tweets: @elaineishere, @byjocelyn, @scottlucas86, @mattrosoff, @tedr, @dougw, @abrams, @abrams and @startupljackson

The Atlantic Online:

Net Neutrality: A Guide to (and History of) a Contested Idea — This week, news broke that the Federal Communications Commission is considering new rules for how the Internet works. — In short: the FCC would allow network owners (your Verizons, Comcasts, etc.) to create Internet …

More: Vox, eWeek, Hit & Run, IEEE Spectrum and Salon. Tweets: @tonyromm. See also Mediagazer

Lee Fang / VICE:

Several key FCC staffers recently worked for ISPs who would benefit from net neutrality defeat

More: Trends, Digital Trends, Re/code, Boing Boing, GamePolitics blogs and hypebot

Tweets: @kwerb, @lhfang and @jbrodkin

See also Mediagazer

Barbara van Schewick / Center for Internet and Society:

The FCC changed course on network neutrality. Here is why you should care.

Tweets: @kwerb, @camholm and @rsingel. See also Mediagazer

Benedict Evans:

Why iPad plateaued: tablets are eroding the PC market, but the smartphone is the transformative new category — iPads and tablet growth — Apple's revenue has pretty much stopped growing. This chart shows the quarterly revenue the company has reported - a series of ever larger spikes upward around …

More: TechCrunch, Medium, Fortune, AVC, Stowe Boyd, The Atlantic Online, Business Insider and 9to5Mac

Tweets: @benedictevans, @niallharbison, @joshconstine, @benedictevans, @nathanborror, @bertmmi, @pefnam, @dkthomp, @stevesi, @rjs, @borthwick and @rwd

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Bitcoin Slips Following News Of Fresh Restrictions In China — Bitcoin, which has recently traded under $400 and over $500, shed more than 10% of its value over the past few days, falling from around $500 to under $440, before recovering slightly. — As has happened many times in recent months …

More: CoinDesk, Forex Minute, Bloomberg, Zero Hedge, Forex Minute and ForexNews.com

Ms. Smith / Network World:

Microsoft warns Internet Explorer 6 - 11 vulnerable to zero-day spotted in the wild — FireEye researchers spotted a new zero-day in the wild, with all versions of IE vulnerable, but with IE 9 -11 being targeted for ‘Operation Clandestine Fox.’ — “Microsoft is aware of limited …

More: technet.microsoft.com, Re/code, Wall Street Journal, Ars Technica, Engadget, The Register, The Verge, Gizmodo, Computerworld, Krebs on Security, ZDNet, WinBeta, SecurityWeek and The Hacker News

Lisa Fleisher / Wall Street Journal:

Duolingo Tests Waters with App-Based English-Proficiency Exam — Standardized testing may be headed to the smartphone. — A language-learning startup plans to offer an app-based English proficiency exam, challenging big test-makers that have long dominated the market.

More: Android Police, Slate, The Next Web, Gigaom, TechCrunch, PC Magazine and Fast Company

John Zorabedian / Naked Security:

Viber images and videos were not encrypted during transit or storage, company says “issue has already been resolved” — Here we go again: Viber mobile messenger app leaves user data unencrypted — Viber, a mobile messenger app that allows users to make phone calls …

More: UNHcFREG, CNET, The Hacker News, The Register, Softpedia News, SC Magazine and Android Community

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Wall Street Journal:

Airbnb starts recommending nearby destinations to SF users, other cities coming soon — Airbnb Wants to Be a Travel Agent — Airbnb wants to be a travel agent. — People who opened the apartment-sharing company's mobile app in San Francisco on Thursday found something new …

More: VentureBeat

Ron Nixon / New York Times:

US built Twitter-like services for Cuba, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and dozens more countries — U.S. Says It Built Digital Programs Abroad With an Eye to Politics — WASHINGTON — The United States built Twitter-like social media programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, like one in Cuba …

More: The Verge and The Eastern Tribune. Tweets: @digiphile, @nytimesbits and @katrinanation

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