Techmeme: Giants behaving badly: Google, Facebook and Amazon show us the downside of monopolies and black-box algorithms (Mathew Ingram/Gigaom)

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May 25, 2014, 6:35 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:

U.S. Companies Hacked by Chinese Didn't Tell Investors — Three U.S. public companies identified as Chinese hacking victims didn't report the theft of trade secrets and other data to investors, despite rules designed to disclose significant events. — Two of the companies …

More: Techdirt

Danny Yadron / Wall Street Journal:

Alleged Chinese Hacking: Alcoa Breach Relied on Simple Phishing Scam — Email That Purported to Be From Carlos Ghosn Held a Virus That Let Hackers Allegedly Steal Nearly 3,000 Messages, According to Indictment — At first blush, the email appeared to be from Carlos Ghosn …

Tweets: @toddheberlein, @socengineerinc and @dannyyadron

Reuters:

US may use visa restrictions to prevent Chinese nationals from attending Def Con, Black Hat — U.S. may act to keep Chinese hackers out of Def Con hacker event — (Reuters) - U.S. officials are considering using visa restrictions to prevent Chinese hackers from attending popular summer hacker conferences …

More: Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Boing Boing, VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal, I4U News and Engadget

Tweets: @thedarktangent, @dfmag, @edourdoo, @thedarktangent, @startupljackson, @evacide, @chriseng and @thegrugq

Mike Krahulik / Penny Arcade:

Penny Arcade artist: Surface Pro 3 is “close to being perfect” but has performance issues in some programs, Windows button is poorly placed — Surface Pro 3 — Gabe: The Surface Pro 3 does a lot of stuff right. The device is ridiculously light and thin.

More: Neowin and Subtraction.com + Feed. Tweets: @kylebrussell, @onejarednewman and @georgeou

Casey Johnston / Ars Technica:

What Microsoft gets wrong about the tablet-laptop redundancy — While onstage at the Surface Pro 3 event, Microsoft vice president and Surface creator Panos Panay cited a pretty surprising statistic: 96 percent of iPad owners also own a laptop. Tablet and laptop ownership relationships …

More: Softpedia News, eWeek, Digital Trends, WinBeta, Neowin and Windows Phone Central

Tweets: @dcseifert, @bkonkle and @mikeloukides

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Surface Pro 3 review: impressive hardware, ideal form factor for Windows 8.1, so-so battery

More: CNET News, Neowin, ZDNet, Ars Technica, The Next Web, Softpedia News, Gotta Be Mobile, Macworld, Wired, PC Magazine, Ars Technica, Yahoo Tech and Engadget

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Giants behaving badly: Google, Facebook and Amazon show us the downside of monopolies and black-box algorithms — The internet is a wondrous thing — a limitless universe of content and products and information, all of which can be summoned up from the comfort of a chair or the palm of the hand …

More: New York Times. Tweets: @jm_mcgrath and @reckless. See also Mediagazer

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Spotify lands another hot integration, this time with mixing app Djay — Could Made For Spotify be the new Made For iPod? — Spotify isn't profitable quite yet, but with 10 million paid subscribers, the company is likely closer than anyone else in the on-demand music space to breaking even.

More: The Next Web, MacRumors, Gotta Be Mobile, CNET News, TechCrunch, TUAW, TechRepublic, Geeky Gadgets, The Mac Observer, ZDNet, Yahoo Tech and Macworld. Tweets: @hamburger

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Apple's Expanded ‘Your Verse’ Campaign Pitches iPad As Mobile Creation Tool — Apple is releasing two new TV spots today, along with companion sections on its website. The spots will continue its ‘Your Verse’ advertising, which attempts to demonstrate the ways that the iPad can be used to create and ‘do’.

More: iMore, 9to5Mac, CNET, Re/code, iPhone Hacks and Cult of Mac

Richard Lai / Engadget:

Following Microsoft, Sony's PlayStation business officially enters China — It's only been about a month since Microsoft announced that it'll be bringing the Xbox to China come September, courtesy of the local government lifting its somewhat lax ban on imported video games and consoles.

More: Digital Trends and PC Magazine

Matt Brian / Engadget:

Sony's PlayStation 4 is already profitable and on course to beat the PS2's success

More: VentureBeat, Gotta Be Mobile, Eurogamer.net, Softpedia News, GameSpot, Polygon, BGR, Geekosystem, CraveOnline, IGN, GamesIndustry International, destructoid, VG247, Joystiq, TechSpot and VentureBeat

Evelyn M. Rusli / Wall Street Journal:

Investor Talk on Uber's Valuation Hits as High as $17 Billion — The bids for Uber's funding round rolled in this past week, and the price for the on-demand car service seems poised to steeply rise. — Several investors have stepped up during the bidding process, offering valuations near or above $17 billion, two people said.

More: bizjournals. Tweets: @jmcduling. Thanks:@evelynrusli

Kim Zetter / Wired:

Government Seeks Seven-Month Sentence for LulzSec Leader ‘Sabu’ — As a reward for his extensive cooperation helping prosecutors hunt down his fellow hackers, the government is seeking time served for the long-awaited sentencing of top LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur, also known as “Sabu.”

More: New York Times, New York Times, Gizmodo, Bloomberg and The Verge

Tweets: @parmy, @wikileaks, @dfmag, @apblake, @kgosztola, @jamesrbuk, @wikileaks, @dellcam, @ioerror, @ioerror, @ioerror, @ioerror, @occupycleveland and @thisishnn

Richard Lawler / Engadget:

Cox will start its gigabit internet rollout in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Omaha — Bandwidth-hungry internet users can register a few new cities as potentially acceptable places to live. Following Google Fiber and AT&T, Cox Communications is one of the first big cable companies to announce plans …

More: Cox Communications, The Verge, Digital Trends, PC Magazine, FierceCable, HotHardware.com News and Light Reading

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Apple requests retrial of Samsung patent case, demonstrates dissatisfaction with jury verdict — After the original version of the Apple v. Samsung II jury verdict that came down on May 2 (and had to be amended on May 5), Apple's PR department had issued a premature statement that basically described …

More: PC Magazine, Cult of Mac, The Verge, iPhone in Canada Blog, Redmond Pie, Engadget and The Next Web

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Apple seeking U.S. permanent injunction against Samsung based on this month's jury verdict

More: Re/code, AppleInsider, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, iPhone Hacks and 9to5Mac. Tweets: @fosspatents

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