Techmeme: The dark side of .io: How the U.K. is making web domain profits from a shady Cold War land deal (David Meyer/Gigaom)

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July 1, 2014, 6:40 AM

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Robert McMillan / Wired:

Recent hires suggest Apple is forming its own speech recognition team for a neural-net-boosted Siri — Siri Will Soon Understand You a Whole Lot Better — It all started at a small academic get-together in Whistler, British Columbia. — The topic was speech recognition …

More: AppleInsider, iMore, MacRumors, MacNN, App Advice, 9to5Mac, Ubergizmo and Cult of Mac. Tweets: @cdixon

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

“Buy Now” Buttons Start Appearing in Tweets. Is Twitter Shopping Finally Here? — Two things stand out about the sneakers pictured above in a screenshot from Twitter. First, their list price is a cool $170 million (though we imagine that's a glitch). — Second, there's a “Buy now” button included in the tweet.

More: memeburn, State of Digital, Ubergizmo, CNET, Marketing Land and Mashable

Tweets: @jbruin and @caseynewton

ProPublica:

Bulk or targeted? Foreign or domestic? This handy diagram plots the answer for the NSA programs revealed this past year — The NSA Revelations All in One Chart — This is a plot of the NSA programs revealed in the past year according to whether they are bulk or targeted …

More: Gizmodo, FlowingData and VentureBeat

Tweets: @loisbeckett and @propublica

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Twitter Scoops Up AdTech Firm Tap Commerce for Around $100 Million — Twitter is in the process of acquiring Tap Commerce, a New York-based mobile advertising technology firm, according to sources familiar with the situation. The deal is expected to be announced later on Monday.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Twitter Rolls Out App Install And Engagement Ads, And New Click Pricing, Globally

More: The Twitter Blog, AdAge, 9to5Mac, Pocket Gamer.biz, PandoDaily, The Next Web, AdExchanger, VentureBeat, Business Insider and App Advice

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

Samsung reveals the mini version of its Galaxy S5 smartphone, will go on sale in Russia first — Samsung has taken the wraps off the mini version of its flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone. The 4.5-inch Galaxy S5 mini has pretty much the same features as its parent device, featuring IP67 certification …

More: Samsung Mobile Press, BetaNews, Gizmodo, Digital Trends, 9to5Google, Engadget, The Verge, Softpedia News and Pocketnow

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

More details on Microsoft's desktop-focused Windows ‘Threshold’ release; public preview expected in fall 2014, release in spring 2015 — Windows ‘Threshold’: More on Microsoft's plan to win over Windows 7 users — Summary: One of Microsoft's main goals with 'Threshold …

Kashmir Hill / Forbes:

Facebook Added ‘Research’ To User Agreement 4 Months After Emotion Manipulation Study — Unless you've spent the last couple of days in a Faraday pouch under a rock, you've heard about Facebook's controversial ‘emotion manipulation’ study. Facebook data scientist Adam Kramer ran an experiment …

More: Guardian, ReadWrite, Gigaom, Tech Times, New Statesman, Daily Dot, ExtremeTech, ZDNet, Gizmodo, Business Insider, TechnoBuffalo, PandoDaily, TODAY, USA Today, Salon, Washington Post, WebProNews, Computerworld, Valleywag, POPSUGAR, AllFacebook, Mission Loc@l, PSFK, Wall Street Journal, VacuousMinx and WindowsITPro

Tweets: @jayrosen_nyu and @kashhill

Thanks:@aatilley

Tom Huddleston Jr / Fortune:

Tinder's former marketing VP Whitney Wolfe sues company for sexual discrimination, claims co-founder title removed — Tinder has a date with sexual discrimination suit — Dating app Tinder has been hit with a sexual discrimination lawsuit filed by its former vice president of marketing.

More: USA Today, TechCrunch, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, TMZ.com, NEWS.com.au, TIME, Valleywag, LAist, Daily Dot and Reuters. Tweets: @davidu

David Meyer / Gigaom:

The dark side of .io: How the U.K. is making web domain profits from a shady Cold War land deal — The .io country code top-level domain is pretty popular right now, particularly among tech startups that want to take advantage of the snappy input/output reference and the relative availability of names …

More: Guardian and The Independent. Tweets: @superglaze, @farman and @robmoff

Charles Hudson / Charles Hudson's Weblog:

Competing with LinkedIn and the Case Against Unbundling — I've been thinking about LinkedIn quite a bit lately. I think LinkedIn is really interesting because in many ways I think it is one of the most durable and hard to disrupt companies that sit at the intersection of SaaS and social networking.

Tweets: @stevesi and @danprimack

Pete Rizzo / CoinDesk:

Silk Road auction: 45 bidders, 63 total bids; SecondMarket was outbid on all blocks — Bitcoin Price Surges as Silk Road Auction Spurs Investor Interest — The US Marshals Service (USMS) has begun to inform participating investors as to the official results of its 27th June auction …

More: NEWSBTC

Biz Carson / Gigaom:

Bitcoin price jumps six percent as US Marshals' auction comes to a close

More: PandoDaily, Wall Street Journal, CoinDesk, Reuters and Business Insider

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Millions of dynamic DNS users suffer after Microsoft seizes No-IP domains — Legitimate users caught in legal fire designed to take down botnets. — Millions of legitimate servers that rely on dynamic domain name services from No-IP.com suffered outages on Monday after Microsoft seized 22 domain names …

More: The Official Microsoft Blog, No-IP Blog, Inquirer, Softpedia News, Krebs on Security, TechNet Blogs, Network World, The Register, CyberCrime & Doing Time, Securelist / Blog, Microsoft Security Blog and Reuters

Tweets: @ckindel, @csoghoian, @rodgertq and @csoghoian

Paulo Golgher / Orkut Blog:

Google to shut down Orkut on September 30, will create archive of all public communities — Tchau Orkut — Ten years ago, Orkut was Google's first foray into social networking. Built as a “20 percent” project, Orkut communities started conversations, and forged connections, that had never existed before.

Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:

Apple rolls out two-step verification for iCloud.com Web apps — Apple appears to be testing out a new implementation of its two-factor Apple ID authentication system with iCloud.com, requiring users who have the additional layer of security enabled to enter a special code before accessing the Web apps.

More: MacRumors, Ubergizmo, The Next Web, iPhone in Canada Blog, App Advice, iMore and MacStories. Thanks:@mikeycampbell81

Howard Blume / Los Angeles Times:

Some LA schools choosing between six different laptops for students after botched iPad rollout — LAUSD shifts gears on technology for students — Los Angeles school district officials have allowed a group of high schools to choose from among six different laptop computers for their students …

More: AppleInsider, Engadget, PadGadget, Electronista, New York Times, CNET, Ubergizmo and SlashGear. Thanks:@obrien

Samit Sarkar / Polygon:

Ouya now selling 12-month pass to 800 games for $59.99 — Ouya launched a limited deal today, the All-Access Pass, which gives customers 12 months' worth of access to almost all games on the platform for $59.99. — According to its listing on the Ouya Shop, the All-Access Pass covers …

More: Gamasutra, Engadget, Ubergizmo, Gizmodo, Ars Technica, Electronista, Connectedly, CNET, Develop Feed, Liliputing, SlashGear, VentureBeat and Hardcore Gamer

Tweets: @necrosofty and @mikebithell

Brianna Valleskey / Benzinga:

The AP will use robots to turn data into stories for earnings reports beginning July — AP Using Robots For Journalism Starting In July — The Associated Press announced Monday that it will begin using automated technology to write company earnings reports next month.

More: THE DEFINITIVE SOURCE, New York Times, Gigaom, Mashable and Business Insider. See also Mediagazer

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

CoreOS Raises $8M Series A Round, Launches Managed Linux As A Service — CoreOS, a Linux distribution optimized for very large server deployments, today announced that it has raised a $8 million Series A funding round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers with follow-on investments by Sequoia Capital and Fuel Capital.

More: SiliconANGLE, Gigaom, PR Newswire, InformationWeek, eWeek, The Register, InfoWorld, Network World and CoreOS Blog

Steve Johnson / Mercury News:

Hewlett-Packard and shareholders reach settlement in suit over Autonomy deal — PALO ALTO — In a victory for Hewlett-Packard, the tech giant said Monday it has tentatively reached a settlement in a federal shareholder lawsuit over its ill-fated purchase of British software company Autonomy …

More: Marketwired, ZDNet, Reuters, Re/code, NASDAQ.com and CNET

Julian Chokkattu / TechCrunch:

US National Archives To Upload All Holdings To Wikimedia Commons — Ever since the National Archives and Record Administration launched the Open Government Plan in 2010, it has increasingly been uploading content to Wikipedia to digitize and gain a wider reach for its holdings.

Tweets: @20tauri

Mark Sullivan / VentureBeat:

Over $2.2B invested in digital health startups this year, already exceeds 2013 total of $1.97B — Digital health startups have taken $2.2B in funding so far in 2014, already besting 2013 total (report) — The digital health space has continued to heat up, and it's looking like 2014 will be a big year for investment in the space.

More: Re/code and mobihealthnews

Reuters:

Automakers incrementally approach self-driving cars, see dangers to Google's eagerness — Google, Detroit diverge on road map for self-driving cars — (Reuters) - In 2012, a small team of Google Inc engineers and business staffers met with several of the world's largest car makers …

More: Tech Times, SlashGear and DailyTech

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