Techmeme: Samsung estimates a ~24.5% YOY decline in profits for Q2, missing market expectations; reports slowing smartphone, tablet sales (Se Young Lee/Reuters)

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July 8, 2014, 8:00 PM

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David Streitfeld / New York Times:

Amazon offers some Hachette authors 100% of ebook sales while dispute is ongoing — Amazon Tries to Woo Authors in Hachette Dispute — Amazon, awash in negative publicity in its confrontation with Hachette over e-book terms, is seeking to break the standoff by appealing directly to the publisher's authors.

More: Gigaom, Wall Street Journal, PandoDaily, The Register, The Digital Reader, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Techdirt, Engadget, Gizmodo, The Verge, Tech Times, GeekWire, Guardian, Forbes, Mashable, Electronista and TIME. See also Mediagazer

Faryaab S. / SamMobile:

Gear VR, Samsung's virtual reality headset, to launch at IFA 2014 early September — Exclusive: Samsung's virtual reality headset will be called Gear VR, launch at IFA 2014 — A month ago, Engadget exclusively reported on Samsung's upcoming VR device, which is being developed in collaboration with Facebook's Oculus Rift.

More: BGR, The Next Web, Gizmodo, The Verge, Engadget, Business Insider, Pocket-lint, Phandroid, The Daily Caller, TechnoBuffalo, SlashGear, PhoneDog.com, Tom's Guide, Android Police, Droid Life, Ubergizmo, Pocketnow and Android Central

Horace Dediu / asymco.com:

As US smartphone penetration crosses 70%, trends suggest iPhone will fare well among late adopters — Late late majority — Seven years after the iPhone was launched, 70% of the US population is using smartphones. Smartphones existed before the iPhone so the category is older …

More: MacDailyNews and 9to5Mac

Ben Popper / The Verge:

Uber agrees to new national policy that will limit surge pricing during emergencies — The taxi app falls in line with state laws that consider dynamic pricing during storms to be illegal price gouging — Uber is well known for using a dynamic model it calls surge pricing that adjusts the cost of a fare based on supply and demand.

More: Uber Blog, A.G. Schneiderman, Reuters, Ars Technica, CNET, TechHive, PC Magazine, Re/code, New York Times, PandoDaily, TechCrunch, Gigaom, PC World, Daily Dot, ABC News, Bloomberg, Valleywag and Mashable. Tweets: @thekenyeung

AppleInsider:

Apple's second secret eBay store launches with certified refurbished, unlocked GSM iPhone 5 models — For the second time in as many years, Apple appears to have teamed with eBay on a low-profile Factory Outlet store to market Apple Certified Refurbished products — such as iPhones and iPads …

More: Gizmodo, TechCrunch, BGR, SlashGear, iPhone in Canada Blog, iDownloadBlog.com, MacDailyNews, 9to5Mac and MacNN

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Bye Google Maps: Apple brings its Maps to the web for Find my iPhone — Update: Apple appears to be testing or slowly rolling out the feature as some users report still seeing Google Maps. Apple Maps are live on the iCloud.com beta site and available for some users on the main iCloud.com site as well.

More: PC Magazine, AppleInsider, Computerworld, MacRumors, MacDailyNews, VentureBeat, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, BGR, MacNN, App Advice and WebProNews

Se Young Lee / Reuters:

Samsung estimates a ~24.5% YOY decline in profits for Q2, missing market expectations; reports slowing smartphone, tablet sales — Smartphones weigh on Samsung Electronics as guidance disappoints — (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Tuesday issued unexpectedly weak quarterly earnings guidance …

More: Samsung Investor Relations, New York Times, The Register, Engadget, VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal, Re/code, CNET, Reuters, MobileBurn.com, App Advice, Electronista, Businessweek, AndroidGuys, TIME, ZDNet, Fortune, NBC Bay Area, Inquirer, DisplayBlog, ABC News, Pocketnow, 9to5Google, Quartz, SamMobile and Bloomberg

Tweets: @fmanjoo, @fmanjoo, @mattrosoff and @satariano

Ben Thompson / stratechery:

Samsung's basic problem: no software-based differentiation, competing on price is not enough

More: Guardian and Daring Fireball

Mike Isaac / New York Times:

Lyft will launch in NYC Jul 11, cars can be hailed initially from Brooklyn and Queens but not from Manhattan — Lyft Expands Its Car Hailing Service to New York — A pink mustache grows in Brooklyn. Hundreds of them. — The colorful facial hair is not the latest Williamsburg trend.

More: Lyft Blog, The Verge, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Business Insider, Fortune, Electronista, Valleywag and Mashable

Jessica E. Lessin / The Information:

Senior Apple Maps app and Mapkit engineer Chris Blumenberg leaves for Uber — Apple Maps Engineer Moving to Uber — Uber has poached Chris Blumenberg, a senior engineering manager who worked on Apple Maps, according to three people familiar with the move.

More: MacDailyNews, Softpedia News, AppleInsider, MacRumors, iPhone in Canada Blog, 9to5Mac, Business Insider, iMore, TUAW, MacNN and App Advice. Tweets: @joshconstine

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:

Cloudian Raises $29 Million Because Not Everything Needs To Live In “The Cloud” — As the cloud storage provider Box continues to slouch toward its public offering (staggering under the weight of new invested capital), a number of startups continue to raise cash on the premise that sometimes sensitive data needs to remain grounded.

More: eWeek, VentureBeat, pevc.dowjones.com, Tech in Asia, PE Hub Blog, Forbes and silicontap.com

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

Spark Labs raises $4.9M to make an OS for the internet of things — Spark Labs, the company that last year built a development board that lets people make connected devices that could connect to a cloud service, has raised $4.9 million to take its business to the next step.

More: Wall Street Journal, PE Hub Blog, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Wearable World News, The Next Web and Re/code

Liam Tung / ZDNet:

BlackBerry reveals why the Passport is hip to be square: It's all about the spreadsheets — Summary: BlackBerry's Passport has inspired a lot of head-scratching, but the company reckons it does have a good reason for going out on a square limb. — Liam Tung

Brian Fung / Washington Post:

The government has asked Verizon for customer data 149,000 times this year. And it's only July. — Verizon v. F.C.C. arguments begin today. (Justin Sullivan/GETTY IMAGES) — Verizon's just published its second-ever transparency report, showing that in the first six months of 2014 …

More: PC Magazine, Verizon, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, Reuters, ZDNet and Phys.org

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:

Russia accuses US of “kidnapping” after arrest of suspected credit card hacker Roman Seleznev — Feds Charge Carding Kingpin in Retail Hacks — The U.S. Justice Department on Monday announced the arrest of a Russian hacker accused of running a network of online crime shops …

More: Department of Homeland …, New York Times, ZDNet, Reuters, New York Times, Associated Press, ABC News, Ars Technica, Bloomberg, Associated Press, Guardian and Gigaom

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

Facebook likely better than the FBI at facial recognition due to its larger photo database — Why Facebook is beating the FBI at facial recognition — If you're worried about Big Brother and computerized facial recognition, this summer has given you plenty of reason to be scared.

More: Marketing Pilgrim

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