Techmeme: Microsoft testing a wearable headband in the UK to help blind people navigate surroundings (Jack Schofield/ZDNet)

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July 15, 2014, 1:15 AM

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Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft plans holiday assault on Chromebooks with $199 HP laptop, $249 laptops from Acer and Toshiba — Microsoft launches a price assault on Chromebooks — Microsoft is aiming straight for Google's Chromebooks this holiday season. At the company's partner conference today …

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Microsoft pushes cloud strategy, saying 14% share of total devices calls for a new mindset

More: GeekWire, MSDN Blogs, WinBeta, WinBeta, CIO.com, CITEworld, ZDNet, Windows Phone Central and BetaNews

Dan Frommer / Quartz:

The Eric Schmidt email confirming Google's one-hour window to counter Facebook job offers — More fascinating emails continue to trickle out of the Google/Apple/Intel/Adobe wage-conspiracy case in California. In one exchange revealed last week, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed …

More: Valleywag. Tweets: @fromedome

Jeff Elder / Wall Street Journal:

Google Directors Wanted Page, Brin to Court Facebook Employees — Google considered having its cofounders personally recruit Facebook workers and instituted a policy to make counteroffers within an hour to workers offered jobs by Facebook, according to newly released documents …

More: CNET, Ars Technica and Business Insider. Tweets: @anildash

Secret / Medium:

Secret raises $25M series B, launches ‘Collections’ feature and anonymous Facebook login — Onward — The next six months — Six months into growing and evolving Secret, our community has shown us how much demand there is for a social network centered around honest conversations.

More: Index Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, SiliconANGLE, CIO.com, Daily Dot, VatorNews, YourStory.com, VentureBeat, The Next Web, SecurityWeek, Gigaom and TechHive

Tweets: @scottmaustin, @mims, @davidbyttow, @fromedome, @garrytan and @joshconstine

Jenna Wortham / New York Times:

Six-month-old Secret valued at more than $100M after latest funding round

More: PandoDaily, Wall Street Journal, Engadget, Business Insider and TechCrunch

Tweets: @qthrul and @alex

Daniela Hernandez / Wired:

Microsoft says its deep learning project “Adam” is faster than Google Brain in benchmark test — Microsoft Challenges Google's Artificial Brain With ‘Project Adam’ — Microsoft's new artificial intelligence system, Project Adam, can identify images, including photos of a particular breed of dog.

More: Next at Microsoft, Microsoft Research, The Register, NPU, Windows Phone Central, GeekWire, Gizmodo and WinBeta. Tweets: @albert_swart

Liam Spradlin / Android Police:

Exclusive: Google Prepping Play Store Update That's One Step Closer To Material With Beautiful New Listing UI — When we first wrote about Quantum Paper (the internal name for the material in Material Design), we noted that Google was anticipating a series of updates to its own apps between …

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Sources: AOL CEO Tim Armstrong would love to merge with Yahoo, but Marissa Mayer finds the idea backward-looking — Two Years and Still Stuck in a Revenue Rut, Will Yahoo's Mayer Bite the AOL Bullet? — Maybe AOL and Yahoo will merge. Maybe not. Maybe they should. Maybe they shouldn't.

More: Business Insider and CNET. Tweets: @cheeky_geeky and @mathewi

See also Mediagazer

Taylor Soper / GeekWire:

Seattle legalizes Uber, Lyft to operate without caps — Transportation startups like UberX, Lyft, and Sidecar will finally be able to legally operate in Seattle. The City Council today voted 8-1 to approve legislation that provides a new regulatory framework for the San Francisco-based startups …

More: PandoDaily

Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple's 5.5-inch ‘iPhone 6’ faces production issues, launch may be pushed to 2015 — Apple's rumored 5.5-inch “phablet” iPhone model is said to be facing issues with its new in-cell touchscreen panel, as well as color unevenness on the new “iPhone 6” metal casing …

Glenn Greenwald / The Intercept:

GCHQ developed tools to manipulate online polls, inflate pageviews, censor videos, more — Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet — The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information …

More: Techdirt, TechCrunch, Schneier on Security, Errata Security, Electronista, Boing Boing, Engadget, Guardian, The Verge, RT and The Register

Tweets: @usdronewardept and @onekade

Ellen Emmerentze Jervell / Wall Street Journal:

Swedish author and his bot created 2.7M Wikipedia articles; some editors object to methods — For This Author, 10,000 Wikipedia Articles Is a Good Day's Work — In Sweden, Sverker Johansson and His ‘Bot’ Have Created 2.7 Million Articles; Some Purists Complain

More: Business Insider

Jim Edwards / Business Insider:

Twitter Is Cracking Down On Companies That Provide Stats About Its Users — Twitter has taken the unusual step of shutting off its datapipe to certain companies that have published their own stats on how big Twitter's user base really is, according to two sources.

Tweets: @mathewi

Stephen Hall / 9to5Google:

Former Google [X] director and head of Glass Babak Parviz joins Amazon — Google X director Babak Parviz founded and led both the Google Glass and contact lens projects at Google, but it appears he has now left the Mountain View corporation in favor of Amazon.

More: Babak Parviz, Engadget, The Verge, ReadWrite, Ars Technica, Ubergizmo, Electronista, Los Angeles Times, PC Magazine, Phandroid, YourStory.com, The Register, Gigaom, ZDNet, GeekWire, Softpedia News and Business Insider

Tweets: @glassalmanac and @carnage4life

Thanks:@rsgnl

Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:

SV Angel is raising a fifth, $70M fund — its largest to date — SV Angel, the seed-stage VC firm founded by Ron Conway and ex-Googler David Lee, is raising a fifth, $70 million fund. — Revealed in a public SEC filing, no sale has taken place for the new fund, but its projected size …

More: bizjournals. Tweets: @sparklabskorea. Thanks:@harrisonweber

Jack Schofield / ZDNet:

Microsoft testing a wearable headband in the UK to help blind people navigate surroundings — Microsoft's wearable Alice band is not a rival to Google Glass — Summary: Microsoft is working on a wearable “Alice band” that helps blind people to navigate the urban environment …

More: The Sunday Times, BBC, Daily Mail, Highlight Press, Absolute Gadget, Connectedly, HEXUS.net Mobile Latest …, Neowin, Ubergizmo, WinBeta and http://thefootballexaminer.com. Tweets: @pmarca

Mike Beasley / 9to5Mac:

Apple launches in-store iPhone trade-in program in Australia, offers A$250 toward upgrade — Late last month 9to5Mac reported that Apple would soon be launching its iPhone trade-in program in Australia. Today the Apple Store app started notifying Australian users that the offer is now available in that country.

More: MacRumors, AppleInsider, iMore, ZDNet and App Advice

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Comcast Acquired PowerCloud Systems, Gears Up For Smart Home Play — Update. I have now confirmed that Comcast has indeed acquired PowerCloud Systems, a spinoff from PARC that developed hardware and software to monitor broadband usage in your home or office.

More: VentureBeat, Business Insider, Light Reading, Engadget, Multichannel News, FierceCable and Digital Media Wire

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