Techmeme
October 17, 2014, 4:05 PM

Top News

Guardian:
Guardian responds to Whisper's denials, stands by its claims, urges media and users to keep pressing Whisper  —  Whisper: the facts  —  Executives from the anonymous social media app have dismissed as a ‘pack of lies’ the Guardian's revelation that they track users.  But the evidence is clear
Jonathan Zdziarski:
Whisper iOS app collects user location within 100 meters, data could be fuzzed server-side  —  Preliminary Findings on Whisper  —  At the suggestion of @kashhill, I did a brief analysis of the Whisper iOS application, which appears to be at the height of controversy with respect to user privacy.
Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:
Snapchat:
Snapchat ads to roll out this weekend, will appear as a single ad in “Recent Updates” for US users, never in personal communications  —  Advertising on Snapchat  —  This weekend we're placing an advertisement in “Recent Updates” for Snapchatters in the United States.
Jason Del Rey / Re/code:
Amazon Fresh launches in New York, starting with Brooklyn's Park Slope area, for Amazon Prime members  —  Amazon Confirms It Will Deliver Fresh Groceries in New York City  —  Amazon's grocery delivery business is launching in New York City on Friday, the company said …
Dan Frommer / Quartz:
This new “Apple SIM” could legitimately disrupt the wireless industry  —  Perhaps the most interesting news about Apple's new iPad Air 2 tablet is buried at the bottom of one of its marketing pages: It will come pre-installed with a new “Apple SIM” card instead of one from a specific mobile operator.
Wall Street Journal:
Apple's iPhone 6 Finally Makes Its Debut in China  —  Apple launched its latest iPhone in China on Friday morning.  But unlike some past debuts for its new gadgets, the event was decidedly low-key.  —  About 100 customers waited in line Friday morning outside Apple's store …
Allen Pike:
Developer notes difficulties of supporting old iPads, says obsolescence of A5 CPU is overdue  —  The iPad zombie  —  In March 2011, Apple announced the iPad 2.  It was an incredible leap forward, dramatically thinner and faster than the original iPad.  In many ways, the iPad 2 was when the iPad hit its stride.
Nancy Scola / Washington Post:
Obama nominates ex-Google lawyer Michelle Lee to head US patent office in a victory for Silicon Valley  —  Obama nominates former Google exec to lead U.S. Patent Office  —  The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria in 2011.  (Alex Brandon/AP)  —  Michelle K. Lee …
Martin Peers / The Information:
HBO's standalone online streaming service likely won't be less than pay TV retail price of $15/month  —  HBO's Online Pricing Trap  —  HBO's broadband service looks doomed even before it starts.  —  While HBO hasn't disclosed details, pricing of the new broadband offering most likely …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
MasterCard Will Borrow A Touch ID Trick For Fingerprint Scanning Credit Card  —  Apple isn't the only company using biometrics to authenticate payments and purchases - Apple Pay partner MasterCard wants to make fingerprint scanning something even people without an iOS device can use to digitally ‘sign’ for contactless transactions.
Ellen Huet / Forbes:
Uber fired driver for tweeting negative articles about company; driver has since been re-hired  —  Uber Deactivated A Driver For Tweeting A Negative Story About Uber  —  Uber's watching you, and if you say something bad about the company, you might get booted out.
Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Social Network Tagged Rebrands as an App Incubator  —  Tagged, a social-networking site that's struggled to attract users and grow revenue since its founding a decade ago, is changing its name and trying a new approach.  —  The San Francisco-based company has renamed itself if(we) …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Cortana gets new features powered by Bing: Evening alerts, concerts, flights, and local app recommendations  —  Microsoft today announced improvements to Cortana that take advantage of recent Bing advancements in speech recognition, entity understanding, and stream processing.
Carmel DeAmicis / Gigaom:
Facebook may have solved mobile, but Google is still struggling with it  —  Although Google missed the earnings mark, its overall health is strong.  —  Google's mobile ad strategy is sounding a lot like Facebook's these days.  On its third quarter earnings call Thursday …
Conor Dougherty / New York Times:
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Privacy Router Anonabox Gets $600K in Crowdfunding—And Huge Backlash  —  When it launched on Kickstarter earlier this week, the Tor-enabled router project known as Anonabox successfully tapped into thousands of Internet users' desire for simpler privacy tech.

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More News

Xav de Matos / Joystiq:

Earlier Picks

Stephen Shankland / CNET:
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