Techmeme: Pressing Fwd.us: How Silicon Valley's $50 Million Bet on Immigration Stalled (Amy Schatz/Re/code)

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October 19, 2014, 9:40 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:

IBM Agrees to Pay Globalfoundries $1.5 Billion to Take Chip Unit — International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) agreed to pay Globalfoundries Inc. $1.5 billion to take an unprofitable chip-manufacturing unit off its hands, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

More: New York Times, Tech Trader Daily, Computerworld, Gigaom, TheStreet.com and Business Insider

Tweets: @fmbutt, @tomgara, @thestalwart, @pmarca, @felixsalmon and @iankar_

Parmy Olson / Forbes:

Microsoft plans to launch a fitness-focused wearable in the next few weeks with more than two-day battery life, multi-platform support — Microsoft Plans To Launch A Wearable Device Within Weeks — Microsoft is gearing up to launch a wearable device within the next few weeks, Forbes has learned.

More: PC World, The Verge, SlashGear, Gizmodo, Connectedly, Neowin and WMPoweruser. Tweets: @tomwarren. Thanks:@aatilley

Chris Welch / The Verge:

This is the Fitbit Surge, a $250 ‘superwatch’ with built-in GPS — GPS and heart rate monitoring headline Fitbit's next flagship wearable — Fitbit is preparing to launch three new fitness trackers in the coming weeks. Two of those will be the Charge and Charge HR.

More: CNET, Digital Trends, Gizmodo and Connectedly

Tweets: @piercedavid and @ow

Brian Stucki / Macminicolo Blog:

2014 Mac mini: RAM is not user-replaceable, no dual-drive server version — A look at the 2014 Mac mini — We've been working extensively with Mac minis for nearly 10 years. (Yes, we're nearing the tenth anniversary for the more-popular-than-you-think Mac.)

More: TechCrunch, BetaNews, Engadget, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, MacRumors, AppleInsider, MacNN and MacStories. Tweets: @drunknbass

Amy Schatz / Re/code:

Pressing Fwd.us: How Silicon Valley's $50 Million Bet on Immigration Stalled — When President Barack Obama decided in early September to postpone immigration reform, it marked the beginning of the end of Joe Green's tenure as the head of one of Silicon Valley's most ambitious political groups …

Steven Levy / Medium:

Inside the nearly decade-old Google Scholar, which is still led by its creator Anurag Acharya — The Gentleman Who Made Scholar — Ten years after a Google engineer empowered researchers with Scholar, he can't bear to leave it — Anurag Acharya is the key inventor of Google Scholar …

More: Beyond Search. Tweets: @mollyfication, @fintelkai, @readermeter and @justinwolfers

Judith Newman / New York Times:

How a 13-year-old autistic boy became best friends with Apple's Siri — How Apple's Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.F. — Just how bad a mother am I? I wondered, as I watched my 13-year-old son deep in conversation with Siri. Gus has autism, and Siri, Apple's “intelligent personal assistant” …

More: Business Insider, Teaching Online Journalism, Gizmodo and iMore

Tweets: @richarddeitsch, @smwat, @jamiestelter, @johnwoodrtr, @joannastern, @mathewi, @peretti, @nytimes, @azmatzahra, @sriramk, @tcarmody, @derekwillis, @walterisaacson and @pschiller

Gideon Rosenblatt / Medium:

Google's information processing and Amazon's transaction processing platforms are headed for a collision in the battle to dominate local retail — The Google—Amazon Retail Slugfest — Two competitors, seemingly in different businesses, now determine the future of shopping.

Glen Owen / Daily Mail:

Britain to increase maximum sentence for online bullying from six months to two years — Crackdown on the cyber-mobs poisoning Britain: Sentence for web trolls to be quadrupled to two years after shocking high-profile online abuse cases — Internet trolls who subject victims to vile abuse …

More: VentureBeat, BBC, Phys.org, Neowin, Inquirer, The Irish Times, TheDomains.com, The Register and GeekTime

Tweets: @raquelevita, @jackofkent and @jackofkent

Robert McMillan / Wired:

Behind Microsoft's controversial takedown of No-IP and other legal battles to defeat botnets — How Microsoft Appointed Itself Sheriff of the Internet — It was 7 o'clock in the morning when the knocking on Dan Durrer's front door woke him up. His dog started barking, and Durrer thought he was getting an early morning package.

More: TheDomains.com. Tweets: @csoghoian and @dangillmor

Christopher Breen / Macworld:

Remembering Macworld Expo: Why we went to the greatest trade show on earth — This morning IDG announced that Macworld Expo (later known as Macworld/iWorld) is going on hiatus. How permanent this break is depends entirely on whether those running the show can find a financial model …

Tweets: @settern

Dante D'Orazio / The Verge:

Latest leak gives best look yet at Motorola's Droid Turbo — Motorola's next Verizon-exclusive Android phone hasn't been announced, but a number of leaks have left very little to the imagination. Now we're getting our best look yet at the device, called the Droid Turbo.

More: Engadget, Ubergizmo, Gizmodo and Android Central. Tweets: @evleaks

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