Techmeme
January 2, 2017, 1:30 PM

Top News

Matthew Humphries / PC Magazine:
Researchers: ID codes printed on boarding passes, luggage tags for ~90% of flights let hackers access travelers' personal info, steal reservations, more  —  Booking a flight has become a simple process thanks to the Internet, and once you have flights secured you can relax, right?
Mark Spoonauer / Laptop Mag:
Dell's XPS 13 2-in-1 starts at $1K, has compact fanless design, fingerprint reader, support for optional stylus, and decent battery life of about 8.5 hours  —  Pros / Most compact 2-in-1 with 13-inch screen; Comfortable keyboard; Vibrant InfinityEdge display; Impressive audio …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
FBI-DHS report fails to make a hard case that Russia tampered with US elections, likely because the agencies want to protect methods for detecting hacks  —  US issued JAR billed itself as an indictment that would prove Russian involvement.  —  Talk about disappointments.
Jemima Kelly / Reuters:
Bitcoin jumps above $1,000 for first time in three years  —  Digital currency bitcoin kicked off the new year by jumping above $1,000 for the first time in three years late on Sunday, having outperformed all central-bank-issued currencies with a 125 percent climb in 2016.
Agence France-Presse:
French law requiring companies to give workers a “right to disconnect” from work-related messages after work hours now in effect  —  From 1 January, workers have ‘right to disconnect’ as France seeks to establish agreements that afford work flexibility but avoid burnout
Joseph Cox / Motherboard:
Security Without Borders project launches to help journalists and activists with cybersecurity by connecting them with volunteer group of InfoSec professionals  —  Some hackers have lost their way.  Today, countless techies have entered the for-profit cybersecurity business …
Kara Swisher / Recode:
Twitter's managing director for Greater China, Kathy Chen, leaves after 8 months  —  Kathy Chen follows others out the door of the social communications company.  —  Twitter lost yet another top exec with the departure of Kathy Chen, its managing director in Greater China.
Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:
Review of appeals court decisions from 2016 that benefited software patent holders and set the bar for software patents after Supreme Court's Alice decision  —  It's harder, but not impossible, for owners of software patents to win cases.  —  In 2014, the US Supreme Court dealt a major blow to software patents.
Eric Newcomer / Bloomberg Technology:
Review of overlooked tech trends in 2016: faster broadband speeds, growth of digital currencies, the success of tech M&A, more  —  I'm on a flight home to Macon, Georgia, reading Hillbilly Elegy like much of the rest of Silicon Valley.  I'm trying to figure out how I misread the American electorate so fundamentally.

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Earlier Picks

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch: