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7:10 PM ET, October 20, 2011

Techmeme

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Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: Exclusive bio excerpt in Fortune Monday  —  They were the best of frenemies for nearly 30 years.  Walter Isaacson has the inside story.  The first excerpt from the year's most eagerly awaited — and carefully guarded — biography will appear in Fortune on Monday.
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
A New Look for Gmail  —  A video from Google's YouTube channel (update: the video is now private, but there's a mirror here) introduces a new Gmail interface.  It's based on the Preview theme that's already available in Gmail, but there are many other changes: an action bar that uses icons instead …
Feross Aboukhadijeh / Feross.org:
HOW TO: Spy on the Webcams of Your Website Visitors  —  Update (10/19): CNET says that Adobe is working on a fix and it could be ready by end of week.  —  Update (10/19): Adobe emailed me and said “our product team is wrapping up their investigation and is now working on a fix, which should not require a Flash Player update”.
RELATED:
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Adobe to plug Flash-related Webcam spying hole  —  A video demonstrates how the attack could be accomplished.  In this screenshot, a series of blue buttons are clicked on as part of a game and the webcam is turned on.  —  Adobe Systems is working on a fix for a Flash-related vulnerability …
Alan Green / Official Google Reader Blog:
Upcoming changes to Reader: a new look, new Google+ features, and some clean-up  —  In the next week, we'll be making some highly requested changes to Google Reader.  First, we're going to introduce a brand new design (like many of Google's other products) that we hope you love.
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Revenue Up 7% To $17.37B, Earnings At $0.68 Per Share  —  Microsoft just reported its first quarter 2012 earnings today with revenues of $17.37 billion, an 7% increase from the same period of the prior year.  Microsoft's operating income was $7.20 billion, its net income was $5.74 billion …
RELATED:
Mark Gongloff / MarketBeat:
Microsoft Earnings Meet Forecasts, Stock Falls
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily
AT&T:
AT&T Activates One Million iPhone 4S'  —  Activations Surpass All Previous Launches; Customers Prefer AT&T Speed Advantage  —  AT&T today announced it activated more than 1 million iPhone 4S' as of Tuesday, making it the most successful iPhone launch in the company's history.
RELATED:
Tim Culpan / Bloomberg:
Microsoft to Help Halve Phone Costs Next Year in ‘Volume’ Drive  —  Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp. expects production costs of handsets using Windows Phone 7 software next year to drop by more than half from when the platform was introduced.  —  Cooperation with parts makers including Qualcomm Inc …
RELATED:
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Microsoft's Andy Lees: Nokia will announce ‘its Windows Phones’ at Nokia World
Yun-Hee Kim / Wall Street Journal:
Samsung Beats Apple in Smartphone Shipments  —  HONG KONG—Samsung Electronics Co. shipped more than 20 million smartphones in the quarter ended Sept. 30, a person familiar with the situation said Thursday, beating market leader Apple Inc. as well as Nokia Corp., the world's biggest cellphone maker by volume.
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Considers a New iOS Device Design for Easier Repairs  —  On October 20, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a variety of new iOS concept designs that will accommodate easier repairs.  —  A New Kind of Construction for iOS Devices is Being Considered
Discussion: Gizmodo and Gadget Lab
Andrew Rassweiler / iSuppli®:
iPhone 4S Carries BOM of $188, IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Reveals  —  On the outside, the iPhone 4S may have disappointed some with its perceived lack of new features.  But on the inside, the latest member of the iPhone line includes a wealth of innovation, including a new wireless module …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Google Apps hasn't met LAPD's security requirements, city demands refund  —  Two years after the City of Los Angeles approved a $7.25 million deal to move its e-mail and productivity infrastructure to Google Apps, the migration has still not been completed because the Los Angeles Police Department …
Steve Clayton / TechNet Blogs:
Microsoft Research shows Holodesk  —  In the last few months we've seen some pretty great applications of natural user interface (NUI).  It seems fair to say that NUI is becoming more widely used and accepted in its various forms.  But not being ones to sit back and relax …
John Biggs / TechCrunch:
Iris Is (Sort Of) Siri For Android  —  While voice control has been part of Android since the dawn of time, Siri came along and ruined the fun with its superior search and understanding capabilities.  However, an industrious team of folks from Dexetra.com, led by Narayan Babu, built a Siri-alike in just 8 hours during a hackathon.
Discussion: Guardian
Todd Wasserman / Mashable:
New Security Threat: Infected QR Codes  —  Be careful the next time you scan a QR code, because it might just cost you money and wreak havoc on your smartphone.  —  That's the warning from Kaspersky Lab, which has noticed the first instance of QR code tampering.
Matt Rosoff / Business Insider:
This Is The Google Music “Twist”: You Can Share Songs After Buying Them  —  Yesterday, Google mobile head Andy Rubin said that the company's long-awaited music store will have some kind of twist.  —  Now we know what it is.  —  A person in the recording industry who has been briefed …
Discussion: Technologizer, T3 News and VentureBeat
Tim Bray / Android Developers Blog:
New Public APIs in ICS  —  Since Android is open-source, anyone can look at the code and see how it works inside.  If you do this, you'll notice that most but not all of the APIs are publicly documented.  —  If they're publicly documented, they're part of what we consider the Android Application Framework.
Discussion: The Next Web, thinq_ and PC Magazine
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Not Just Google: Siri Searches Bing And Yahoo Too  —  Earlier tonight Danny Sullivan discovered that Siri will also search Bing and Yahoo, though it searches Google by default.  If you say, “Search the web for . . .” or you ask Siri a question it can't answer it will search Google (the iPhone's default search engine).
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple taking iOS 5 on a world tour for developers November through January  —  In past years, Apple has held “Tech Talk World Tours” for developers, covering their latest version of iOS.  Now that iOS 5 has been released into the wild, Apple has announced that the iOS 5 Tech Talk World Tour …
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Visual.ly Raises $2 Million To Make Even More Infographics  —  Visual.ly, the team built from the infographics team behind Mint's spectacular infographics, has raised $2 million in seed funding, led by Crosslink Capital, SoftTech and 500 Startups as well as angels Kapor Capital, Giza Ventures …
Jim Finkle / Reuters:
Exclusive: Nasdaq hackers spied on directors  —  (Reuters) - Hackers who infiltrated the Nasdaq's computer systems installed malicious software on the exchange's computers that allowed them to spy on scores of directors of publicly held companies, according to two people familiar with an investigation into the matter.
Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:
Cisco buying BNI Video for $99M in cash  —  Cisco has agreed to acquire startup BNI Video in a deal valued at $99 million, it said on Thursday.  The network equipment manufacturer will add BNI Video's capabilities to its Videoscape portfolio, which could give it a leg up as its service …
Darren Murph / Engadget:
ASUS' Jonney Shih unveils Transformer Prime Android tablet: 10-inch, 8.3mm, quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3  —  Whoa, Nelly!  ASUS head honcho Jonney Shih just revealed the “next-generation Transformer tablet” here at AsiaD!  It's the same one that we saw teased just yesterday …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Let's Take This One With a Grain of Salt  —  Ina Fried, covering some conference in Asia on some website: … What do you expect him to say about Siri, though?  “Well, Apple really pulled ahead of us there”?  Not going to happen.  The truth is, Google has been working on voice-driven stuff for mobile devices for years.
Tim Carmody / Epicenter:
You Are Not Your Name and Photo: A Call to Re-Imagine Identity  —  We don't actually know this guy very well.  Image of the Droeshout Engraving via Wikimedia Commons  —  At some point in the last few years, “identity” became a nasty word.  It's not just identity theft, identity politics or identity requirements.
 
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 More Items: 
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Best Buy Launches Appolicious-Powered, Curated Mobile App Directory
Reuters:
BlackBerry maker accused of infringing BBX trademark
Clare Baldwin / Reuters:
Groupon to list shares on Nasdaq: sources
Amar Toor / Engadget:
Sony Music Unlimited arrives for Android tablets, bearing gifts of unlimited music
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
On the scene: Microsoft opens its first Seattle store
Discussion: The Microsoft Blog and WinRumors
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Foursquare's Crowley Reveals The Strategy Behind Radar, Siri, And Mobile's New Push Interface
 Earlier Items: 
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Working on a Thinner MacBook Pro Design
Mark Kleinman / Kleinman:
Exclusive: Kingdom Eyes Twitter Stake
Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
The Multitasking Jack Dorsey on the Inspiration of Steve Jobs
Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Coupon Craze Continues With CouponCabin Raising $54 Million
 

 
From Mediagazer:

David Ingram / NBC News:
Hyundai says it is pausing ads on X, after one ad appeared next to antisemitic and pro-Nazi content; the ad appeared on a user profile that had 55K+ followers

New York Times:
Sources: Sony Pictures Entertainment and Apollo discussed a joint all-cash offer for Paramount, which is still in an exclusive negotiation window with Skydance

Sara Fischer / Axios:
CalMatters, a nonprofit focused on CA politics and policy, acquires tech news nonprofit The Markup; CalMatters has ~$12.5M in funding and The Markup has $5M
 
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