Techmeme
October 16, 2012, 12:30 PM

Top News

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Surface RT Priced: 32GB For $499 Without Touch Cover, $599 With; 64GB For $699  —  Microsoft today detailed pricing for its Surface tablets, at least those running the scaled down RT version of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system designed for use on low-power processors.
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Surface pricing: $499 for 32 GB, preordering starts today at 9am PT  —  Magenta is obviously the best keyboard color.  —  Microsoft  —  After maintaining almost complete radio silence about its Windows RT Surface tablets since first revealing them in June, Microsoft has announced pricing and availability.
More: ZDNet and IntoMobile
Tom Warren / The Verge:
First Microsoft Surface ad airs on national TV ahead of October 26th release  —  Microsoft's first ad for its Surface tablet will start to air on national TV this evening.  The software maker will air the ad during Monday Night Football on ESPN.  Following the initial Windows 8 TV ads …
Anand Lal Shimpi / AnandTech:
Inside Microsoft's Surface RT Tablet  —  Along with the first pricing and availability details, Microsoft gave us some additional insight into Surface in a tour of the design and engineering facility where the project was first hatched.  —  Microsoft wasn't specific about when work began …
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Apple announces special event for Oct. 23  —  Apple on Tuesday announced a special event to be held on October 23, 2012 in San Jose.  The event is scheduled to take place at 10:00 am PT.  —  Unlike other recent events that have been held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco …
Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:
Quick, Hide the BlackBerry, It's Too Uncool  —  Rachel Crosby speaks about her BlackBerry phone the way someone might speak of an embarrassing relative.  —  “I'm ashamed of it,” said Ms. Crosby, a Los Angeles sales representative who said she had stopped pulling out her BlackBerry at cocktail parties and conferences.
Shira Ovide / Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft's Windows 8 a Turnoff for Some Corporate Users  —  Microsoft Corp. has made big changes to its familiar Windows operating system to stay relevant amid booming sales of mobile devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPad.  But some corporate customers worry Microsoft has made its workplace workhorse too unfamiliar.
More: The Verge
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
European Data Regulators Slam Google Over Privacy Policy: “Too Large” And Users Need More Control (But Not Illegal)  —  Authorities in Europe today kicked off a fresh wave of scrutiny over Google's privacy policy and called for changes to be made in how Google manages user data, describing Google's scope as “too large”.
Jon Russell / The Next Web:
Foxconn admits it breached Chinese labor laws by hiring 14-year-old interns  —  Apple supplier Foxconn has admitted that it did take on intern students as young as 14 years old at its factories after the Taiwanese manufacturing giant published the findings of a report that followed media reports from September.
Serena Saitto / Bloomberg:
Sprint Said Not to Plan Clearwire Takeover After Softbank Deal  —  Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), which agreed to sell a 70 percent stake to Softbank Corp. (9984) for $20.1 billion, has no immediate plans to take over Clearwire Corp. (CLWR), said people with direct knowledge of the situation.
Adrianne Jeffries / The Verge:
Uber is quietly shutting down taxis in New York after fight with regulators, cabbies say  —  Uber denies it, but drivers say the startup is stopping its taxi service after just over a month  —  Uber's “damn the man” strategy may have backfired.  The San Francisco-based startup took a chance …
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Exclusive: Apple Nabs Amazon A9 Exec Stasior to Run Siri — But Does Hire Signal a Bigger Move Into Search?  —  Apple has hired major Amazon exec and prominent search technologist William Stasior to run its Siri unit, according to sources.  —  At the online retail giant, Stasior has been in charge of A9 …
David Lee:
Starting v. Building a Company … Fred Wilson has a series of classes on building sustainable companies.  His related blog posts highlight the differences for me between “starting” and “building” companies.  —  It's never been easier to start a company in Silicon Valley and New York.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Twitter Acqui-Hires Mobile App Development Platform Cabana, Shuts Its Down  —  Twitter has made another acquisition to expand its platform development operation.  It has bought Cabana, a platform for making mobile apps.  Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the team behind the app …
Ian Paul / PC World:
Logitech's illuminated Windows 8 keyboard connects to 3 devices at once  —  Logitech announced on Monday a glowing, Bluetooth keyboard that can connect to as many as three devices simultaneously and switch among them at the press of a button.  —  You could, for example …
More: PhoneArena
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
File-Sharers Buy 30% More Music Than Non-P2P Peers  —  The major music labels have a clear stance on online piracy, as the following quote from the RIAA illustrates.  —  “While downloading one song may not feel that serious of a crime, the accumulative impact of millions of songs downloaded illegally …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Introducing Zoho MCP for Zoho People: Turn conversations into HR actions  —  It's Monday morning.  You start your day by reviewing leave requests that came in over the weekend.  A new hire needs help completing …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Brian Singerman from GPx
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Training Data:
Making Cities Awesome: Peregrine's Nick Noone & Ben Rudolph
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Sarah Guo - Funding the Frontier
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Access:
Trailer for the Sources podcast with Sam Altman
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Lenny's Podcast:
AI's third era: the rise of persistent AI coworkers | Tara Seshan (Product Lead ChatGPT Work)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:30 PM ET, October 16, 2012.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Sharif Sakr / Engadget:

Earlier Picks