Techmeme
February 14, 2013, 5:00 PM

Top News

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:
iPhone lockscreen can be bypassed with new iOS 6.1 trick  —  A security flaw in Apple's iOS 6.1 lets anyone bypass your iPhone password lock and access your phone app, view or modify contacts, check your voicemail, and look through your photos (by attempting to add a photo to a contact).
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Apple Working on Fix for iOS 6.1 Passcode Hack  —  Looks like the latest version of Apple's iOS mobile operating system brought more than just Siri-enabled movie-ticket purchases and iTunes Match enhancements to the devices on which it runs.  —  A new vulnerability has been discovered …
Rebecca Greenfield / The Atlantic Wire:
Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery  —  Elon Musk's long-awaited blog post take-down has arrived with what he claims is the data to prove New York Times John M. Broder reporter committed some sort of journalistic malpractice to run a bad review of the Tesla Model S's range capability.
Dan Frommer / SplatF:
Tesla vs. The New York Times: Everyone's A Media Company Now  —  This post was first published at LinkedIn.  Please follow me there for more commentary.  —  Tesla CEO Elon Musk shreds* the New York Times review of his Model S, using data to argue the writer is telling the wrong story.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Elon Musk Lays Out His Evidence That New York Times Tesla Model S Test Drive Was “Fake”  —  Tesla Motors CEO and founder Elon Musk definitely isn't the best guy to try to pull a fast one on.  The visionary entrepreneur set Twitter a titter when he claimed earlier this week …
John Biggs / TechCrunch:
Lies, Damn Lies, And Robots  —  While it gives me little pleasure to call out New York Times writer John Broder for his clearly weird Tesla S test-drive, I do appreciate the way Elon and the team at Tesla called him to task for seemingly falsifying his experience in the car.
Tweets: @dannysullivan
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Ex-BlackBerry co-CEO Jim Balsillie dumps entire stake  —  A year ago, Balsillie owned 26.8 million shares of BlackBerry stock.  Now he's down to zero.  —  Jim Balsillie, the former co-CEO of BlackBerry, sold off his entire stake in the company, according to a regulatory filing.
Perry Chen / Kickstarter Blog:
Introducing the Kickstarter App for iPhone and iPod Touch  —  We're excited to announce that the first official Kickstarter app launched in the iTunes Store this morning!  It's available for iPhone and iPod Touch, it's free, and you can download it here.  —  The app is a whole new way to experience Kickstarter.
Jolie O'Dell / VentureBeat:
You can now Bump any files from any device, computer or PC, with a single tap  —  “No one has never said, ‘Boy, I sure do love emailing myself files.’”  —  Truer words were never spoken.  The ones above come from the mouth of Dave Lieb, Bump's CEO.  His app makes it easy to share contact information …
IDC:
Android and iOS Combine for 91.1% of the Worldwide Smartphone OS Market in 4Q12 and 87.6% for the Year, According to IDC  —  Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems (OS) worldwide, combined for 91.1% of all smartphone shipments during the fourth quarter of 2012 (4Q12).
Brian Klug / AnandTech:
Nexus 4 JDQ39 4.2.2 OTA Update Removes Unofficial LTE on Band 4  —  Just after it launched, we discussed how the Nexus 4 included undocumented support for LTE on Band 4 (AWS) which could be enabled simply by choosing the appropriate RAT (Radio Access Technology) under Phone Info (by dialing *#*#4636#*#* - INFO).
Businessweek:
A Chinese Hacker's Identity Unmasked  —  Joe Stewart's day starts at 6:30 a.m. in Myrtle Beach, S.C., with a peanut butter sandwich, a sugar-free Red Bull, and 50,000 or so pieces of malware waiting in his e-mail in-box.  Stewart, 42, is the director of malware research at Dell SecureWorks …
More: The Verge.  Tweets: @rorihuela
Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:
Adobe CEO shows how to dodge price-gouging questions  —  Adobe is in hot water in Australia over the high pricing of its Creative Suite applications in the country.  Recently, the company has been asked to justify the disparities — which have left Australians better off flying to America …
Bill Rigby / Reuters:
No “Plan B” for Microsoft's mobile ambitions: CFO  —  (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has not made much of a dent in Apple Inc's and Google Inc's domination of mobile computing, but a top executive hinted on Wednesday that it will not stop trying and does not have an alternative strategy.
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Releases Shorter 0.5-Meter Lightning to USB Cable, Tweaks In-Ear Headphones  —  Following its move to introduce a shorter Thunderbolt cable last month, Apple has made a similar move in launching a new 0.5-meter Lightning to USB cable.  —  The new cable is half the length …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Thanks, Adobe.  Protection for critical zero-day exploit not on by default  —  The recently discovered zero-day attacks targeting critical vulnerabilities in Adobe's ubiquitous Reader application are able to bypass recently added security defenses unless end users manually make changes to default settings, company officials said.
Gina Chon / Quartz:
Dropbox is talking to banks about an IPO later this year  —  Dropbox has been holding meetings with banks about an initial public offering, possibly in the second half of this year, according to sources briefed on the talks.  —  The market has been waiting for its next hot tech IPOs …
Scott Hanselman / Scott Hanselman's Blog:
I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora.  —  I was browsing the web today, as I often do, with my iPhone on the can.  (Yeah, you do it too, don't front.)  —  A link to an interesting Q&A on Quora came along, so I clicked.  —  And got this.  —  Wow.  This is bold, even for Quora.
More: GigaOM.  Tweets: @jonrussell
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Angie's List Worth Nearly $1 Billion as Shares Soar 25 Percent  —  Angie's List, the consumer-reviews site that members pay for, is seeing its shares soar and its market cap approach $1 billion this morning, after announcing that it beat analyst expectations in the fourth quarter.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Now You Can Pay To Promote Your Friends' Facebook Posts To More People, Even Without Their Permission  —  Until natural language processing improves, only humans can tell what's important.  So Facebook today starts rolling out the option to pay to promote a friend's posts and get them seen by more people.
Tom Simonite / MIT Technology Review:
Welcome to the Malware-Industrial Complex  —  The U.S. government is developing new computer weapons and driving a black market in “zero-day” bugs.  The result could be a more dangerous Web for everyone.  —  Why It Matters  —  Governments, contractors, and researchers are developing cyber-weapons …
Kevin Fitchard / GigaOM:
Sweden boasts the world's fastest 4G speeds; US ranks a lowly 8th  —  Sweden was the first country to launch an LTE network, and it retains plenty of bragging rights.  According to a study by U.K. network-testing firm OpenSignal, Sweden has the fastest 4G networks in the world, averaging download speeds of 22.1 Mbps.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Anti-Piracy Group Rips Off Pirate Bay Website, Faces Lawsuit  —  Finnish anti-piracy group CIAPC, known worldwide for tracking down a 9 year-old “pirate girl” and having her Winnie The Pooh laptop confiscated, launched a controversial campaign yesterday.  —  The group copied The Pirate Bay's design …
Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
Valve releases Steam for Linux client, celebrates with week-long sale of 50 Linux titles at 50% to 75% off  —  Valve on Thursday announced the release of its Steam for Linux client, as first spotted by Polygon.  You can download the client now for free from the Ubuntu Software Center.
Aaron Pressman / Reuters:
Big hedge funds fueled Apple's 4th-quarter share plunge  —  Some of the biggest hedge funds that helped make Apple Inc a stock market darling lost faith and dumped their stakes in the fourth quarter, fueling the massive drop in the iPhone maker's share price.
Brian X. Chen / NYT Bits:
How Lightning Tightens Apple's Control Over Accessories  —  When the iPhone 5 was released in September with the new Lightning connection port, all those docks and accessories that longtime Apple customers had been collecting for years were suddenly obsolete.

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