Techmeme: Norway blocks Apple map flights (Zoe Kleinman/BBC)

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August 13, 2013, 3:35 PM

Top News

Steve Cheney:

On The Future of iOS and Android — We've entered the age of iOS and Android penetrating beyond mobile, and there's a lot happening with respect to how the entire ecosystem is developing. Mobile advancements / investments are now driving the progression of all converged hardware / software.

More: Fortune and PC Pro. Tweets: @stevesi, @semil, @disruptivedean, @rohit_x_ and @rabois

Benedict Evans:

Defending iOS with cheap iPhones — Over the last 12 months, Google Android devices have outsold iOS by about 3 to 1. There are now perhaps 775m-800m ‘official’ Android devices in use, versus perhaps 415m iOS devices. This is without counting sales of the Amazon Kindle Fire or the (very) …

More: Tech.pinions, BGR, Business Insider, Key Performance Indicators, A VC, iDownloadBlog.com and Daring Fireball. Tweets: @madewulf. Thanks:@monkbent

Vauhini Vara / New Yorker:

How BlackBerry Fell — Shares in the Canadian maker of BlackBerry smartphones peaked in August of 2007, at two hundred and thirty-six dollars. In retrospect, the company was facing an inflection point and was completely unaware. Seven months earlier, in January, Apple had introduced the iPhone at San Francisco's Moscone Center.

More: Wired, GigaOM, Bloomberg, stratechery, Daring Fireball, memeburn, DealBook, Mashable, Reuters, The Next Web, CITEworld and pocketnow.com

Tweets: @gsterling and @mattrosoff

Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:

Amid BlackBerry's sinking ship, here comes a new BB7 phone with ancient hardware — A day after BlackBerry announced that it was considering ways to save its business, including possibly selling off the company, the company is making its baffling product announcement yet.

More: BlackBerry Press Room, Guardian, The Next Web, Inquirer, ZDNet, BerryReview, Unwired View, Digital Trends, Electronista, CrackBerry.com, GadgeTell and Engadget

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Message unread: Silicon Valley's secret, failed bid to save BlackBerry

More: Facebook and Salon. Tweets: @robinchan

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Facebook Testing VIP App With Some Celebs — The VIP app, which sources say Facebook is currently testing with a small group of famous people, essentially lets celebs (or their handlers) easily monitor Facebook fan chatter about themselves from a mobile device.

More: AllFacebook, The Atlantic Wire, The Verge, TechCrunch and App Advice

Tweets: @evelynrusli and @caseynewton

Dan Primack / Fortune:

FitBit raises $43 million in new funding — Activity tracker bulks up ahead of possible competition from Apple. — FORTUNE — FitBit, maker of a wearable device that measures physical activity, has raised $43 million in new venture capital funding. Fortune has learned that Softbank Capital led …

More: TechCrunch, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, VentureBeat, Business Insider and Mashable

Tweets: @ericjackson and @danprimack

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Carl Icahn Makes a Large Investment in Apple — Shares of Apple are rising by more than four percent on word that Carl Icahn, the billionaire activist investor trying to take over Dell, has made a large investment in the company behind the iPhone and the Mac.

More: TechCrunch, AppleInsider, ZDNet, Tech Trader Daily, 9to5Mac, CNNMoney.com, GigaOM, Business Insider, BuzzFeed and MoneyBeat

Tweets: @carl_c_icahn, @carl_c_icahn, @stevekovach, @zpower, @cnbc, @miguelrios, @johnpaczkowski and @edbott

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Amazon's AWS Now Offers A Push Notification Service For iOS, Android And Kindle Apps, Widening Its Toolkit For Mobile Developers — Amazon continues to “push” further into the space of becoming a one-stop shop for mobile developers looking to make, host and distribute apps …

More: GeekWire, Amazon.com, The Next Web, Engadget, MacRumors, Computerworld, iPhone Hacks, GigaOM, ZDNet and MacNN

Jamie Rigg / Engadget:

Some 2013 Nexus 7 users report buggy multitouch, Google is investigating — A muddled sense of direction isn't the only problem affecting the new generation of Nexus 7 slates, it seems, as some users are also reporting issues with multitouch on the 1,920 x 1,200 display.

More: CNET, 9to5Google, TechHive, The Next Web, The Verge, GSMArena Blog, Softpedia News, Android Police, Delimiter, Android Beat and Android Community

Zoe Kleinman / BBC:

Norway blocks Apple map flights — Oslo (left) is visible in 2D on Apple's map but Danish capital Copenhagen (right) is in 3D — Norway's government is refusing to let Apple take aerial photography of the capital city Oslo to create 3D images for its Maps app, reports local media.

More: 9to5Mac, ZDNet, Agence France Presse, The Register, WorldViews, VentureBeat, PadGadget, Inquirer, App Advice, TechnoBuffalo, Digital Trends, TUAW, TechEye, iPhone Hacks, iDownloadBlog.com, MacDailyNews, AppleInsider and The Mac Observer. Tweets: @9to5mac

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

To Square Up To Foursquare, Yelp Now Lets Users Post Reviews Directly From Its Mobile App — It's been a long time coming, but user-generated local reviews site Yelp is finally getting with the program: today it is rolling out the ability for users to write reviews directly in its mobile app …

More: Engadget and 9to5Mac. Tweets: @joshconstine and @chris_ciaccia

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Microsoft unveils wrist-friendly Sculpt Ergonomic and Sculpt Comfort Desktops — Microsoft has pursued ever more exotic shapes in the name of comfort. Its new Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop might just take the cake, however. The all-wireless bundle's centerpiece, the Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard …

More: Windows Experience Blog, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, PC World, The Verge, ZDNet, TechCrunch, Windows Phone Central and TechSpot

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Twitter Buys Open Source Training Company Marakana To Power New “Twitter University” For Engineers — Twitter today announced its latest acquisition, along with a move into offering richer resources to attract better engineering talent to the company. It has bought Marakana …

More: Official Twitter blog, The Next Web, AllThingsD, memeburn and Mashable. Tweets: @twu

James Trew / Engadget:

Telefonica pens deal with Evernote, gives global customers one year's free premium access — You've got to hand it to Evernote, it's taking the initiative when it comes to getting its popular productivity tools into as many hands as possible. We've already seen Deutsche Telekom customers getting access …

More: VatorNews, TechCrunch, ZDNet, NYT Bits, Mobile World Live, GigaOM, IntoMobile and The Next Web

Chris Kanaracus / InfoWorld:

Larry Ellison: Some government surveillance is ‘essential’ to fight terror — Ellison also weighed in on his friendship with Steve Jobs and Oracle's litigation against Google in a televised interview — Some level of government surveillance is “essential” if the nation is to minimize …

More: AllThingsD, CBS News, SiliconBeat, Digits, Computerworld, Mercury News, eWeek, 9to5Google, Los Angeles Times, SiliconBeat, Business Insider, ZDNet, Forbes, GeekWire, TechEye, TUAW, Yahoo! News and 9to5Mac

Jathan Sadowski / Wired:

Stop Thinking That Tech Hacks Are the Solution to Our Surveillance Woes — That's it, I'm calling it early: this is officially the “summer of surveillance.” Especially with the latest news that due to this surveillance, not one, but two, separate companies announced they were shutting …

More: Nextgov and TechSpot

Kevin Poulsen / Wired:

First 100 Pages of Aaron Swartz's Secret Service File Released — After half-a-year of delays and roadblocks, the U.S Secret Service today released the first 104 pages of agency documents about the late coder and activist Aaron Swartz, including a brief report on Swartz's suicide less than three months before his scheduled trial.

More: Guardian, Business Insider, Ars Technica, Softpedia News, The Switch, Mashable, SlashGear and The Verge

Tweets: @georgiebc and @youranonnews

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