Techmeme: ICANN officially kills Google's plan for dotless Search top level domain name (Andrew Allemann/Domain Name Wire)

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August 16, 2013, 9:50 PM

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Jungah Lee / Bloomberg:

Samsung Said to Introduce Wristwatch-Like Smartphone Next Month — Samsung will introduce a wristwatch-like device named the Galaxy Gear next month that can make phone calls, surf the Web and handle e-mails, according to two people familiar with the matter.

More: SamMobile, eWeek, Telegraph, TechnoBuffalo, TechHive, GigaOM, SlashGear, WebProNews, InvestorPlace, BGR, Digits, ReadWrite, Slashdot, Businessweek, PC Magazine, Gotta Be Mobile, Gizmodo, TechSpot, VentureBeat, PhoneArena, Engadget, TechCrunch, The Verge, Business Insider, Sammy Hub, Mashable, MobileSyrup.com, dailywireless.org and iClarified. Tweets: @bloombergnews

Mark Hosenball / Reuters:

Snowden downloaded NSA secrets while working for Dell, sources say — (Reuters) - Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden began downloading documents describing the U.S. government's electronic spying programs while he was working for Dell Inc in April 2012, almost a year earlier …

More: Gizmodo, The Verge, Daily Dot, Ars Technica, ZDNet and Hillicon Valley. Tweets: @charlie_simpson

Electronic Frontier Foundation:

NSA Spying: The Three Pillars of Government Trust Have Fallen

More: TechPresident, Firedoglake, SiliconBeat, Washington Post, GigaOM, Forbes, Washington Post, emptywheel and Gawker

Barton Gellman / Washington Post:

NSA statements to The Post

More: The Switch, TechCrunch, Boing Boing, Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Register, GigaOM, Engadget, The Huffington Post, emptywheel and The Next Web

Tweets: @jeffjarvis, @jasonleopold, @dafnalinzer and @robpegoraro

David Talbot / MIT Technology Review:

Remotely Assembled Malware Blows Past Apple's Screening Process — Research unmasks a weakness of Apple's App Store: new apps apparently are run for only a few seconds before approval. — WHY IT MATTERS — More than 600 million devices with Apple's iOS have been sold.

More: AppleInsider, The Next Web, CNET, MacRumors, iMore, The Mac Observer, The Mac Security Blog and BGR. Tweets: @packetknife

David Pierce / The Verge:

Build-a-Phone Workshop: my first encounter with Moto Maker and a customized Moto X — Turns out 18 is a lot of choices. — As one of the first people allowed into Motorola's Moto Maker program, I had a chance to design the phone I always wanted, to order a phone made by Motorola but designed by me.

More: The Verge, 9to5Google, Macgasm, GigaOM, Gotta Be Mobile, VentureBeat, LAPTOP Magazine, TechHive, CNET, Yahoo! News, Engadget, SlashGear, ReadWrite, Gizmodo and GigaOM. Tweets: @tomwarren

Zach Honig / Engadget:

Moto X Skip NFC smartphone key official, ships free with Moto Maker orders

More: The Official Motorola Blog, VentureBeat, TechnoBuffalo, pocketnow.com, AndroidGuys, IntoMobile, ZDNet, Gizmodo, Android and Me and Android Community

Matt McGee / Marketing Land:

EdgeRank Is Dead: Facebook's News Feed Algorithm Now Has Close To 100K Weight Factors — The next time you tell a client how Facebook selects and ranks the content that shows up in the News Feed, you'll need to do it without using the word EdgeRank. — EdgeRank, Facebook's original News Feed ranking system, is dead.

More: GigaOM, Softpedia News and Likeable Media

Andrew Allemann / Domain Name Wire:

ICANN officially kills Google's plan for dotless Search top level domain name — Board resolution quashes dotless domains again, at least for now. — ICANN's New gTLD Program Committee has passed a resolution confirming a prohibition on so-called dotless domain names …

More: ICANN, CNET, The Verge, ZDNet, Marketing Land, Web Host Industry Review, TheDomains.com, DomainIncite and CircleID

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Yahoo Names Maynard Webb Permanent Board Chairman — “Maynard Webb's leadership and guidance have been an invaluable part of our board since he joined it in 2012,” a Yahoo spokesperson said in a statement. “We are honored that Maynard will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board.”

More: Reuters and Bloomberg

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Carl Icahn Denied in Bid to Upend Dell Buyout Vote — Carl Icahn, the activist investor, can't seem to get a break from the Delaware Chancery Court. — A judge in that court turned away Icahn's petition asking it to intervene and stop a buyout vote scheduled for Sept. 12.

More: Wall Street Journal, eWeek, Associated Press, DealBook, Bloomberg, ZDNet, Reuters, ValueWalk, GigaOM and MoneyBeat

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Nokia to launch Windows RT tablet in September, alleged pictures leak — Nokia is planning to launch its first Windows RT tablet in September. Sources familiar with Nokia's plans have revealed to The Verge that the company will unveil its tablet at a special launch event in New York next month.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

AOL Starts Patch Cuts, and Up to 500 People May Lose Their Jobs — AOL has begun making mass layoffs at its Patch unit. — By the time the cuts are over, AOL could end up reducing the local news network's 1,000-worker labor force by half, according to people familiar with the plans.

More: TechCrunch, Poynter, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Valleywag, TechnoBuffalo, BuzzFeed, JIMROMENESKO.COM, GigaOM, Business Insider and GeekWire

Tweets: @edmundlee and @kurtfliegelpro

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