Techmeme: Google calls book scanning “transformative” in latest push for fair use ruling (Jeff John Roberts/GigaOM)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

August 27, 2013, 7:10 PM

Top News

Colin Stretch / Facebook:

Global Government Requests Report — Transparency and trust are core values at Facebook. We strive to embody them in all aspects of our services, including our approach to responding to government data requests. We want to make sure that the people who use our service understand the nature …

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

New Facebook report shows over 25,000 government requests for user data worldwide

More: AllThingsD, Guardian and Electronista

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple TV updated with Vevo, Disney Channel, Disney XD, Weather Channel, Smithsonian apps — Today, Apple has issued an over-the-air update to the Apple TV that brings several new content apps. Notably, in line with expectations, an app for the Vevo Music Video service has arrived.

More: VEVO.com, MacRumors, AllThingsD, AppleInsider, AllThingsD, 5by5 Master Audio Feed, TechCrunch, TechSpot, The Verge, TechHive, Digits, PadGadget, The Next Web, IntoMobile, BGR, I4U News, VentureBeat, everythingiCafe and Engadget

Tweets: @chartier, @pkafka, @reneritchie, @pkafka, @parislemon and @llsethj

See also Mediagazer

Dan Frommer / SplatF:

The Apple TV App Store Can't Be Too Far Away — Apple TV owners just got a bunch more channels: Vevo, the Weather Channel, more from Disney, and Smithsonian. This follows a recent update that added HBO Go and ESPN apps, and represents a continued acceleration of new content being added to Apple TV.

More: 9to5Mac and CNET

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

Syrian Electronic Army attack suspected on New York Times; group also claims Twitter hack — The Web site for the New York Times was inaccessible for some users Tuesday, apparently as the result of a malicious attack. Tuesday's outage comes less than two weeks after the site suffered an outage that lasted approximately two hours.

More: Computerworld, Hillicon Valley, Twitter Status and Daily Dot

Tweets: @matthewkeyslive and @emilydparker

See also Mediagazer

Christine Haughney / New York Times:

Times Web Site Affected by External Hacking Attack — The New York Times Web site was unavailable to readers on Tuesday afternoon following an attack on the company's domain name registrar, Melbourne IT. The attack also required employees of The Times to stop sending out sensitive e-mails.

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Syrian Electronic Army Apparently Hacks DNS Records Of Twitter, NYT Through Registrar Melbourne IT

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple's iPhone ‘Reuse and Recycle’ trade-in program detailed, begins rolling out August 30th — Yesterday, we reported that Apple is gearing up to launch its iPhone trade-in program in September. The program will allow an iPhone user to exchange an older iPhone model for a new iPhone at a discounted price.

More: ABC News, Business Insider, TUAW, Forbes, MacNN, iMore, LAPTOP Magazine, SiliconANGLE, It's a Gadget, CNN, Benzinga, TechnoBuffalo, iDownloadBlog.com, Ars Technica, Examiner, Geek.com, ITworld.com and App Advice. Thanks:@luminaryws

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Windows 8.1 is officially finished, but everyone has to wait until October 18th — Microsoft is confirming today, after recent reports, that the company has completed Windows 8.1 and is releasing it to manufacturing (RTM). The finalization of the Windows 8 update means that hardware partners …

More: The Windows Blog, TechNet Blogs, LAPTOP Magazine, ZDNet, Digital Trends, The Next Web, Ars Technica, MSDN Blogs, PC World, Gizmodo, SlashGear, Engadget, Softpedia News, VentureBeat, TechnoBuffalo, GeekWire, BetaNews, Examiner and AllThingsD

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

With no early Windows 8.1 RTM bits, what's a developer to do?

More: The Windows Blog, Computerworld and SuperSite for Windows

Bloomberg:

Twitter Hires Commerce Chief to Add Shopping Via Tweets — Twitter Inc. hired Nathan Hubbard, the former president of Ticketmaster, as its first head of commerce, part of a push to enable shopping via short postings on its social website. — Hubbard, 38, started at San Francisco-based Twitter this week …

More: Marketing Land, Tech Trader Daily, VentureBeat, The Verge, TechCrunch, ZDNet, AllThingsD and internetretailer.com

Tweets: @nathanchubbard, @nytimesbits, @mikeisaac, @sg, @rsarver, @besvinick, @fromedome and @mikeisaac

See also Mediagazer

Fortune:

AllThingsD nears split with Dow Jones — The future of influential tech website All Things Digital is close to being decided. Reuters reported in February that AllThingsD co-executive editors Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg had begun discussions with owner Dow Jones, a subsidiary of News Corp. …

More: GigaOM, bizjournals, It's a Gadget, Silicon Valley Watcher and ZDNet

Tweets: @jayrosen_nyu, @bridgetwi, @peterlauria3, @danprimack, @rafat, @nytimesbits, @hblodget, @felixsalmon and @felixsalmon

See also Mediagazer

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Microsoft Fires Back After Box Steps On Its Turf, Boosts SkyDrive Pro Storage To 25 GB — This is the real storage wars. Today Microsoft announced that it has increased the storage capacity of its SkyDrive Pro cloud document storage and syncing service to 25 gigabytes, from the formerly proffered 7 gigabytes.

More: The Microsoft Office Blog, BetaNews, ZDNet, GeekWire, The Next Web, SlashGear, Engadget and SuperSite for Windows

Will Connors / Wall Street Journal:

BlackBerry Weighs Messenger Spinoff — Move Signals Firm Is Trying to Position BBM as a Valuable Asset Ahead of Potential Sale — BlackBerry Ltd. is considering spinning off its messaging service into a subsidiary that would operate with more independence, according to people familiar with the matter.

More: PandoDaily, Ars Technica, The Register, eWeek, Telegraph, Network World, CNNMoney.com, BuzzFeed, VentureBeat and GigaOM. Tweets: @parislemon

Michael Kassner / TechRepublic:

Researchers reverse-engineer the Dropbox client: What it means — There were doubts about being able to reverse engineer heavily-obfuscated applications written in Python. Two researchers have removed all doubt by reverse engineering the immensely popular Dropbox client.

More: The Switch and Geek.com

Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:

Google calls book scanning “transformative” in latest push for fair use ruling — Google and the Authors Guild's eight-year legal fight over digital books is coming to a head once again, as both sides prepare to make their final case next month about whether Google's scanning …

Tweets: @inafried. See also Mediagazer

Brian Fung / The Switch:

Inside the Bitcoin advocates' closed-door meeting with federal regulators — The U.S. government took the latest step toward regulating virtual currencies on Monday as representatives from the Bitcoin Foundation met behind closed doors with federal officials in Washington.

More: Business Insider, Associated Press and Daily Dot. Tweets: @willnoon

John Tozzi / Businessweek:

Jack Dorsey's Plan to Save America's Struggling Cities — Square co-founder (and Twitter chairman) Jack Dorsey started hosting events to bring together local business owners in California earlier this year. This fall he's taking the idea to places normally off the tech world's radar …

Om Malik / GigaOM:

Vine gets better with age: How screens, speed and networks are changing the future of online video — Earlier this morning when sitting in the San Diego Airport while waiting for my flight, I did what most people do these days in those situations — I peered into my phone and cycled through my various social media applications.

Tweets: @om

Ricardo Bilton / VentureBeat:

Yahoo brings fresh redesigns — and native ads — to its biggest websites — Under Marissa Mayer, Yahoo has made a concerted effort not only to update its image, but also to completely reinvigorate all of its products. — We're now seeing that effort extend to more of the company's websites.

More: Yahoo!, VatorNews, Yahoo! Advertising Solutions, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Forbes, Marketing Land, ReadWrite, The Technology Chronicles, WebProNews and Adotas

David Kravets / Wired:

Feds Back Away From Forced Decryption ... For Now — Federal prosecutors have formally dropped demands that a child-porn suspect give up his encryption keys in a closely watched case, but experts warn the issue of forced decryption is very much alive and is likely to encompass a larger swath …

Stefan Constantinescu / Android Beat:

Samsung Exec confirms Note III and Galaxy Gear launch for September 4th (next week!) — Lee Young-hee, executive vice president of Samsung's mobile business, told The Korea Times that Samsung will be unveiling the Galaxy Note III and Galaxy Gear smartwatch on September 4th.

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Google releases a Chromecast app for iOS to help users set up and manage their $35 TV dongle — Google released an official Chromecast app for iOS devices today, making it easier for users to set up the new $35 TV dongle, switch between multiple Chromecasts and change common network settings.

More: TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, AllThingsD, LAPTOP Magazine, BetaNews, IntoMobile, Softpedia News, Macworld, Macgasm, 9to5Google, VentureBeat, MobileSyrup.com, Engadget, Gotta Be Mobile, The Verge and GigaOM. See also Mediagazer

Greg Bensinger / Digits:

Groupon Eyes Warehouse Network For Goods — Groupon is planning a network of North American warehouses for its physical goods business, pushing the company known for coupons into more direct competition with Amazon.com. — In an interview Tuesday, CEO Eric Lefkofsky said the Chicago company …

More: The Verge

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.

Zoho:

What's new in Zoho Tables with Apple's latest OS updates — Your work shouldn't slow you down when you're on the move.With our latest updates for iOS 27, we're bringing more of Apple Intelligence …

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.

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Sources:

OpenAI's Dots lead on the future of ChatGPT

Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Subscribe to Sources.

Great Chat:

What does the tech industry owe San Francisco?

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Uncapped with Jack Altman:

David George from a16z

Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.

Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.

Big Technology Podcast:

SAP CEO: AI Won't Kill Software, But It Will Change Your Job — With Christian Klein

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

David Ellison's Paramount-Warner Empire & The Fight That Comes Next

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

Invest Like the Best:

Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:10 PM ET, August 27, 2013.

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.