Techmeme
August 28, 2013, 2:00 PM

Top News

Eva Dou / Wall Street Journal:
HTC Develops China-Focused Mobile Operating System  —  Taiwanese Handset Maker Works With China in Bid to Revive Sales  —  TAIPEI—HTC Corp. is developing a mobile software system specifically for Chinese consumers, people familiar with the project say, as part of a big China bet …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Apple Acquires Swedish Firm AlgoTrim, A Company That Does Mobile Media And Data Compression  —  Apple has acquired AlgoTrim, a Swedish startup that builds codecs and designs solutions that maximize performance of data, mobile imaging, video and computer graphics while minimizing memory requirements …
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Nintendo dropping Wii U price to $299.99 ahead of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launch  —  The Wii U hasn't been selling quite as well as Nintendo might like, and September 20th it's giving the new console a $50 price cut that'll bring it down to $299.99.  Earlier this month …
Michael McWhertor / Polygon:
Nintendo 2DS coming this Oct. for $129.99, plays 3DS games in 2D  —  Nintendo is releasing a new version of its Nintendo 3DS hardware that's playable only in 2D.  It's called the Nintendo 2DS and will be available in North America on Oct. 12 for $129.99.  —  Nintendo 2DS plays the entire library …
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
Exclusive: Google+ Hangouts goes HD as it switches from H.264 to VP8.  Next up, WebRTC.  —  Noticed any differences when using Google's Hangouts video chat lately?  If you did, then you may be one of the lucky users who has already received an upgrade to 720p HD video.
Matthew Prince / CloudFlare Blog:
Details Behind Today's Internet Hacks … At 1:19pm (PDT) today, a researcher noticed that the New York Times' website wasn't loading.  We know the New York Times tech team, so we sent an email to check in.  A few minutes later, the CTO of the NYT called us back.
Bloomberg:
Apple Said to Plan First Tokyo Retail Store Since 2005  —  Apple Inc. (AAPL) plans to open a store in Tokyo's upscale Omotesando shopping district as early as March, according to a person familiar with the plans.  —  Construction is scheduled to be completed by February, the person said …
eMarketer:
Facebook Sees Big Gains in Global Mobile Ad Market Share  —  Google to take home half of $16.65 billion worldwide mobile ad market  —  Facebook's continued emphasis on mobile monetization, along with its users' ongoing shift toward mobile devices, is resulting in dramatic gains in mobile ad market share …
Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:
Apple looking to turn the iPhone into an intelligent universal media, ‘smart home’ remote control  —  An Apple patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday describes a method in which a portable device, like the iPhone, can save, manage and recall entertainment and “smart home” system settings, called “scenes.”
Simon Bisson / ZDNet:
What Microsoft and Google's YouTube row says about the future of web development  —  Summary: The Google/Microsoft YouTube dispute tells you more about the way software for the mobile internet is being developed that you might have thought.  —  When it comes to Google and Microsoft's dispute …
Tweets: @saschasegan and @theromit
Mark Hachman / TechHive:
Apple is the company most targeted by patent trolls  —  Apple, HP and Samsung have been attacked the most by so-called “patent trolls” within the last five years, a Silicon Valley lawyer said Tuesday.  But recent legislative activity may be weakening their power.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Shopify Launches Point-Of-Sale System To Unify Online And Brick-And-Mortar Retail  —  Ottawa-based Shopify, the online storefront provider that helps around 65,000 retailers reach their customers on the web, including Tesla, Crossfit and others, today announced a new retail point-of-sale solution that uses iPads for its terminals.
David Kravets / Wired:
Hacker Pleads Guilty to Selling FBI Access to U.S. Supercomputers  —  Cray XT4 supercomputer cluster (Franklin) has 9,660 compute nodes.  Each has quad-core AMD processors running at 2.3 GHz.  Franklin has 38,640 processor cores, with 8 GB of memory per node and a total 350 TB of usable disk space.
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Teardown Reveals Google's Moto X Costs $221 to Build  —  As the first smartphone to be completely designed since Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility, there are a lot of expectations riding on the Moto X.  —  The phone, now considered the flagship of the Motorola lineup, is getting noticed for being different.
Andy / TorrentFreak:
Grooveshark Signs With Sony, Steps Over that Wavy ‘Piracy’ Line  —  What's the difference between YouTube and Grooveshark?  —  That's not the start of some terrible geek in-joke but a question that Grooveshark founder Sam Tarantino has always been happy to answer, and for good reason.
Jay Yarow / Business Insider:
Car Sharing Startup Local Motion Gets $6 Million Investment, Steven Sinofsky On Its Board  —  Steven Sinofsky is joining the board of car sharing technology startup Local Motion.  —  Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (AH) is investing $6 million in Local Motion.  Sinofsky recently joined Andreessen Horowitz.
Simon Sharwood / The Register:
Marc Andreessen, Pat Gelsinger in verbal VMworld brawl  —  Netscape legend and VMware CEO clash on security, ARM vs. x86 and role of cloud  —  VMworld 2013 VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger and graphical-browser-inventor-turned- venture-capitalist Marc Andreessen have engaged in a feisty debate at Vmworld 2013 …
More: ForbesTweets: @matteastwood

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Earlier Picks

Bryan Bishop / The Verge:
Chris Welch / The Verge: