Techmeme: Acer's $249 C720 Chromebook launched: Thinner, longer lasting, and Haswell (Jason Inofuentes/Ars Technica)

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October 10, 2013, 10:55 AM

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Brad Stone / Businessweek:

The Secrets of Bezos: How Amazon Became the Everything Store — Amazon.com rivals Wal-Mart as a store, Apple as a device maker, and IBM as a data services provider. It will rake in about $75 billion this year. For his book, Bloomberg Businessweek's Brad Stone spoke to hundreds of current and former friends of founder Jeff Bezos.

More: StrictlyVC, GeekWire, Betabeat, Digits, The Switch, Business Insider, The Verge, PhoneArena and bizjournals

Tweets: @bradstone, @huffposttech, @shelfawareness, @valleyhack and @sfiegerman

Jason Del Rey / AllThingsD:

How Jeff Bezos Crushed Diapers.com So Amazon Could Buy Diapers.com — A day after the New York Times dropped an excerpt of a juicy upcoming book about Twitter, Bloomberg Businessweek has published an excerpt of journalist Brad Stone's book about Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos, due out on Oct. 15.

More: GigaOM and GeekWire. Tweets: @delrey

Bloomberg:

BlackBerry Is Said to Warm to Idea of a Breakup — BlackBerry (BBRY) Ltd. is more open to a breakup of the company amid concerns that Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. (FFH) may be unable to line up funding or partners for a $4.7 billion buyout, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

More: AllThingsD, VentureBeat, BGR, CNET, ZDNet, GigaOM, InfoWorld, TechCrunch, Mashable, CrackBerry.com, Electronista, I4U News and VatorNews

Tweets: @howardlindzon and @jcmccracken

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

BlackBerry tries to hold enterprise software, services fort; Customers wary

More: Digits

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

Fitbit Force brings smartwatch features to a fitness tracker — Fitbit is making its latest device to quantify your activity, the wrist-worn Force fitness tracker, official today. The Force is an evolution of the Flex, Fitbit's other wrist-worn tracker, and offers an OLED display and altimeter …

More: 9to5Mac, ABC News, The Next Web, Gizmodo, GigaOM, Engadget, VentureBeat, AllThingsD, Electronista and Mashable

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Twitter Appears To Be Exploring Personalized Breaking News Notifications With @Eventparrot Experiment — Twitter appears to be exploring introducing breaking news notifications tuned for you to its apps, if a new experimental account is any indication. An account called @eventparrot …

More: Digits, AllThingsD, The Next Web, TechHive, The Verge, Mashable, Engadget, bizjournals, Fast Company, memeburn and Softpedia News. See also Mediagazer

Jason Inofuentes / Ars Technica:

Acer's $249 C720 Chromebook launched: Thinner, longer lasting, and Haswell — The Chromebook C720. — Acer — Chrome OS aficionados have long pined for a Haswell processor to drive one of their Chromebooks, imbuing the line with the longevity they've been missing out on. That wait has come to an end.

More: Marketwired, The Next Web, BetaNews, The Next Web, GigaOM, Softpedia News, Pocketables, CNET, Softpedia News, PC World, SlashGear, The Verge, I4U News, Gearburn, TechCrunch, Engadget, AndroidOS.in and Electronista

Tim Peterson / AdAge:

Bye, Bye Cookie: Microsoft Plots Its Own Tracking Technology to Span Desktop, Mobile, Xbox — Redmond Joins Google, Apple, Amazon and Others In Plotting the Cookie's Demise — Microsoft is set to become the latest tech giant to develop its own tracking technology to replace the ubiquitous …

More: Softpedia News, I4U News, AdExchanger and InvestorPlace

Daniel P. Howley / LAPTOP Magazine:

T-Mobile International Data vs. the Competition: Rates Compared — Data Cost — Voice Calling Cost — AT&T — $30 per 120MB / $120 per 800MB (Global Add-on Package) — $30 / month for $2.00 per minute (Rest of World Plan) — Sprint — $40 per 40MB / $80 per 85MB (Multi-country Data Roaming)

More: BetaNews, eWeek and Gotta Be Mobile

Brian X. Chen / New York Times:

T-Mobile to Make It Cheaper to Make Calls While Abroad

More: T-Mobile Newsroom, Engadget, AllThingsD, LAPTOP Magazine, TechCrunch, Electronista and MacRumors

Tim Berners-Lee / W3C Blog:

On Encrypted Video and the Open Web — There has been a lot of response to the announcement that W3C considers content protection for video as in-scope for discussion in the HTML Working Group. In this post I can touch on some of the arguments. — We hear the outburst of criticism …

More: The Register and O'Reilly Programming. Tweets: @mike_digitize and @digiphile

Bloomberg:

Microsoft Board Said to Work on Hiring New CEO This Year — Microsoft Corp.'s board is working toward having the successor to Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer in place by the end of this year and is winnowing a list of candidates, said people with knowledge of the discussions.

More: ZDNet, WebProNews, Softpedia News, The Verge, Hillicon Valley, VG247, Wired.co.uk, I4U News, WinBeta and Polygon

Ted Johnson / Variety:

Broadcasters Will Petition Supreme Court to Review Aereo Case (Exclusive) — Justices will have to choose between taking case or letting legal proceedings play out further — Broadcasters plan to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to review lower court rulings that have allowed Aereo …

More: CNET, GigaOM, Engadget, The Verge, blog.chron.com and GigaOM. See also Mediagazer

Kevin Bostic / AppleInsider:

Best Buy trade-in offer to take any working smartphone for at least $100 toward iPhone 5s, 5c — Electronics retailer Best Buy appears on the verge of kicking off another trade-in program aimed at getting iPhone 5s and 5c customers through its doors, this time offering a minimum of $100 toward …

More: TechnoBuffalo, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, iDownloadBlog.com, App Advice, SlashGear, Electronista and ABC News

John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:

Rogers Agrees to Carry BlackBerry's Newest Flagship Phone — Looks like Rogers Communications will sell the BlackBerry Z30 after all. — A week after announcing its decision to forgo BlackBerry's latest flagship phone, the Canadian wireless carrier has reversed course following outcry from its customers.

More: Electronista, Softpedia News, Phones Review, The Verge and MobileSyrup.com

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

Design Quality and Customer Delight as Sustainable Advantages — I've been thinking about this piece by Ben Thompson, “What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong in His Theory of Low-End Disruption”, since he published it two weeks ago. … In a sense, there are two rational Apple bear arguments.

More: Fortune, iMore and Tech.pinions. Tweets: @panzer

Elizabeth Guider / Hollywood Reporter:

MIPCOM: Al Jazeera to Launch Online Global News Net — The Doha-based news network will focus on English service first. — CANNES - Qatar-based news operation Al Jazeera will go live online with a 24-hour news, current affairs and human interest channel in early 2014 called Al Jazeera Plus.

More: DSLreports, Al Jazeera Press Office, GigaOM and FierceOnlineVideo News. See also Mediagazer

Adam Pasick / qz.com:

Your Playstation 4 may be built by Chinese students in the worst internship ever — Updated with comment and detail from Foxconn. — Foxconn believes that students are the future, at least judging by its deal with China's Xi'an Institute of Technology to expose more than 1,000 …

More: Ars Technica, GigaOM, Engadget, MCV: Home Stream, Tech in Asia, The Next Web, Geek.com, Tech in Asia, Gamasutra, The Escapist and Kotaku

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Amazon Makes A Play For Startups With Its AWS Activate Service Bundle And Support Network — Amazon's AWS cloud services division has become one of the go-to places for startups looking for hosting and other services for their apps and other business. Today, Amazon redoubled its efforts …

More: Amazon.com, ReadWrite and The Next Web. Tweets: @swardley

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

Level: A real-time money meter app that wants to be your Fitbit for personal spending — There's no shortage of personal finance-management apps out there, with the likes of Simple serving up real-time data about all your incomings and outgoings, linked directly to your bank accounts.

More: AllThingsD, GigaOM, TechCrunch, Pulse 2.0 and Co.Design

John Cook / GeekWire:

VC deal activity hits highest mark since dot-com boom — It may feel a little frothy out there in startup land. And a new report out from CB Insights shows just what's going on. — Venture capital deal activity continued to climb in the third quarter as a total of 857 companies raised money during …

More: CB Insights and Xconomy

Sam Byford / The Verge:

Sony shrinks flagship Z1 smartphone to a more manageable size — NTT Docomo has announced the Xperia Z1F, a new Sony smartphone based on this year's Xperia Z1. The Z1's standout feature was its 20-megapixel camera with a point-and-shoot-sized sensor, but where that model featured a 5-inch 1080p display …

More: Gizmodo, GigaOM, Pocket-lint, Engadget and AndroidOS.in

Klint Finley / Wired:

CenturyLink to expand its forthcoming gigabit fiber internet service into Las Vegas this fall — Super-Speed Internet Rolls Into Las Vegas — CenturyLink — the third largest telecommunications company in the U.S. — announced today that it will expand its forthcoming gigabit fiber internet service into Las Vegas this fall.

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