Techmeme
October 10, 2013, 11:15 AM

Top News

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.
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.
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
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 …
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)
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 …
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
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 …
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
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.
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.
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 …
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.
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.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
GitHub Universe 2026: Highlights from the developer's developer conference  —  Copilot Fusion was the belle of the ball, but the hero at the heart of the two-day event was the developer community.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
Introducing the new Zoho Analytics: Agentic analytics for every business  —  We're excited to announce the launch of the new Zoho Analytics!  This release marks a major shift for the product …
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.

Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
The Accidental YC Founder Solving AI's GPU Crisis | SF Compute's Evan Conrad
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Cheeky Pint:
Why Sam Altman is against a single superintelligence
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Great Chat:
The case for AI optimism
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.
Sources:
Tobi Lütke on the AI agent revolution and future of Shopify
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
This AI Expert Argues We're Underestimating AI's Productivity Impact — With Ethan Mollick
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.
Machine Gods:
Inside Anthropic's IPO + How AI agents spy on your messages
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:15 AM ET, October 10, 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.

More News

Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Greg Sterling / Marketing Land:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Paul Thurrott / SuperSite for Windows: