Techmeme
October 11, 2013, 5:00 AM

Top News

John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
BlackBerry Co-Founders Lazaridis, Fregin Mulling Bid to Buy Back Company  —  BlackBerry co-founder and former co-CEO Mike Lazaridis is considering taking a run at his former company with fellow co-founder Doug Fregin.  —  According to a regulatory filing released Thursday …
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
Google to sunset Google TV brand as its smart TV platform merges with Android  —  Google TV is dead, long live Android TV: Three years after launching the first generation of Google TV devices, Google is now looking to rid itself of the brand and realign its smart TV platform efforts more closely with Android.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Removing Option To Be Unsearchable By Name, Highlighting Lack Of Universal Privacy Controls  —  “Who can look up your Timeline by name?”  Anyone you haven't blocked.  Facebook is removing this privacy setting, notifying those who had hidden themselves that they'll be searchable.
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Reportedly Cutting iPhone 5c Production as Chinese Gray Market Prices Drop  —  Apple is reportedly cutting iPhone 5c production in half from 300,000 units to 150,000 units per day, according to claims by C Technology [Google Translate], which leaked a number of photos of the iPhone 5s …
Andy Fixmer / Bloomberg:
Hulu Said Close to Naming Fox's Mike Hopkins CEO of Web Service  —  Hulu LLC, the streaming service controlled by Walt Disney Co. and 21st Century Fox Inc., is close to naming Fox executive Mike Hopkins as its new chief executive officer, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
AllThingsD:
Vivian Schiller Is a Lock as Twitter's Head of News  —  Vivian Schiller, NBC News' SVP and chief digital officer, is being tapped for Twitter's head of news position, according to sources familiar with the matter.  AllThingsD reported last week that she was the leading pick for the high-profile job.
John Koetsier / VentureBeat:
Apple iWatch is actually a home automation play, not a smartphone companion (analyst)  —  Nov. 12 - 13, 2013  —  Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartwatch launched a couple of weeks ago as a fat, ugly, and expensive smartphone accessory that our own Devindra Hardawar called “relentlessly inessential.”
More: Forbes and iPhone Hacks
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Samsung Acquires Biometrics Firm Fingerprint Cards For $650M - Chasing Apple's Touch ID Lead  —  Apple's iPhone 5s has a fingerprint sensor embedded in the home button.  HTC is rumoured to be sticking a fingerprint sensor on the rear of the forthcoming HTC One Max.
More: Engadget and The Droid GuyThanks:@drizzled
Brandon Bailey / Mercury News:
Zuckerberg buys four houses near his Palo Alto home  —  PALO ALTO — Living the fantasy of every homeowner who's faced the prospect of a nuisance project next door, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has bought four homes adjacent to his own 5-bedroom crash pad in one of Palo Alto's toniest neighborhoods.
Tweets: @joshconstineThanks:@brandonbailey
Dan Farber / CNET:
Apple legend Bill Atkinson's new mission: Save the postcard  —  The creator of the Macintosh's QuickDraw graphics system, MacPaint, and HyperCard wants to save the postcard from extinction.  —  It's 5:00 a.m., and Bill Atkinson makes his way downstairs to begin his daily routine of, as he calls it, milking the cow.
JP Mangalindan / Fortune:
Can Silicon Valley boot camps get you a $120K job?  —  These crash courses accomplish in 12 weeks (or less) what top computer science schools might teach in four years.  Welcome to the 21st century vocational school.  —  FORTUNE — Hiring a good software engineer in Silicon Valley these days …
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
As More Startups Move To San Francisco, Y Combinator Opens A Satellite Office In The City  —  Y Combinator has been a mainstay of Silicon Valley, with an office not far from the Mountain View Caltrain station.  * Over the years, however, the seed-stage venture firm has seen more of its companies …
Jason Evangelho / Forbes:
Valve Confirms Official AMD-Powered Steam Machines For 2014  —  In a statement to Forbes, a Valve representative has confirmed that AMD graphics hardware will be included in commercially available Steam Machines next year.  The more interesting story, however, is why Valve needed to confirm this in the first place.
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
A first look inside Google's futuristic quantum lab  —  In May, Google launched the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab with hardware from the Canadian quantum computing company D-Wave and technical expertise from NASA.  It was an ambitious open research project aimed at exploring …
More: CNET, Engadget and SlashGearTweets: @dwavesys
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Twitter Launches An Android Tablet Optimized App For The First Time - On One Tablet  —  In what is a poignant statement about the state of Android tablet apps, Twitter has announced the first tablet-optimized version for the platform.  It's been 3 years since the iPad hit and Android tablets …
Lorraine Luk / Wall Street Journal:
Foxconn Admits to Labor Violations at Factory  —  Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. acknowledged that some student interns worked night shifts and overtime at a production site in northeast China in violation of company policy, the latest hit to the labor practices of the contract manufacturer …
Adam Pasick / Quartz:

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