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October 17, 2013, 10:05 AM

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Brandon LeBlanc / The Windows Blog:

Windows 8.1 now available! — Less than a year ago we were preparing to launch Windows 8, which introduced our vision of highly personalized mobile computing. And here we are today announcing the global availability of Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 demonstrates our commitment to continuously improving …

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Windows 8.1 review — It's take two for Microsoft's ambitious operating system — A year ago, Microsoft “reimagined” the look and feel of Windows, and placed a risky bet on the future of computing. Touch is everything, it said, and nearly everything about Windows 8 was designed to be used …

More: Ars Technica, Wired, Ars Technica, Digital Trends, Inquirer, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC World, CNET, VentureBeat, ZDNet, The Next Web, Pureinfotech Newsletter and Softpedia News

Brandon LeBlanc / The Windows Blog:

Windows 8.1: Best Experience of Your Web with Sites and Apps together — This blog post is part of a series of guest posts we're publishing this week from different people in groups across Microsoft who helped us build Windows 8.1. - Brandon — With the general availability of Windows 8.1 …

More: Inquirer and TechNet Blogs. Tweets: @theromit

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

What comes next after Windows 8.1?

Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:

iPhone takes 51% share of smartphone activations at Verizon in Q3, unit sales flat compared to Q2 … Verizon has just reported their results for the third quarter, with smartphone sales topping 7.6 million units. While the press release does not disclose details about iPhone performance …

More: AppleInsider, MacRumors, ReadWrite, The Tech Block, Gotta Be Mobile and iDownloadBlog.com

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

Verizon in Q3: $30 billion of revenue and another million users — The giant keeps growing — Fresh off agreeing a multibillion-dollar deal to reacquire Vodafone's large chunk of Verizon Wireless, America's biggest carrier reports its latest quarterly figures today.

More: Verizon Inc., ZDNet, CNET, VentureBeat, DailyFinance.com, AllThingsD, BGR, Engadget and Bloomberg

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Twitter Plans to Revamp Its Private Messaging Product — Twitter's entire premise is based on publicness. “Join the conversation in the global town square!” the company likes to say. — But, over the past year, Twitter has come around to seeing the value of being more discreet.

More: Venture Capital Dispatch and 9to5Mac. Tweets: @mikeisaac

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Twitter Says A ‘Technical Issue’ Is Preventing URLs From Being Sent In Direct Messages For Some — Earlier this afternoon Twitter users began experiencing difficulty sending URLs or ‘links’ via Direct Message. Depending on the client used, error messages popped up that indicated the DMs …

More: Engadget, ReadWrite, The Next Web and Softpedia News

Reuters:

NSA security chief Keith Alexander and his deputy John Inglis expected to depart within the next few months — U.S. eavesdropping agency chief, top deputy expected to depart soon — (Reuters) - The director of the U.S. National Security Agency and his deputy are expected to depart in the coming months …

More: The Switch, DSLreports, Ars Technica, ZDNet, Washington Post, Inquirer, Federal Computer Week, Hillicon Valley, The Verge, CNET, Forbes, Techdirt and VentureBeat

Tweets: @stopwatchingus, @kathrynschulz and @dannysullivan

Mario Aguilar / Gizmodo:

iPhone 5s accelerometer issues may be linked to change in supplier — Here's Why the iPhone 5S Accelerometer Is So Screwed Up — A few weeks ago we confirmed reports that the iPhone 5S motion sensors were embarrassingly off. Some enterprising devs have investigated the problem …

More: RealityCap, MacRumors, ZDNet, Cult of Mac, BGR, TechEye, MacRumors, AppleInsider, PhoneArena, Macworld, iPhone in Canada Blog, Softpedia News, GigaOM, iLounge, App Advice, iDownloadBlog.com, iMore and Electronista

John Koetsier / VentureBeat:

Facebook ad profit a staggering 1,790% more on iPhone than Android — Nov. 12 - 13, 2013 — A study of more than 200 billion ads on Facebook says that mobile ads on iPhone generate 1,790 percent more return on investment than ads on Android. Even worse, advertising on Android actually costs more than it returns.

More: Business Insider, The Mac Observer, AdExchanger, TUAW, AppleInsider, MediaPost, Fast Company, Nanigans, Ubergizmo, Softpedia News, AllFacebook and MacDailyNews. Tweets: @aulia

Liam Spradlin / Android Police:

[APK Teardown] Latest Google Glass Firmware Gives A Tantalizing Glimpse At A Ton Of Future Features — Last weekend, I finally got my own Google Glass unit. Since then I've been trying to adapt to using it and all its features, but as always there are a few things no Explorer can do just yet.

More: Business Insider, Mashable, TechnoBuffalo, Glass Almanac, GigaOM, SlashGear, Geek.com and Engadget

Pierre Omidyar / Omidyar Group:

My Next Adventure in Journalism — As many of you know, I've had an interest in journalism for some time now. I've been working on Civil Beat for three years and through my philanthropic work at Omidyar Network and Democracy Fund, we've supported many efforts around the world related to media …

More: Pressthink, GigaOM, Wired, The Register, Poynter, New York Times, CNET, Corporate Intelligence, TechPresident, Reuters, Guardian, Scripting News, Forbes, Business Insider and The Huffington Post. Tweets: @dgelles. See also Mediagazer

Alex Williams / TechCrunch:

Search Engine Giant Yandex Launches Cocaine, A Cloud Service To Compete With Google App Engine — Russian search giant Yandex has launched an — open-source platform as a service (PaaS) called Cocaine that — the company says allows developers to build out their own — app engines.

More: GitHub, Guardian, SiliconANGLE, The Register, Beyond Search and Softpedia News. Tweets: @jonrussell

Mozilla Hacks:

Introducing TogetherJS, a service to add real-time collaboration features to existing websites — Introducing TogetherJS — What is TogetherJS? — We'd like to introduce TogetherJS, a real-time collaboration tool out of Mozilla Labs. — TogetherJS is a service you add to an existing website …

More: Softpedia News, WebProNews and The Next Web

Bruce Schneier / Wired:

How to Design — And Defend Against — The Perfect Security Backdoor — We already know the NSA wants to eavesdrop on the internet. It has secret agreements with telcos to get direct access to bulk internet traffic. It has massive systems like TUMULT, TURMOIL, and TURBULENCE to sift through it all.

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

T-Mobile CEO hints new iPads coming to the carrier at Apple's Oct. 22 event — T-Mobile already confirmed during the summer that it was looking to expand its product offerings from Apple after the carrier first started carrying iPhones back in April of this year.

More: USA Today, CITEworld, MacRumors, SlashGear, PhoneArena, MacDailyNews, TechnoBuffalo, App Advice, iClarified, iDownloadBlog.com and AppleInsider. Thanks:@justinkahnmusic

Matt Brian / Engadget:

Samsung proposes five-year patent lawsuit hiatus to escape EU antitrust warnings — Almost 20 months after the European Commission (EC) formally launched an investigation into its patent licensing practices, Samsung believes it has come up with an answer. Today, the EC published an open call …

More: The Verge, BBC, EU Press Room, CNET, ZDNet, Reuters, Associated Press and FOSS Patents. Tweets: @fosspatents

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

Ebook subscription startup Oyster expands to iPad and opens to all; some stats from Scribd — Oyster, the Peter Thiel-backed startup that aims to be a Netflix for ebooks, was iPhone-only and invite-only for its first six weeks. On Wednesday, though, Oyster launched its iPad app and opened up to everyone.

More: Oyster HQ Blog, iMore, The Verge, MacRumors, iDownloadBlog.com, The Next Web, Gotta Be Mobile, SlashGear, VentureBeat, PhoneArena, Mashable, Electronista, Engadget and TUAW. See also Mediagazer

Roger Cheng / CNET:

T-Mobile ad criticized for belittling smartphone theft — T-Mobile CEO John Legere. — (Credit: Lori Grunin/CNET) — T-Mobile is hot water again for one of its “Uncarrier” campaign commercials. — The latest comes in the form of a letter written by San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon …

More: TmoNews, The Register and Bloomberg

Matt McGee / Marketing Land:

Google+ Drives A Fraction Of The Referral Traffic That Facebook, Pinterest & Twitter Do [Report] — Google+ is driving a fraction of the referral traffic to publisher sites that Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media sites are. — That's the main takeaway from an annual report released today …

More: Shareaholic Blog, 9to5Google, Mashable, Business Insider, Softpedia News, Marketing Pilgrim, social media, SocialTimes, AllTwitter and Likeable Media

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

F# wants to turn banner ads into web radio stations — New York-based ad tech startup F# wants you to stop hating banner ads — and it has a pretty clever idea to make those despised ad units more interesting: The company, whose name is pronounced like the musical note F-sharp …

More: Business Insider, hypebot, Xconomy and Digital Journal

Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:

The politics of tech transparency: industry reports offer openness — and confusion — The tech industry, facing a backlash over an ongoing surveillance scandal, is making up for lost time. In recent months, companies like Facebook have clamored into court waving civil liberties banners …

Tweets: @ellnmllr

Abhijeet M. / SamMobile:

Galaxy Round simply a prototype test device, will have limited production even in South Korea — Your plans to score one of Samsung's Galaxy Round, the world's first smartphone to feature a flexible display might not work out that well, as according to our insider, Samsung is looking to produce …

More: 9to5Google, Gizmodo, The Droid Guy, Gizmodo UK, Gearburn, PhoneArena, TechnoBuffalo, Android Beat, AndroidHeadlines.com, Gotta Be Mobile and SlashGear

Josh Lowensohn / CNET:

Judge appoints monitor to keep an eye on Apple's e-books biz — A US judge on Wednesday appointed an external monitor to keep Apple in compliance with antitrust laws, following the tech giant's loss in court earlier this year. — Judge Denise Cote named former Assistant US Attorney …

More: AllThingsD, Macgasm, Fortune, AppleInsider, Electronista and Reuters

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