Techmeme: Meet the Private Companies Helping Cops Spy on Protesters (John Knefel/Rolling Stone)

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October 26, 2013, 2:50 PM

Top News

James Galbraith / Macworld:

Intel's Iris graphics boost 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro GPU performance by more than 50% — Benchmarks: Upgraded graphics boost new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro — The first of the new MacBook Pros unveiled on Tuesday are in the Macworld Lab, and the results show that the internal updates …

More: Ars Technica, iPhone in Canada Blog, I4U News, Electronista, MacRumors and AppleInsider

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Next on Deck for Snapchat and Pinterest: Some Sales Help? — Earlier this week, AllThingsD broke the news of two major fundings of a pair hot startups: Scrapbooking service Pinterest and messaging service Snapchat. — Pinterest's round of $225 million at a $3.8 billion valuation was confirmed …

More: PandoDaily

Evelyn M. Rusli / Digits:

Snapchat looking to raise up to $200M, declined more than $1B bid by Facebook

More: VatorNews, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Gigaom, PhoneArena, Softpedia News, The Next Web, Forbes, Betabeat, socalTECH.com and AllThingsD

Tweets: @danprimack, @evelynrusli and @dannysullivan

Brooke Crothers / CNET:

Qualcomm marketing exec Chandrasekher reassigned after calling Apple's 64-bit A7 a “gimmick” — After Apple 64-bit A7 criticism, Qualcomm exec reassigned — The 64-bit Apple A7 chip is now being used in all of Apple's marquee iOS products, including the newest iPhone and iPad.

More: iPhone in Canada Blog, Global Nerdy, Cult of Mac and Guardian

Thomas Gryta / Digits:

AT&T's Plan Revamp Signals the End of Voice Minutes — The days of worrying about minutes ticking away on your cell phone plan are nearly gone. — As of today, AT&T is dropping the availability of its old plans for new smartphone subscribers, and all of the remaining plans include unlimited calling …

John Knefel / Rolling Stone:

Meet the Private Companies Helping Cops Spy on Protesters — Promotional materials for private spy companies show that mass surveillance technology is being sold to police departments as a way to monitor dissent — The documents leaked to media outlets by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden …

More: Beyond Search

Laura Hazard Owen / Gigaom:

Amazon Publishing reportedly retreating in NYC. Thank (or blame) Barnes & Noble — When Amazon Publishing launched its general trade imprint in New York in 2011, the goal was to go head-to-head with the big traditional publishers here. The company announced in May of that year …

More: I4U News, CNET, Businessweek, New York Times and GeekWire. See also Mediagazer

Sanjay Bhatt / The Seattle Times:

Amazon's plans for spherical building in downtown Seattle approved by city design panel — Amazon's bubble building gets OK from design panel — A city panel on Tuesday signed off on Amazon.com's design for a five-story office building formed by three intersecting spheres …

More: The Verge, SlashGear and Gizmodo

Evelyn M. Rusli / Wall Street Journal:

How Rizvi, Sacca purchased shares from Williams, other Twitter employees to claim major stake — Friendship Formed Foundation of 15.6% Stake in Social-Media Company — Evelyn M. Rusli … The largest stake in Twitter Inc. first came together seven years ago at a posh Caribbean resort.

Tweets: @wsjmarkets

Bloomberg:

Apple, Google Must Face Group Antitrust Hiring Lawsuit — Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG) and two other Silicon Valley companies must face a group lawsuit representing more than 64,000 technical employees claiming their incomes were held down by the companies' agreements not to recruit one another's workers.

More: The Verge, San Francisco Chronicle, CNET, iPhone in Canada Blog, iDownloadBlog.com, App Advice, MacRumors, iClarified, 9to5Mac, Mercury News, AppleInsider, The Register and bizjournals

Daniel Terdiman / CNET:

Google could be building a massive floating data center near San Francisco's Treasure Island — Is Google building a huge floating data center in SF Bay? — This large structure, which is likely being built by Google, could be a floating data center. It is located on a barge …

More: Softpedia News, 9to5Google, TIME, SiliconBeat, Mashable, ReadWrite, The Register, Valleywag, Gizmodo and New York Times. Thanks:@paulsloan

Jason Del Rey / AllThingsD:

Facebook Won't Launch Auto-Play Video Ads This Year — If you're an advertiser waiting to hand Facebook a bag of cash to start running video ads on the social network in time for the holidays, it sounds like you're out of luck. — Sources tell AllThingsD that Facebook has been advising …

More: ReelSEO Video Marketing, Forbes, App Advice, Softpedia News, SlashGear, BGR and The Next Web. Tweets: @pkafka

Bloomberg:

DirecTV, Time Warner Cable Said to Consider Aereo-Type Services — DirecTV (DTV), Time Warner Cable (TWC) Inc. and Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR), taking a page from Aereo Inc., are considering capturing free broadcast signals from TV networks to avoid paying billions of dollars …

More: VentureBeat, Business Insider, The Verge, Engadget, Gizmodo, Deadline.com and SlashGear. See also Mediagazer

Chris Velazco / TechCrunch:

Mobile Payments Startup Flint Raises $6M Series B Led By Digicel Group — Mobile payments startup Flint has been keeping a low profile for much of this year, but it's looking like that quiet period is finally over. The company just recently launched support for Android in a bid to widen its reach …

More: bizjournals, Gigaom, Street Fight, VentureBeat, UTRConf and silicontap.com

Peter Cohen / iMore:

Apple's new Mac iWork apps: A big step back in workflow automation — On Tuesday evening Apple posted updates to its iWork apps for Mac - Pages, Keynote and Numbers. Featured during Apple's iPad and Mac event in San Francisco, the new versions of iWork apps sport new features …

More: Gigaom and SlashGear. Tweets: @snipeyhead

Jordan Golson / MacRumors:

Some Power Users Are Unhappy With Lost Features in the New iWork

More: Betalogue, CNET and iPhone Hacks

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