Techmeme: Tech Valuations Stir Memories of 1999, but There Are Some Differences (Wall Street Journal)

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October 28, 2013, 12:25 AM

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Eugene Wei / Remains of the Day:

Amazon and the “profitless business model” fallacy — [DISCLOSURE: As always when I write about Amazon, I'll note I worked there from 1997-2004 and that I still own some shares in the company. I still have many friends who work there, though I have no more idea what Amazon is working on now than any of you in the public.]

More: A VC, TechSpot and Beyond Search

Tweets: @semil, @semil, @jonfortt, @bupbin, @gregbettinelli, @monkbent and @jeffweiner

James Somers / The Atlantic Online:

Disappointed with application-driven AI, Douglas Hofstadter seeks to recreate mind in software — The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think — Douglas Hofstadter, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, thinks we've lost sight of what artificial intelligence really means.

More: The Verge. Tweets: @trengriffin, @alexismadrigal and @deatkin

Nicole Lee / Engadget:

Livescribe 3 smartpen digitizes notes straight to your iPad, starts at $150 — Livescribe broke new ground last year with the Sky WiFi pen that could transfer handwritten and audio notes straight to the cloud (well, to your Evernote account anyway), so that they'd be accessible anywhere there's an internet connection.

More: Gizmodo, Macworld, VentureBeat and The Verge

Allen Martin / CBS San Francisco:

Barge in SF Bay may be a marketing center for Glass if Google gets a waterfront permit — Massive Barge On San Francisco Bay Likely Secret Google Facility — SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — The U.S. Navy had its share of secrets on Treasure Island, but few were better kept than what's taking place …

More: Electronista, Ubergizmo, The Verge, Pocket-lint and CNET. Thanks:@_trendspotter

Bruce Schneier / The Atlantic Online:

The Battle for Power on the Internet — Distributed citizen groups and nimble hackers once had the edge. Now governments and corporations are catching up. Who will dominate in the decades ahead? — We're in the middle of an epic battle for power in cyberspace.

More: Quartz. Tweets: @glichfield, @mchrisriley and @jayrosen_nyu

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

Thoughts and Observations Regarding This Week's Apple Event Introducing the iPad Air and Retina iPad Mini — The Show Itself — There is a certain sameness to almost every Apple event. A pattern, a formula, a structure, a rhythm and pacing. Does this make them boring?

More: Gigaom Search, iPhone Hacks, Virtual Pants, Forbes, Business Insider, iMore and the rajam report

Tweets: @natebarham, @monkbent, @stevecheney, @panzer, @pbyrne and @mattlynley

Wall Street Journal:

Obama Unaware as U.S. Spied on World Leaders: Officials — NSA Stopped Surveillance of Merkel, Others After White House Review — WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency ended a program used to spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a number of other world leaders …

Tweets: @csoghoian, @janinegibson, @davidfrum, @buzzfeedandrew, @buzzfeedben, @morningmoneyben, @dbongino and @eorden

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

Spreadsheet of the day: Final estimates for Apple's Q4 2013 — The forecasts of 48 Apple analysts — 27 Wall Street professionals and 21 independents — FORTUNE - The results of Fortune's quarterly survey of Apple (AAPL) analysts are in, and the results are mixed — in more ways than one.

More: Reuters, ZDNet, Wall Street Journal, CNET, Fortune, USA Today and Business Insider

Mark Gurman / 9to5Google:

Upcoming Nexus 5 leaks in white, Nov. 1 launch date reported — After leaking a clear image of the black model yesterday, prolific leaker @evleaks has posted a render of the upcoming Nexus 5 in a white color option. As can be seen in the image above, the white model is actually a two-tone device …

More: Engadget, TechCrunch, Gotta Be Mobile, BestTechie, The Verge, TechnoBuffalo, AndroidOS.in, The Next Web, TechnoBuffalo, Android Beat, 9to5Google, MobileSyrup.com and Phandroid

Tweets: @evleaks and @evleaks

Wall Street Journal:

Tech Valuations Stir Memories of 1999, but There Are Some Differences — Twitter Inc. plans to go public at a value of $11 billion, without turning a profit. Venture capitalists just valued Pinterest Inc., which generates no revenue, at nearly $4 billion, and an even younger …

More: DealBook, Slate, Wall Street Journal, NYT Bits and Currency. Tweets: @scottthurm

USC:

USC Study: Google Search Serves Users From 600% More Locations than A Year Ago — In a shift in strategy, Google reuses existing content delivery infrastructure to speed up searches — Contact: Robert Perkins at (213) 740-9226 or perkinsr@usc.edu — Over the past 10 months …

More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, The Econonomic Times and Digits

Joel Gascoigne / Buffer Open:

Buffer restores all sharing services after hacking incident — Buffer has been hacked - here is what's going on — Update: All posting should be working normally again, read more below! — I wanted to post a quick update and apologize for the awful experience we've caused many of you on your weekend.

More: SlashGear, The Next Web, WindowsObserver.com, PC Magazine and Geek News Central

Tweets: @buffer and @buffer

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