Techmeme: The benefits of mesh networks: cost, elasticity and social impact (Primavera De Filippi/Wired)

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January 3, 2014, 11:20 AM

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Jon Phillips / PC World:

Wearable tech at CES 2014: Prepare your body parts for an onslaught of options — Wearable technology. It's an exploding product category in desperate need of a category-defining product. And now, with the Consumer Electronics Show upon us, we get to see whether some company, any company …

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Go Ahead, CES 2014 - Prove There's Tech I Want To Wear — Wearables is a word that can make one weary in the sphere of online tech journalism. It's been a buzzword for at least a year now, and many are predicting 2014 could be its breakout year. Tech you wear isn't new …

More: ZDNet, The Next Web, Inquirer, Softpedia News, Gigaom and Guardian. Tweets: @intlces

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

AT&T Hits Back at T-Mobile with Up to $450 in Credits for Switchers — Over the past year, T-Mobile US has been shaking up the U.S. carrier market with its “Un-carrier” plans, the addition of the iPhone to its device lineup, and a frequent device upgrade program, enticing several …

More: PR Newswire, VentureBeat, Ars Technica, ZDNet, Reuters, Engadget, Gigaom, The Verge, DSLreports, TechnoBuffalo, Phandroid, AndroidGuys, MobileBurn.com, Electronista, TmoNews, Android Central and iDownloadBlog.com. Tweets: @zpower

Washington Post:

NSA seeks to build quantum computer that could crack most types of encryption — In room-size metal boxes, secure against electromagnetic leaks, the National Security Agency is racing to build a computer that could break nearly every kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business and government records around the world.

Alexis C. Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

How Netflix uses the 76,897 micro-genres it assigns to videos — How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood — If you use Netflix, you've probably wondered about the specific genres that it suggests to you. Some of them just seem so specific that it's absurd. Emotional Fight-the-System Documentaries?

More: Laughing Squid, Daily Dot, /Film, Deadline.com, WebProNews, The Verge and Gizmodo

Tweets: @stevesi, @npetit, @davidbauer, @errorjustin, @sriramk, @mollyesque, @anthony_vdh, @joshconstine, @tinysubversions, @mcholtman, @theatlantic, @jukevox and @fmanjoo

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Michael Carney / PandoDaily:

With $130M of bitcoin wealth and plans to sell, the FBI could rattle the virtual currency cage — Like any marketplace, the value of bitcoin is driven in large part by supply and demand. New bitcoin is added to the system at a mathematically controlled rate, but buying and selling activity varies wildly …

Tweets: @pandodaily and @jlllow

Jennifer Van Grove / CNET:

Facebook faces suit for allegedly intercepting private messages — Facebook is facing a class action lawsuit for allegedly violating its members' right to privacy. The social network is being sued by members who claim that the company intercepts private messages, without consent, to mine the data for its own profit.

Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

Why are phones continuing to get bigger? (Hint: Think post-PC) — It wasn't that long ago when a 4-inch phone was considered big. These days, however, 5-inch handsets are approaching the norm for many and most the latest and greatest pieces of mobile hardware have even larger screens, with some crossing the 6-inch mark.

Primavera De Filippi / Wired:

The benefits of mesh networks: cost, elasticity and social impact — It's Time to Take Mesh Networks Seriously (And Not Just for the Reasons You Think) — The internet is weak, yet we keep ignoring this fact. So we see the same thing over and over again, whether it's because of natural disasters …

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

PopCap CEO to retire, cofounder will take over the Plants vs. Zombies studio (exclusive) — John Vechey, cofounder of PopCap, is its new chief. — Dave Roberts, chief executive of Electronic Arts' PopCap Games division, is retiring from the game studio that he joined almost nine years ago.

More: Softpedia News, The Seattle Times, GeekWire, Joystiq, gameinformer.com, Re/code, MCV: Home Stream and Polygon

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

Twitter SVP Chris Fry Breaks Down How His Engineering Org Works — You could say Chris Fry has a pretty big job. — As Twitter's senior vice president of engineering, he's the guy who makes sure the trains — or rather, tweets — run on time. He's responsible for managing …

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @dougw and @rsarver

Brian Heater / Engadget:

Archos debuting two 4G smartphones at CES, priced at $200 and $250 — It's not all smartwatches and weather stations for Archos this year at CES. The company may be diversifying its portfolio a bit at the show, but it's still got its hands in some tried and true categories.

More: BetaNews, GSM Insider and The Next Web

Sean Michael Kerner / eWeek:

Scrubbing Data a Concern in the Digital Ocean Cloud — Security is often cited as a top concern for any organization looking to move to the cloud, and it's a concern that is top of mind this week at cloud hosting vendor Digital Ocean. — Developer Jeffrey Paul first raised the issue …

More: GitHub and VentureBeat

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