Techmeme: Alibaba Is Investing Huge Sums in an Array of U.S. Tech Companies (New York Times)

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August 3, 2014, 11:05 AM

Top News

Rebecca Flint Marx / San Francisco magazine:

The Toxic, Abusive, Addictive, Supportive, Codependent Relationship Between Chefs and Yelpers — For 10 years, the citizens reviewers of Yelp have showered restaurants with praise—and pummeled them with abuse. Now chefs are showing the psychological effects.

More: The Verge

New York Times:

Alibaba Is Investing Huge Sums in an Array of U.S. Tech Companies — Alibaba Group, the Chinese Internet retailer, is coming to America with its checkbook wide open. — In March, Alibaba made a $215 million investment in Tango, a messaging app. It recently contacted Snapchat …

More: Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @peterlauria3

Cody Toombs / Android Police:

LG Issues G Watch Update In Response To Complaints About Corrosion And Skin Irritation — Reports began circulating over the last couple of days about an OTA update making its way out to owners of the LG G Watch, bumping the build number from KMV78V to KMV78Y.

More: Digital Trends, The Verge, Phones Review, AnandTech, 9to5Google, TechCrunch, TechnoBuffalo, SlashGear, Engadget, Android and Me, Wearables Arena, Android Beat and Connectedly. Tweets: @markgurman

Yoree Koh / Wall Street Journal:

Share of Twitter users who don't use the official site or app, and thus don't see ads, grows to 14% — Twitter's User Problem: Fastest Gains Are People That Don't See Ads — Investors who drove up Twitter Inc. 's market value by more than $3 billion this week might want to read the fine print.

More: Quartz and PC Magazine. Tweets: @zseward

Benny Evangelista / San Francisco Chronicle:

NFL teams will use heavily modified Microsoft Surface tablets on the sidelines to view and annotate photos of opponents' formations — NFL players to use tablet computers during games — NFL adds tablet computers, secure wireless networks to assist players, coaches and officials during games …

More: Engadget, The Verge, Gizmodo, Businessweek, IGN, ABC News, L.A. Daily News, Shacknews Recent Articles and GameSpot

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

HP study: 250 security flaws found in just 10 of the most popular smart home devices — The Internet of Things Is the Hackers' New Playground — Excited about the promise of the shiny new Internet of Things? Good. Because hackers are too. Or at least they should be, according to a study by computing giant Hewlett-Packard.

More: Gizmodo, CNNMoney.com, TechWeekEurope UK and Compare Mobile Phones …

Recorded Future:

Security researchers: Al-Qaeda changed encryption tech after Snowden leaks, prefers Android — How Al-Qaeda Uses Encryption Post-Snowden (Part 2) — Analysis Summary — Al-Qaeda (AQ) encryption product releases have continued since our May 8, 2014 post on the subject …

More: NPR, AppleInsider, Ars Technica, RT, VentureBeat, MacDailyNews and PandoDaily

Tweets: @thegrugq, @harper and @matthew_d_green

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

San Francisco Airport testing beacon system for blind travelers — App will tell visually-impaired travelers, and eventually everyone, what's around them at all times — San Francisco Airport is testing out location-aware beacons to help visually-impaired people navigate around …

More: VentureBeat, WXYZ-TV, Mashable and Ubergizmo

Brian Fung / Washington Post:

Inside the stressed-out, time-crunched patent examiner workforce — The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office complex in Alexandria, Va. (Photo by Larry Morris/ The Washington Post) — Every year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office handles more than 500,000 new patent applications.

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:

Amazon Wants Cheaper E-Books. But Should It Get to Enforce Prices? — In a short blog post meant to shed light on its contract dispute with the publisher Hachette, Amazon argued this week that its data proved that lower e-book prices were better for everyone in the market for books.

Tweets: @altmandaniel, @mathewi, @burningbunnies, @dangillmor, @neil_irwin, @mollywood, @mathewi and @fmanjoo

Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:

In 2010 a French court convicted Mt. Gox owner Mark Karpeles for fraud in absentia, sentence was a year in jail — Why the head of Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange should be in jail — While Mt. Gox owner Mark Karpeles was growing what would become the world's largest Bitcoin exchange …

More: Valleywag. Tweets: @arstechnica

Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:

US Judge's ruling in Microsoft email case will further erode trust in US tech companies abroad — How one judge single-handedly killed trust in the US technology industry — Summary: Well that's certainly a phrase one US judge can nail on the casket of her career. — Some people volunteer at shelters.

Thanks:@zackwhittaker

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