Techmeme: Inside DARPA's Transformative Apps program, the military's own app ecosystem making smartphones battle-ready (Adam Clark Estes/Gizmodo)

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August 6, 2014, 8:55 AM

Top News

New York Times:

Russian gang holds 1.2B username/password combos, stolen from 420K vulnerable websites scanned via botnet, say security researchers — Russian Gang Said to Amass More Than a Billion Stolen Internet Credentials — A Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection …

Kashmir Hill / Forbes:

Firm That Exposed Breach Of ‘Billion Passwords’ Quickly Offered $120 Service To Find Out If You're Affected — The New York Times dropped the freakiest security story since Heartbleed Tuesday, warning people that a “Russian gang has amassed over a billion passwords.”

Tweets: @caseynewton and @lorenzofb. Thanks:@aatilley

John Paczkowski / Re/code:

Apple to hold iPhone event on Sept. 9 — Code/red: Apple to Hold iPhone Event on Sept. 9 — New iPhones to Suck All the Air Out of the Tech News Cycle on Sept. 9 Onstage at our inaugural Code conference earlier this summer, Apple SVP Eddy Cue described the company's fall product pipeline …

Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:

Apple, Samsung Agree to End Patent Suits Outside U.S. — Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) are starting to wind down their global patent battle. — The companies said in a joint statement today that they have agreed to drop all suits against each other in countries outside …

Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:

Microsoft's Q2 loss on Surface estimated at $363M, total since launch two years back $1.7B — Surface damage mounts at Microsoft as red ink reaches $1.7B — The tablet business has lost money each quarter, and each fiscal year — Microsoft continued to lose money on its Surface tablets throughout …

More: The Verge, Gigaom, Business Insider, MacDailyNews, Pocketnow and CIO.com

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 to hit 25 more countries as losses mount

More: Surface Blog, CNET, The Next Web, BetaNews, MobileBurn.com, Electronista, The Verge, WinBeta, The Official Microsoft Blog and Neowin

Evgeny Morozov / New York Times:

Internet.org's project to connect the developing world is a gateway drug to Facebook — Facebook's Gateway Drug — SILICON VALLEY was once content to dominate the tech world. But recently, its leading companies have ventured deep into areas well outside its traditional bailiwick …

More: Business Insider, BGR, SiliconBeat, Business Insider and AllFacebook

Tweets: @fredericjacobs, @markhurst and @evgenymorozov

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Sprint to name Marcelo Claure, board member and head of Brightstar, as its new CEO — Exclusive: Sprint to Name Brightstar's Marcelo Claure as CEO — Sprint plans to name Marcelo Claure, one of its board members and head of wireless distributor Brightstar, as its new CEO, Re/code has learned from a number of sources.

More: iMore, Wall Street Journal, The Register, CNET, DSLreports, Engadget and Cult of Mac

Wall Street Journal:

Sprint Abandoning Pursuit of T-Mobile — Sprint Corp. is ending its pursuit of T-Mobile US Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. The company and its parent, SoftBank Corp. decided it simply would be too difficult to win approval from regulators, the people said.

More: The Next Web, TheStreet.com, New York Times, Digital Trends, BGR, Re/code, Rude Baguette, Gizmodo, Wall Street Journal, SlashGear, Forbes, Electronista, CNNMoney.com, Reuters, VentureBeat, Droid Life, TmoNews, Mashable, The Verge, Gigaom, MacRumors, Business Insider, Telegraph, TechHive, AppleInsider and Phandroid

Tweets: @emilychangtv, @dsilverman, @brkend and @shaliniwsj

Kevin Poulsen / Wired:

With Operation Torpedo, FBI installs “drive-by” spyware on Tor web servers to identify visitors — Visit the Wrong Website, and the FBI Could End Up in Your Computer — Security experts call it a “drive-by download”: a hacker infiltrates a high-traffic website and then subverts …

More: Forbes, Softpedia News, Naked Security, TechSpot and Engadget

Adam Clark Estes / Gizmodo:

Inside DARPA's Transformative Apps program, the military's own app ecosystem making smartphones battle-ready — Inside the Military's Secretive Smartphone Program — When I recently set out for the Pentagon's R&D department, I instead found myself in front of a downtrodden shopping mall in Arlington, Virginia.

Tweets: @darpa

Edward C. Baig / USA Today:

Timex Ironman One GPS+ smartwatch to debut this fall for $399 with AT&T cellular connectivity and a Qualcomm mobile OS — Timex enters smartwatch category. No phone needed. — NEW YORK — All the early smartwatches generating buzz (if not a lot of sales) come not from traditional watch brands …

More: Digital Trends, Re/code, VentureBeat, The Verge, TechCrunch, ITworld.com and Reuters. Tweets: @benbajarin

CNBC:

Apple touts record App Store revenue, record number of customers making transactions in July — Apple says July was record-setting month for app store revenue — Apple's app store saw record-setting revenue numbers in July, the company told CNBC. The Cupertino-based company …

More: ITProPortal, PhoneArena, MacDailyNews, MobileBurn.com, PadGadget and iPhone in Canada Blog. Tweets: @drbarnard

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Wikipedia reveals 56 requests for user data in first transparency report; 50 links removed under Right to be Forgotten — Wikimedia Attacks Europe's Right To Be Forgotten Ruling As Threat To Its Mission — The Wikimedia Foundation, the not-for-profit organization behind Wikipedia …

More: Tech.eu, Wikimedia blog, BBC, The Register, The Next Web, New York Times, Washington Post, Wikimedia blog and TIME

Kyle Russell / TechCrunch:

Uber announces UberPool, a ride-sharing, cost-splitting experiment to begin Aug. 15 in SF — UberPool Lets You Split Uber Fares With Other Passengers Along The Same Route — In the ongoing war between Uber, Lyft, and all of the other me-too ride-sharing services, competitors are looking …

More: Uber Blog, Business Insider, Engadget, Gigaom, Electronista, SlashGear, Digital Trends, Mashable, The Verge, CNET, iMore, The Next Web and GeekWire. Tweets: @swaaanson. Thanks:@ryanlawler

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google's HTML5 Web Designer Gets Animation Tools, Deeper AdWords And DoubleClick Integrations — Last September, Google launched Web Designer, a free tool for Mac, Windows and Linux that makes it easy for anybody to build interactive HTML5 sites and ads. Since its launch …

More: DoubleClick Advertiser Blog, WebProNews and eWeek

Gilad Lotan / Global Voices:

Analysis: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter serve as siloed propaganda engines for Gaza news — Israel, Gaza, War & Data - The Art of Personalizing Propaganda — If you're rooting for Israel, you might have seen videos of rocket launches by Hamas adjacent to Shifa Hospital.

Tweets: @en_moutarde, @kia_mak, @ajc110, @imillenari, @abrahamjoseph and @corinnew

Joey Cosco / Business Insider:

SF parking app Sweetch goes open-source after city warns it that its business is unlawful — Banned San Francisco Parking App Goes Open Source To Find A Solution To SF's Parking Problem — After the city of San Francisco essentially banned it, the parking app Sweetch responded by starting Freetch …

More: VentureBeat

BBC:

Sony gives up on selling e-readers — Sony has given up selling its line of Reader devices for e-books after failing to find a big enough market. — “We do not have plans to develop a successor Reader model at this time,” the Japanese firm told the BBC. — The PRS-T3 was the last version …

More: The Verge, Gizmodo, Engadget, The Digital Reader, ITProPortal and Electronista

Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:

Cisco: new exploit kits, Java vulnerabilities, PoS attacks are most serious threats in 2014 — Exploit kit variety, point-of-sale attacks reign in 2014: Cisco — Summary: Cisco's security team says that exploit variety is gaining steam, and both the Internet of Things and point …

More: Softpedia News, Tech Times, National Defense Magazine, InfotechLead.com, FedScoop and IT World Canada

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Apple files for HealthKit trademarks w/ classifications for watches, fitness sensors, & medical devices — Apple has just filed for Healthkit trademarks in both the US and Europe ahead of iOS 8's launch this fall and in at least one filing includes watches in a list of goods that could take advantage of the health-tracking software.

More: AppleInsider, TechnoBuffalo, Pocketnow, Business Insider and MacDailyNews

Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:

Felicis Raises New $96M Fund, Pledges To Always Vote Shares With Founders — Five to ten years ago, the notion of a super-angel, or an angel backed with a notable but still small-sized fund, was relatively new concept. — There were players like Aydin Senkut, Jeff Clavier and Dave McClure.

More: Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, Webrazzi, go.bloomberg.com, Reuters, New York Times and PE Hub Blog

Bloomberg:

IBM offered to pay Globalfoundries $1B to take IBM's chip-manufacturing business — IBM Said to Have Offered GF Cash to Take Over Chip Unit — International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) was willing to pay Globalfoundries Inc. to take on IBM's money-losing chip-manufacturing operations …

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @charlesfitz and @alexbarinka

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