Techmeme
September 18, 2014, 7:05 PM

Top News

Tim Cook / Apple:
Tim Cook's letter on privacy takes aim at Google's business model, noting Apple doesn't monetize its users' personal information  —  A message from Tim Cook about Apple's commitment to your privacy.  —  At Apple, your trust means everything to us.  That's why we respect your privacy …
Craig Timberg / Washington Post:
Bloomberg:
Larry Ellison steps down as Oracle CEO, appointed CTO, chairman; Mark Hurd and Safra Katz now co-CEOs  —  Oracle's Ellison Steps Down as CEO, Replaced by Hurd and Catz  —  Oracle Corp.'s Larry Ellison stepped down as chief executive officer of the software maker he founded …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft cuts 747 employees in Washington state, 2,100 worldwide; closing Silicon Valley research lab  —  Microsoft to close Microsoft Research lab in Silicon Valley  —  Summary: Microsoft Research's Silicon Valley, with about 50 employees, is one of the casualties of Microsoft's latest round of 2,100 job cuts.
Erich Owens / Facebook:
Facebook to place posts about trending topics and posts with fresh engagement higher in News Feed  —  News Feed FYI: Showing More Timely Stories from Friends and Pages  —  Our goal with News Feed is to show everyone the right content at the right time so they don't miss the stories that are important to them.
Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times:
Alibaba Raises $21.8 Billion in Initial Public Offering  —  The Alibaba Group, the Chinese Internet juggernaut, will raise nearly $21.8 billion in its initial stock sale, people briefed on the matter said on Thursday, as investors flocked to buy a piece of the company that is poised …
More: VentureBeat, Reuters and Bloomberg.  Tweets: @pjoshiny
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft's next version of Office includes a Clippy-like helper and a very dark theme  —  Microsoft is busy preparing a “Windows Technical Preview” for later this month, but the software maker is also privately testing an “Office Technical Preview” for the next version of its popular Office suite.
Adam Lashinsky / Fortune:
Uber's financing program connects auto lenders and drivers who want to purchase cars  —  Uber banks on world domination  —  The story line about Uber these days usually involves a fight: Uber scuffling with German regulators, who banned one of its car services nationwide …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
iOS 8 Adoption Off To A Slower Start Than iOS 7, Say Multiple Usage Trackers  —  The iOS 8 installation spike is high, but lower than it was for iOS 7 last year, according to numbers from a variety of mobile OS usage monitoring platforms.  Chitika, Tapjoy, Mixpanel and Appsee all show adoption numbers that …
Andrew Allemann / Domain Name Wire:
Amazon pays $4.6M for top level domain name “.buy”, outbidding Google  —  Wow: Amazon.com buys .Buy for $4.6 million, .Tech sells for $6.8 million  —  Amazon.com paid $4.6 million to win rights to .buy top level domain name, but that wasn't the most expensive TLD auction on Wednesday.
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Larry Page wants a Google 2.0 that will build cities and airports, report says  —  The world's got problems and the Google CEO is searching for solutions  —  As if self-driving cars, balloon-carried internet, or the eradication of death weren't ambitious enough projects …
Todd Brix / Building Apps for Windows:
Microsoft announces lifetime Dev Center registrations with one-time $19 fee for individuals  —  New Dev Center lifetime registration and benefits program  —  This month we are releasing several new features to enhance your development experience: the lifetime Dev Center account, and the new Dev Center Benefits program.
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
‘Airbnb For Home-Cooked Meals’ Startup EatWith Raises $8 Million From Greylock  —  Since 2007, Airbnb has opened up new opportunities for its hosts to meet new people and make money by renting out parts of their homes they weren't using.  In that same vein, a startup called EatWith wants …

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