Techmeme
September 19, 2014, 11:20 AM

Top News

iFixit:
iPhone 6 Plus Teardown  —  Over the years, we've seen the iPhone evolve—and grow.  It began as just the iPhone.  Soon it learned how to 3G, it gained an S (it would lose and gain this every other year), and it even learned to read fingerprints.  Years of hard work and dedication …
Craig Timberg / Washington Post:
Newest Androids will join iPhones in offering default encryption, blocking police  —  The next generation of Google's Android operating system, due for release next month, will encrypt data by default for the first time, the company said Thursday, raising yet another barrier to police gaining access …
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
iOS 8 on iPhone 4S: cramped screen and 50% more time to do the same tasks compared to iOS 7  —  iOS 8 on the iPhone 4S: Performance isn't the (only) problem  —  The iPhone 4S.  I remember when this was the one that made my old phone feel slow.  —  iPhones have about a year to be top-of-the-line.
Bloomberg:
Larry Ellison steps down as Oracle CEO, appointed CTO, chairman; Mark Hurd and Safra Catz 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 …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Apple's iPhone 6 And 6 Plus Go On Sale To Long Lines Of Fans  —  Apple started selling its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus today, with sales in-store kicking off at Apple Store retail locations beginning at 8 AM local time.  The lines this year are longer than they have been in recent memory …
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
iCloud for Windows update means PCs can use iCloud Drive before Macs can  —  iCloud Drive is now available on Windows, but not OS X.  —  Apple officially released iCloud Drive yesterday as part of the iOS 8 update, but it came with a caveat: turning it on disables the “old” way of iCloud syncing …
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.
Catherine Mayer / TIME:
Bono says U2 and Apple working on new digital music format  —  Exclusive: U2 and Apple Have Another Surprise for You  —  The four members of the legendary Irish band tell TIME about another new album in the works—and its secret Apple project that might just save the music industry
Sean Buckley / Engadget:
Nvidia unveils new flagship GeForce GTX 980 and 970 desktop GPUs based on Maxwell architecture  —  NVIDIA's latest GPU crams 4K images on 1080p displays  —  Back in February, NVIDIA trotted out the very first desktop GPUs to feature its new Maxwell architecture: the GeForce GTX 750 and 750i.
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.
Liam Boogar / Rude Baguette:
France's new anti-Uber law gives Taxis an unfair advantage  —  Yesterday evening, the France's National Assembly voted definitively in favor of the pro-taxi “Thévenoud law,” which imposed a certain number of restrictions and regulations on both Taxis and VTC (licensed professional drivers …
More: PandoDaily and Engadget.  Tweets: @daveg
Peter Kafka / Re/code:
YouTube will spend millions to fund and promote new shows from popular creators  —  YouTube Takes Out Checkbook Again, Pays Its Stars to Make Videos  —  The world's biggest video site is paying people to make videos.  Again.  —  YouTube is planning to invest millions in some of its biggest stars …
Dennis Fisher / Threatpost:
Google, Dropbox, and others launch open source security organization Simply Secure  —  NEW INITIATIVE SIMPLY SECURE AIMS TO MAKE SECURITY TOOLS EASIER TO USE  —  The dramatic revelations of large-scale government surveillance and deep penetration of the Internet by intelligence services …
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Home Depot: 56M Cards Impacted, Malware Contained  —  Home Depot said today that cyber criminals armed with custom-built malware stole an estimated 56 million debit and credit card numbers from its customers between April and September 2014.  That disclosure officially makes the incident the largest retail card breach on record.
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.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Bringing local models and sandboxed tools to Windows and GitHub Copilot  —  GitHub Copilot will soon determine when a task is best handled by on-device AI and when it needs cloud-scale models.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
Zoho Books now supports CT600 & Final Accounts Filing as an add-on in the FREE plan  —  Managing end-of-year filing for limited companies in the UK is often expensive and multi-layered.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Sources:
Qualcomm's CEO on the coming AI phone supercycle
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Bringing Back Mammoths And Building Noah's Ark 2.0 | Colossal's Ben Lamm
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Great Chat:
The launch industrial complex
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Big Technology Podcast:
Can AI Keep Growing Exponentially? Let's Ask SemiAnalysis — With Dylan Patel and Jordan Nanos
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Larry Ellison's Media Ambitions & Kevin Roose on AI's Biggest Gamble
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Training Data:
Google's AI Infrastructure Chief, Amin Vahdat, on the Physics & Economics of Frontier AI
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
 

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Earlier Picks

Carmel DeAmicis / Gigaom:
John Cook / GeekWire: