Techmeme: iPad Air 2 is faster than 2011 MacBook Air, forges ahead of new iPhones on performance (John Gruber/Daring Fireball)

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October 22, 2014, 4:35 PM

Top News

Mat Honan / Wired:

Twitter's new SDK Fabric represents an audacious plan to live inside every app — Twitter's Audacious Plan to Infiltrate All Your Apps — Twitter is releasing a new software development kit today at its developer's conference. It's called Fabric. It does lots of very pretty things …

More: Marketing Land, Gigaom, Gizmodo, ReadWrite, Computerworld, ZDNet, The Next Web and Mashable

Tweets: @stevesi, @carnage4life, @mattlynley, @mikeisaac, @digiphile and @mat

Thanks:@mat

Jeff Seibert / The Twitter Blog:

Twitter introduces Fabric, an SDK for mobile developers — Introducing Fabric — Today at Flight, we announced Fabric, a modular mobile platform that makes it easy for developers to build great apps. — The Fabric platform is made of three modular kits that address some of the most common …

More: CNET, Re/code, TechCrunch, Mashable, MobileSyrup.com, SlashGear, WebProNews and ReadWrite

Tweets: @joshconstine, @mikeisaac and @fabric

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Twitter's Digits enables users of third-party apps to sign up using just their phone number — Inside Twitter's ambitious plan to kill the password — As he traveled the world last year as part of a user research project, Michael Ducker noticed a problem.

More: TechCrunch, Macworld, Marketing Land, Guardian, VentureBeat, iMore, Business Insider, Engadget and Phandroid

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Google aims to reinvent email with Inbox, a marriage of Gmail and Google Now, currently invite-only — Inbox is a total reinvention of email from Google — The new Gmail app from the Gmail team isn't technically just an email app, at least if you ask them.

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

iPad Air 2 is faster than 2011 MacBook Air, forges ahead of new iPhones on performance — The iPad Air 2 (And a Few Cursory Words Regarding the iPad Mini 3) — The relationship between the iPad and the iPhone, performance-wise, has been hard to predict.

More: Ars Technica, Tested, Business Insider, BGR, MacDailyNews and App Advice

Tweets: @narenbalaji, @om and @asymco

Walt Mossberg / Re/code:

iPad Air 2: best iPad ever, but only a modest evolutionary improvement over the Air — Apple iPad Air 2 Review: It's Better, but Is It Better Enough? — I am a tablet lover and, more specifically, an iPad lover. I use my iPad and iPad mini every day for a variety of things …

More: MacRumors, TechHive, App Advice, Asymco, The Loop, Fortune, Marketing Land, USA Today, iPhone Hacks, Dwight Silverman's TechBlog, Gigaom, MacNN, Tech Times, ZDNet and Fast Company. Tweets: @waltmossberg

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

iPad Air 2 review: great hardware, but lacks multiuser, multitasking support, tablet-specific features

More: TUAW, MacRumors, MacDailyNews, TIME, iMore, SlashGear, Mashable, Tech.pinions, Business Insider, Guardian and bgr.in. Tweets: @jyarow

Mark Spoonauer / Laptop Mag:

iPad Air 2 benchmarks: excels in Geekbench compared to Samsung Galaxy Tab, Nvidia Shield, Sony Xperia Z2, strong on 3DMark but not best

More: Inquirer, BGR, Gotta Be Mobile and ITProPortal. Thanks:@mspoonauer

David Pogue / Yahoo Tech:

The iPad Air 2: Thin, Gorgeous, Powerful — and That's Enough

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

iPad mini 3 review: with Touch ID the only significant improvement over the iPad mini 2, buy the 2 and save $100

More: Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Tech and TechCrunch

Marton Dunai / Reuters:

Hungary plans new tax on Internet traffic, public calls for rally — (Reuters) - Hungary plans to impose a new tax on Internet data transfers, a draft 2015 tax bill submitted to parliament late on Tuesday showed, in a move that could hit Internet and telecoms providers and their customers hard.

More: The Verge, Wall Street Journal, Hungary Today, RT, Gigaom, Taxation, Geek.com, Portfolio.hu Online …, Broadband TV News, Inquirer, DSLreports and VentureBeat

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

New Microsoft Garage site invites public to test a wide range of app ideas — Microsoft today launched a new section on its website: The Microsoft Garage is designed to give the public early access to various projects the company is testing right now. The team is kicking off with a total …

More: The Fire Hose, ReadWrite, The Verge, CNET, The Next Web, Gigaom, PC World, Windows Phone Central, WMPoweruser, 9to5Google, GeekWire, Gotta Be Mobile and ZDNet. Thanks:@epro

Molly Wood / New York Times:

Apple Pay: Seamless in Stores, but Quirky Online — AFTER I used Apple Pay for a day of shopping in stores, a few things became clear: The new payment system is convenient, problem-free and even fun. — The same can't be said for using Apple Pay to shop via apps on my phone or tablet.

More: CNNMoney.com, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, 9to5Mac, Engadget, CNET, Gizmodo, iMore, Mashable, Electronista, ReadWrite, BGR and Gotta Be Mobile

Kelly Hodgkins / MacRumors:

Apple Pay Shown to Work Internationally Using U.S.-Based Credit Cards

More: Re/code, AppleInsider, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, iMore, CNET, Digital Trends, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechSpot and TechnoBuffalo

Maeve Duggan / Pew Internet:

Pew survey: 40% of US internet users have experienced online harassment, 18% in severe form — Online Harassment — Summary of Findings — Harassment—from garden-variety name calling to more threatening behavior— is a common part of online life that colors the experiences of many web users.

More: New York Times, USA Today, CNET, Wall Street Journal, PC Magazine, Tech Times, The Verge, CIO.com, Associated Press, Poynter, Washington Post and Business Insider. Tweets: @pewinternet

Alex Kipman / The Official Microsoft Blog:

Microsoft allows Kinect Apps in Windows Store for the first time, launches Kinect SDK 2.0 — Microsoft releases Kinect SDK 2.0 and new adapter kit — Today, we have some exciting news to share about the next chapter for Kinect. Our Windows SDK 2.0 is now available for the Kinect v2 sensors …

More: GeekWire, PC World, The Next Web, The Verge, Ubergizmo, VentureBeat, ZDNet, SuperSite for Windows, Eurogamer.net, Windows Phone Central, High-Def Digest and The Fire Hose

Tweets: @kinectwindows and @brekelj

Andrew Ross Sorkin / New York Times:

IBM's increasing EPS in recent years only due to buybacks, no real revenue growth since 2008 — The Truth Hidden by IBM's Buybacks — For many years, the International Business Machines Corporation's earnings glided smoothly upward. Every quarter, IBM would report higher earnings per share.

Tweets: @infoarbitrage, @edwardnh, @andrewrsorkin, @froomkin, @rogerlmartin and @nilofer

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

Homeboy is a $149 rechargeable low-power Wi-Fi security camera with a three month battery, on sale today — Homeboy is what happens when tiny security cameras hook up with magnets — The new $149 camera sticks to walls to watch your home — After having his home burglarized for a third time …

More: Gigaom, TechSpot, PC World, Ubergizmo and SlashGear. Thanks:@jordan_tara

Chris Kanaracus / PC World:

EMC buys controlling interest in VCE, its joint venture with Cisco — EMC has confirmed it will purchase the bulk of Cisco's stake in VCE, the companies' joint venture in converged infrastructure products. — News of the deal surfaced late Tuesday. The move means that VCE will become an EMC business …

More: VCE, eWeek, SiliconBeat, EnterpriseTech and Reuters. Tweets: @qthrul

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

MicroBlink's PhotoMath app solves math problems scanned in through your phone's camera — MicroBlink Launches PhotoMath To Solve Math Equations With A Phone — Imagine you are a 14-year-old kid again. You need to do this really difficult math exercise for tomorrow, but have no idea how to do it.

More: Engadget, SiliconANGLE, PC Magazine, GeekTime, BGR, Gizmodo, TIME, Technabob, Cult of Mac, Boing Boing, TechSpot, The Daily Dot, Lifehacker, Phandroid, MobileSyrup.com, SlashGear and Yahoo Tech

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Groupon takes on Yelp with Pages: business listings with offers, news, reviews and more — Groupon Goes After Yelp And Google With Millions Of Individual Business Pages — Groupon today took one more step ahead in its bid to be a simple daily deals site, and more of a general go-to place …

More: Re/code, The Next Web, Groupon, Inc., GeekWire, Chicago Tribune and WebProNews

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft and IBM commit to providing their enterprise software to Azure, IBM clouds — Summary: Microsoft and IBM have forged a new alliance bringing more of IBM's enterprise software and services to Azure, and Microsoft's enterprise software to IBM's cloud platforms.

More: News Center, InfoWorld, GeekWire, The Register, The New Stack, WinBeta, bizjournals, VentureBeat and WindowsITPro

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

Barnes & Noble launches a 10.1-inch version of its Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook tablet for $299.99 — Almost two months to the day since Barnes & Noble launched its Samsung-developed 7-inch Galaxy Tab 4 Nook tablet, a new larger-screen incarnation has now been unveiled.

More: MarketWatch, VentureBeat, Android Police, Android Police, Associated Press, PC World, 9to5Google, Laptop Mag, SlashGear, TechnoBuffalo, The Verge and CNET

Jon Russell / TechCrunch:

Xiaomi Is Moving International Users' Data Out Of China Ahead Of Further Global Expansions — The past year has been an eventful one for Chinese phone-maker Xiaomi. The company's devices are now sold in seven countries in Asia, that's a big step up from Xiaomi's inception …

More: Tech in Asia and Technology Personalized

Jonathan Vanian / Gigaom:

Google exec: Chromecast V2 is coming; users have cast 650 million times — Google's Mario Queiroz said that 650 million people have now hit the cast button. An API for developers will let them build custom apps for Backdrop. — Three months ago, Google claimed that Chromecast users …

More: Phandroid, Ubergizmo, 9to5Google, ITProPortal and WebProNews

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