Techmeme: Almost all 47K edits by a top Wikipedia editor were to fix incorrect uses of “comprised of” (Andrew McMillen/Backchannel)

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February 4, 2015, 8:30 AM

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Andrew McMillen / Backchannel:

Almost all 47K edits by a top Wikipedia editor were to fix incorrect uses of “comprised of” — Meet the ultimate WikiGnome. — On a Friday in July 2012, two employees of the Wikimedia Foundation gave a talk at Wikimania, their organization's annual conference.

More: Business Insider, Gizmodo and Slashdot

AppleInsider:

Apple is reportedly testing camera-equipped minivans in the Bay Area, possibly for a Street View-like mapping system — Apple testing mysterious camera-equipped vehicles in the Bay Area — A number of minivans with what appears to be camera equipment and a LiDAR sensor mounted to the roof …

More: CLAYCORD.com, CBS San Francisco, The Verge, MacRumors, Business Insider, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, SlashGear and Ubergizmo

Fusion:

Inside the prison system's illicit cell phone trade, and prison officials' battle to end it — Inside the prison system's illicit digital world — In this three-part Tech Behind Bars series, we're exploring the points of intersection between digital culture and America's correctional system.

Abhimanyu Ghoshal / The Next Web:

Microsoft launches Picturesque, its second free lock screen replacement app for Android — Microsoft quietly launches a free lock screen replacement app for Android — Things are busy at Microsoft Garage, where the company's employees share experimental projects they've been working on.

More: SiliconANGLE, CNET, Android Police, Android Central, SlashGear, 9to5Google, PhoneDog.com, Phandroid, NDTV Gadgets, Neowin, Android Authority, Engadget, Quartz, Ubergizmo, Gigaom, Business Insider, Lifehacker, VentureBeat and PC World

Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica:

Pono Player review: FLAC does not sound noticeably better than high-quality MP3 audio, poor portability, sluggish touchscreen — Pono Player review: A tall, refreshing drink of snake oil — We give Neil Young's high-res music player a spin and do a few cochlea kegels.

More: Yahoo Tech and MacDailyNews

Julian Hattem / The Hill:

Obama wants $105M in budget to replicate the US Digital Service at 25 agencies — Obama wants $105M to improve agencies' digital footprint — President Obama's budget request includes $105 million to expand a digital strike force modeled on the team that turned around HealthCare.gov.

More: National Journal, FederalNewsRadio.com, TechPresident, Nextgov, SC Magazine and Engadget

Brian Ries / Mashable:

Obama administration publishes 2016 fiscal budget proposal on Github and Medium

More: White House.gov Blog and VentureBeat. Thanks:@themadhacker

Michael Mimoso / Threatpost:

1,800 Domains Overtaken by Flash Zero Day — When the Blackhole exploit kit went away after the arrest of its alleged creator and maintainer Paunch, there were questions about which kit would rise up as its successor. — It seems that the Angler exploit kit has ascended to the throne.

More: Cisco Blog, Computerworld and The Register

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Amazon launches Kindle Convert in the US, a $19 Windows app for scanning, turning paper books into e-books — Amazon's Kindle Convert Can Turn Your Paper Library Into E-Books — If you've been hanging on to those paper books because the idea of having to repurchase them all as Kindle titles is daunting …

More: Uncrunched, The eBook Reader Blog, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, Pocketnow, Macworld and Engadget. See also Mediagazer

Kurt Wagner / Re/code:

Twitter is testing a new landing page featuring curated tweets for people without accounts — Another Twitter Update! This One's a New Homepage, Designed to Lure New Users. — Twitter is experimenting with yet another new product tweak — a homepage designed for people who visit Twitter but don't have their own account.

More: Mashable and Re/code. Tweets: @sacca and @gilbert. See also Mediagazer

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Alan Eustace, Google's SVP Of Knowledge, Is Leaving The Company — Another management change is underway at Google: TechCrunch has learned that Alan Eustace, a longtime Google employee and its SVP of Knowledge — and also the current world-record holder for making the highest-altitude free-fall jump — is leaving the company.

More: Bloomberg Business, Business Insider, SlashGear, 9to5Google, Search Engine Land, bizjournals and Re/code. Tweets: @sacca

Paul Bischoff / Tech in Asia:

Alibaba is testing drone delivery in China with a 3-day pilot program — Alibaba is now in the testing phases of delivering packages by drone, according to a post on Taobao's website (h/t 36kr). Bringing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' dream into reality, Alibaba's major online marketplace Taobao …

More: TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE, Business Insider and Gizmodo

Jessica Plautz / Mashable:

Groupon founder Andrew Mason launches Detour, an iPhone app for location-aware walking tours in cities, starting with San Francisco — Groupon's ex-CEO launches audio tour app in San Francisco — Audio tours, often associated with museum field trips, are taking to the streets.

More: The Detour Blog, TechCrunch, Upstart Business Journal, Wired, Fast Company, Inc.com, Chicago Business, Business Insider and The Verge

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Yahoo to declare Small Business unit a separate entity as part of the plan to spin out Alibaba stake tax-free — Yahoo's Small-Business Unit Draws Short Straw in Alibaba Spinoff — For some Yahoo employees, this year is playing out like a plotline from the NBC sitcom, “The Office.”

More: ZDNet, Re/code, SiliconBeat, Yahoo Small Business, ITworld.com, Bloomberg Business and Reuters

Tweets: @dannysullivan and @dmac1

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

California becomes first state to convict someone for operating a revenge porn website — A California jury has convicted the operator of a revenge porn website in what the state believes is the first conviction of its kind nationwide. The operator, Kevin Bollaert, was found guilty …

More: The Atlantic Online, Associated Press, Daily Mail, Washington Post, The Register, Plagiarism Today, Gizmodo, Engadget, Guardian and Associated Press

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Serious bug in fully patched Internet Explorer puts user credentials at risk — Microsoft engineers are working to patch universal XSS vulnerability. — A vulnerability in fully patched versions of Internet Explorer allows attackers to steal login credentials and inject malicious content into users' browsing sessions.

More: Full Disclosure, Security Affairs, PC World and Neowin

Brad Sams / Neowin:

Microsoft pushes the open source door a little wider with .NET CoreCLR — Microsoft has been pushing the open source message for many months now, and today the company announced a few updates to this initiative. The Redmond-based company has taken the next step in completely open-sourcing …

More: MSDN Blogs, InfoWorld, ZDNet, Tim Anderson's ITWriting, The Register, SD Times, WinBeta and Phoronix

Ina Fried / Re/code:

ARM says next-generation A72 chip can triple the performance of today's chips, or match performance while using 75% less power — ARM Says Next-Gen A72 Chip Paves Way for Thinner, More Power-Efficient Phones — ARM, the British company whose chip designs are at the core of nearly …

More: The Verge, PC World, Computerworld, Ars Technica, Reuters, Bloomberg Business, eWeek, Android Authority, The Register, CNET, MobileSyrup.com and ZDNet

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