Techmeme
February 20, 2015, 3:20 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple will fight iOS bugs with first-ever iOS Public Betas: 8.3 in March, 9 in summer  —  In an effort to eliminate bugs from upcoming iOS versions ahead of their general releases, Apple plans to launch the first-ever public beta program for the iOS operating system, according to multiple people briefed on the plans.
Robert McMillan / Wired:
Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless  —  If you've bought a Lenovo laptop anytime since August, it may have shipped with a dangerous bit of adware known as Visual Discovery by Superfish.  It's the kind of software add-on that computer makers are often paid to include with their hardware.
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Microsoft updates Windows Defender, its onboard anti-virus software, to remove the Superfish software that was pre-installed on many Lenovo computers  —  Microsoft has updated Windows Defender to root out the Superfish adware  —  Microsoft just took a major step towards rooting out the Superfish adware …
Jim Finkle / Reuters:
US Department of Homeland Security urges Lenovo customers to remove Superfish software, citing the risk of SSL spoofing  —  U.S. government urges Lenovo customers to remove Superfish software  —  Boxes containing Lenovo desktop computers are seen in an office in Kiev March 12, 2012.
Tweets: @zackwhittaker
Marco della Cava / USA Today:
YouTube Kids for Android set to launch February 23 featuring parental controls and a simplified UI  —  YouTube unveils new app for kids  —  SAN FRANCISCO - YouTube is repository of clips that range from exceedingly educational to suggestively explicit.  So to make sure younger fans …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Viv, Built By Siri's Creators, Scores $12.5 Million For An AI Technology That Can Teach Itself  —  The company behind Viv, a powerful form of AI built by Siri's creators which is able to learn from the world to improve upon its capabilities, has just closed on $12.5 million in Series B funding.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple considering dedicated Apple Watch stores as it sets up Paris booth  —  Apple Watch hands-on table from September Media Event  —  According to multiple reports out of France, Apple is constructing a dedicated display for the upcoming Apple Watch in some upscale Paris-based retail outlets.
Mark Scott / New York Times:
World's largest SIM card maker Gemalto to investigate claims NSA and GCHQ hacked their networks to steal SIM encryption codes  —  Chip Maker to Investigate Claims of Hacking by N.S.A. and British Spy Agencies  —  LONDON — Gemalto, a digital security company based in the Netherlands …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Pro tips: 5 ways to close WhatsApp leads in Zoho CRM  —  This is a guest post by Orkhan Jafarli, Growth PM at TimelinesAI.More buyers now reach out on WhatsApp before they ever fill out a form.
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

Big Technology Podcast:
What Happens If AI Fails?, Subprime Data Center Crisis, How Bad Can SpaceX Get?
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.
Hard Fork:
OpenAI Models Go Rogue + Kimi K3 Freakout + A.I. Superforecasting
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'A Scam Held Together With Patriotism and Golden Paint', With Quinn Nelson
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Abridge's Shiv Rao: The Doctor Founder Taking On Microsoft In Healthcare AI
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:
Too big to laugh: how tech lost its sense of humor
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:20 PM ET, February 20, 2015.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Jared Newman / PC World:

Earlier Picks

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac: