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Techmeme
January 1, 2016, 2:50 AM
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Top News

Oculus:
Oculus Touch controller delayed to second half of 2016, Oculus Rift remains on schedule to ship in Q1 2016  —  Update on Oculus Touch Ship Date  —  On the path to perfecting Touch, we've decided that we need more time before release, and we'll now be shipping Touch in the second half of 2016.
Rob Price / Business Insider:
Twitter is reversing its ban on political watchdog Politwoops  —  Four months after being banned by Twitter, Politwoops is coming back.  —  If you're not familiar with it, Politwoops is a kind of social media watchdog.  It automatically monitors the Twitter feeds of politicians and highlights whenever they delete a tweet.
Scott Charney / Microsoft on the Issues:
Microsoft now notifies users if it believes their accounts were targeted by a state-sponsored hacker  —  Additional steps to help keep your personal information secure  —  We're committed to helping our users keep their personal information secure and private.
Joseph Menn / Reuters:
Former Microsoft employees say company failed to alert Hotmail users in 2011 that their accounts were hacked by Chinese authorities  —  Microsoft failed to warn victims of Chinese email hack: former employees  —  Microsoft Corp experts concluded several years ago that Chinese authorities …
BBC:
Sources: BBC websites hit by DDoS attack, services disrupted for several hours  —  Web attack knocks BBC websites offline  —  All the BBC's websites were unavailable early on Thursday morning because of a large web attack.  —  The problems began about 0700 GMT and meant visitors …
Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:
As Microsoft and Corel battle in patent lawsuits, EFF notes the absurdity of one Microsoft design patent, for a slider  —  Microsoft patents a slider, earning EFF's “Stupid Patent of the Month” award  —  The patent is ammo in a battle between MS Word and Corel's WordPerfect.
Chris Velazco / Engadget:
AT&T to stop offering two-year phone contracts on January 8, moving to up-front purchase of new phones or AT&T Next financing plans  —  AT&T to ditch most two-year phone contracts on January 8th  —  AT&T's long affair with the two-year contract seems to be coming to a close, Engadget has learned.
Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:
Debian founder and Docker employee Ian Murdock has died at 42  —  Docker today announced that Ian Murdock, a member of the startup's technical staff and a former Sun and Salesforce employee known for founding the Debian Linux operating system, has passed away.  He was 42.
Jason Schreier / Kotaku:
Valve Apologizes For Steam's Christmas Malfunction, Says It Affected 34,000 Users  —  Valve has finally apologized for last week's Steam Christmas disaster, explaining in a lengthy statement today that the issues stemmed from a Denial of Service attack and wound up exposing the information of around 34,000 users.
Andrew J . Hawkins / The Verge:
Uber announces it completed its one billionth trip on Christmas Eve in London  —  Uber just completed its billionth trip  —  By most measures, Uber has had a pretty good year: numerous political victories, new product launches, and scary amounts of cash raised.  And the hits keep coming.
Joseph Cox / Motherboard:
Tor Project launching a bug bounty program with HackerOne, sponsored by Open Technology Fund  —  The Tor Project Is Starting a Bug Bounty Program  —  The Tor Project, the non-profit that maintains software for anonymity on the internet, will soon be offering a bug bounty program …
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Redesigned Twitter for Mac app now available with dark mode, GIF support, Group Direct Messages, Quote Tweet functionality, and more, but lacks polls support

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From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Financial Times:
OpenAI hopes the Disney deal boosts Sora, which has high costs and limited traction; Sensor Tower: users average 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

More News

Om Malik / New Yorker:
In Silicon Valley Now, It's Almost Always Winner Takes All

Earlier Picks

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