Top Items:
Around The World and Back Again:
Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight — Somewhere around 1:00 am yesterday, my Airbnb.com horror story was picked up by Hacker News; to say this story has gone viral in the past two days would be the understatement of my life. I sit here now, taken aback and utterly astounded as I witness …
Discussion:
VatorNews, CNET News, Betabeat, TechCrunch, The Business Insider, @sarahcuda, the Econsultancy blog, Fast Company, CenterNetworks, LAUNCH, PE Hub Blog and Financial Times
RELATED:
Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:
Airbnb burglary victim says company tried to quiet her — Blogger “EJ,” who wrote about her experience with Airbnb, updated her blog Thursday night saying that the company had asked her to remove the post, fearing bad press. — EJ wrote last month that renters she found through the site burgled and trashed her home.
Xiaorui Gan / Google Mobile Blog:
New Google Search experience for tablets — (Cross-posted on the Inside Search blog) — As part of our effort to evolve the Google design and experience, we've improved the www.google.com search experience on tablets. We've simplified the layout of search results pages and increased …
Discussion:
MacRumors, App Advice, TechCrunch, 9to5Google, 9to5Mac, IntoMobile, iLounge, DroidMatters.com, SlashGear, Gizmodo, AndroidGuys, Android Community, Droid Life, Android Phone Fans, Lifehacker and WebProNews
Horace Dediu / asymco:
Apple captured two thirds of available mobile phone profits in Q2 — The major publicly traded phone vendors have all reported results for the second quarter. Based on the data available so far we can begin putting together a picture of the market. — The first picture I'll draw is usually the last: profitability.
Discussion:
GigaOM, AppleInsider, MacRumors, The Business Insider, FierceWireless, Electronista, 9to5Mac, SplatF, TiPb and MacDailyNews
Derek Thompson / The Atlantic Online:
Apple Now Has More Cash Than the U.S. Government — When Apple reported last week that it had $76 billion in cash, we speculated that it might be enough to buy Goldman Sachs or Facebook. Today, Steve Jobs' reserves match up with the world's largest sovereign entity. — That's right.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, CNN, The Business Insider, Digital Trends, SlashGear, Moneyland, BBC, Neowin.net, Techie Buzz, TechSpot, parislemon, Pulse2 and Gizmodo
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Tim Conneally / BetaNews:
Nortel completes patent liquidation to Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Sony: now what? — Bankrupt Canadian telecommunications company Nortel Networks Corp. announced on Friday that it has completed the sale of its 6,000 patents for $4.5 billion to the consortium of Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research in Motion, and Sony.
Discussion:
MacRumors, Nortel and moneywatch.bnet.com
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Jennifer Van Grove / Mashable!:
Foursquare & Groupon Hook Up for Real-Time Deals [EXCLUSIVE] — Foursquare users in the U.S. and Canada will start to see Groupon's daily deals in the Explore tab of the application and on Foursquare.com beginning Friday, Mashable has learned. — Groupon has become Foursquare's sixth and latest daily deals partner.
Zach Holman:
Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You — I love Apple. I love Apple so much that if someone gave me a bulletproof vest made out of MacBook Airs, I'd strap it to my back and take a bullet to my chest to protect my precious aluminum friends. — But Steve's lying to us when it comes to FaceTime.
Discussion:
The Business Insider and MacNN
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
AT&T verifies data throttling for top 5% of users officially for October 1st — As we reported yesterday: October 1st, top 5% of AT&T users will see reduced speeds. … Today AT&T made it official. Full statement below the fold: — An Update for Our Smartphone Customers With Unlimited Data Plans
Discussion:
BGR, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, AT&T, DSLreports, LAPTOP Magazine and Digital Trends
John Marzulli / NY Daily News:
Fugitive taunts cops on Facebook “catch me if you can” before they find him in Brooklyn apartment — A fugitive fool who taunted cops on his Facebook page, “Catch me if you can, I'm in Brooklyn” - has been captured by U.S. marshals. — And guess where. — Victor Burgos was sitting …
Discussion:
Inquirer, Technically Incorrect, Gizmodo, NBC Bay Area, Gawker, All Facebook and Gothamist
Patrick May / Mercury News:
Online marketers hit hard by California's new online-sales tax — It wasn't the Great Recession that killed Nick Loper's business. It was a flick of Jerry Brown's wrist. — When the governor signed the state's new online-sales tax law last month, Seattle-based Amazon …
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Microsoft's Web map exposes phone, PC locations — caption: Examples of HTC device locations that CNET extracted from Microsoft's Live.com location database. — Microsoft has collected the locations of millions of laptops, cell phones, and other Wi-Fi devices around the world and makes …
Discussion:
LiveSide.net, From Information …, Electronista, Neowin.net, Slashdot and LAPTOP Magazine
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Passes Nokia and Holds Off Samsung to Become World's Top Smartphone Vendor [Updated] — Just hours after research firm IDC released data showing Apple dramatically outpacing the overall mobile phone industry in year-over-year growth for the second quarter of 2011 …
Discussion:
BGR, eWeek, SlashGear, Mashable!, AppleInsider, Wall Street Journal, Between the Lines Blog, ABI Research, Business Wire, AllThingsD, VentureBeat, PC World, mocoNews, 9to5Mac, GigaOM, Electricpig.co.uk, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check, PhoneArena, Tech Trader Daily, Electronista, MobileSyrup.com, Fortune, iPhone in Canada Blog, Softpedia News, The Next Web, iPhone, GigaOM Pro and DisplayBlog
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Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Facebook launches bug bounty program — Facebook is set to announce today a bug bounty program in which researchers will be paid for reporting security holes on the popular social-networking Web site. — Compensation, which starts at $500 and has no maximum set, will be paid only to researchers …
Discussion:
The Register, ReadWriteWeb, Computerworld, PC World, Neowin.net, The Next Web and WebProNews
Andy Greenberg / The Firewall:
Flying Drone Can Crack Wi-Fi Networks, Snoop On Cell Phones — Mike Tassey posing with the Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform, WASP. — How do one ex-Air Force official and one former airplane hobby shop owner, both of whom happen to have decades of experience as network security contractors …
Dan Frakes / Macworld:
Buy a new Mac, get iLife for all your Macs — As with every Mac in recent memory, Apple's latest hardware releases, the MacBook Air (Mid 2011) and Mac mini (Mid 2011), include the current versions of Mac OS X and iLife—in this case, Lion (OS X 10.7) and iLife '11.
Discussion:
MacNN, MacRumors, MacStories, iClarified and GigaOM
Adam Holisky / Tecca:
Obama spams Republican Twitter handles to urge debt compromise — The President is urging the public to tweet legislators, one state at a time — With the debt ceiling looming and political tensions at an all time high, the President has been encouraging people to contact their representatives and express themselves.
Discussion:
@barackobama, The Business Insider, LAUNCH, TechCrunch and Mashable!
Martin Bryant / The Next Web:
Google starts to open up its cloud music service with user invites, still US only — We haven't heard much about Google Music, the company's cloud-based music locker service, since it launched back in May at the I/O developer conference. Getting in to try it was tough …
Discussion:
Electronista, Engadget and ReadWriteWeb
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Looking To Sink Their Teeth Into Some Tasty Northwest Startups, Google Takes A Bite Of PIE — If you haven't heard of PIE, it's probably because you don't live in the Pacific Northwest. But the Portland Incubator Experiment has already amassed such an impressive roster of startups that everyone may know about them soon enough.
Discussion:
GeekWire, Silicon Florist and Pulse2
Dante Cesa / Engadget:
‘Official-looking’ pic of white Galaxy S II leaks, unicorns right around the corner — Albino Nexus S, meet your better specced, bleached out, dual-core nemesis — the mythical white Samsung Galaxy S II. The leaked snap is certainly timely, coming in only one day after a UK retailer promised …
Discussion:
Redmond Pie, Inquirer, BGR, 9to5Google and Android Central Podcast
Katharine Q. Seelye / New York Times:
Seattle Places Police Calls on Twitter — SEATTLE — A flurry of Twitter messages that began early Tuesday morning from the Seattle Police Department puzzled many Twitter users. Was there a sudden crime wave in Seattle? Was the city under attack? Had a computer gone haywire?
Electronista:
Samsung's Galaxy S II teaser page for the US goes live — Phone expected to ship next month — Samsung has given a strong indication that the company's popular new smartphone, the Galaxy S II, will be hitting US shores soon. Samsung has posted a new live webpage for the phone.
Christopher Trout / Engadget:
Acer Iconia Tab A100 finally available in August for $300 — It's been a long and twisted road for Acer's 7-inch Honeycomb tablet, but after all the starts and stops, we've finally got an ETA for the Iconia Tab A100. According to an email sent out to Acer retail partners today …