Techmeme
August 16, 2012, 5:15 PM

Top News

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Square Debuts Monthly Pricing Option For Small Businesses With Zero Swiping Fees  —  On the heels of announcing a mega-deal with Starbucks, mobile payments processing company Square is announcing another piece of key news—specialized, lower pricing per swipe for small businesses.
Julianne Pepitone / CNNMoney.com:
Facebook stock slumps 5% as insiders get first chance to sell  —  NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Facebook's life as a public company has been a nightmare from day one, and the pain continued on Thursday as some company insiders got their first chance to dump shares.
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
Why Apple really bought AuthenTec: It wanted “new technology” for upcoming products, and quickly  —  On July 27, seemingly out of nowhere, security company AuthenTec announced in a regulatory filing that it had agreed to a $356 million acquisition offer from Apple, making it one of the Apple's biggest mergers in its 36 year history.
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Apple says Retail Stores still hiring, recent staffing changes were a ‘mistake’, are being reversed  —  Apple says that recent reports about Retail Store employee hours being cut and hiring events being halted were misleading.  Still, it says that some staffing changes were made, but that they were a mistake.
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Apple boss tries to gut retail operation  —  One of the smartest decisions that Apple made over the last decade was to open retail stores worldwide, giving users a chance to get some hands on time with its products.  One of the worst decisions came recently when the new vice president …
Artem Russakovskii / Android Police:
[Updated: Screenshots] Google Is Gearing Up To Finally Introduce Play Store Gift Cards And A Wishlist [APK Teardown]  —  A new Google Play Store v3.8.15 apk started rolling out to Android devices today, but upon running through its UI, I was unable to uncover anything different from the versions before that.
Jenna Wortham / NYT Bits:
Braintree, a Payments Company, Buys Venmo for $26.2 Million  —  The mobile payments war continues to escalate.  —  Braintree, a payments company that supplies technology to process credit card transactions on a mobile phone, said it purchased Venmo, a start-up that lets people send and receive money to their friends.
Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:
Instagram 3.0 bets on location with Photo Map, adds infinite scrolling  —  Looking forward, Systrom envisions an Instagram that instantly pipes photos into one location-tagged stream for concertgoers, or one stream of photos tagged in front of the Eiffel Tower.  “All sorts of cool things hapen once people use geodata,” he said.
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Three years later, deleting your photos on Facebook now actually works  —  It has been more than three years since Ars first started covering Facebook's inability to remove “deleted” photos from its servers, but this particular saga appears to be coming to an end.
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Hipsta-dramatic: Hipstamatic lays off all but core employees, including designers and engineers  —  Toy camera app company Hipstamatic has fired all but 5 of its core staff, including engineers and designers, The Next Web has learned.  The company had been staffed up and working on a new release …
Josh Lowensohn / CNET:
Samsung expert knocks Apple's $2.5 billion damages tally  —  Surprise, Samsung thinks Apple's asking for too much in its damages bill.  —  SAN JOSE, Calif. — The $2.4 billion Apple says Samsung earned on devices with its looks and technology is certainly a hefty sum, but about $1.7 billion off, according to Samsung.
Michael Arrington / Uncrunched:
Why I Changed My Mind On Klout (And Invested)  —  Klout has been one of my go to punchlines for some time now.  For example - in May I wrote a post titled “My Detailed Thoughts On Klout” that contained a single word in the post itself: “Why?”  —  The problem I had with Klout …
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Diaspora's Next Act: Social Remixing Site Makr.io  —  If you were to come across a group of people sitting in a room together, all with their own laptops out, sending each other jokes online, you might think that was a little weird, right?  —  “Antisocial” is one word that comes to mind.
More: The Verge and BetabeatTweets: @kessler and @andythegiant
Zack Whittaker / CNET:
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange granted asylum in Ecuador  —  Julian Assange has been granted political asylum by the Ecuadorian government after taking refuge in its London embassy in June.  —  LONDON — Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been granted political asylum by the Ecuadorian government …
Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:
‘Friends’ can share your Facebook profile with the government, court rules  —  A federal judge has ruled that investigators can go through your Facebook profile if one of your friends gives them permission to do so.  The decision, which is part of a New York City racketeering trial …
Wall Street Journal:
Apple's New Front in Battle for TV  —  Apple Inc. is in talks with some of the biggest U.S. cable operators about letting consumers use an Apple device as a set-top box for live television and other content, according to people familiar with the matter.  —  The talks represent Apple's …

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