Techmeme
November 13, 2013, 9:35 PM

Top News

Digits:
Snapchat Spurned $3 Billion Acquisition Offer from Facebook  —  Snapchat, a rapidly growing messaging service, recently spurned an all-cash acquisition offer from Facebook for $3 billion or more, according to people briefed on the matter.  —  The offer, and rebuff, came as Snapchat …
Evelyn M. Rusli / Digits:
Why Snapchat may have turned down Facebook: a young, fast-growing, highly-engaged user base  —  Why Would Snapchat Turn Down a $3 Billion Cash Buyout?  —  On Wednesday, Digits reported that Snapchat's CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel spurned a $3 billion or more cash offer from Facebook …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
HP and Google order ‘pause’ in Chromebook 11 sales after reports of chargers overheating  —  The HP Chromebook 11 has been pulled from Best Buy store shelves, and sales halted on Amazon and HP and Google's online stores, following customer complaints of chargers overheating.
Jeff Barr / Amazon Web Services Blog:
Amazon WorkSpaces - Desktop Computing in the Cloud  —  Once upon a time, enterprises had a straightforward way to give each employee access to a desktop computer.  New employees would join the organization and receive a standard-issue desktop, preconfigured with a common set of tools and applications.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked  —  On-Demand Photography Marketplace Scoopshot Snaps $3.9 Million Series A  —  Motorola held a special event today to reveal its new Moto G, a spiritual sibling to the Moto X and a way for the Google-owned smartphone maker …
Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:
Apple's $10.5B on Robots to Lasers Shores Up Supply Chain  —  Apple Inc. is putting a record $10.5 billion to work in new technology — from assembly robots to milling machines — that consumers will never see.  —  To get a jump on rivals like Samsung Electronics Co. and lay the groundwork for new products …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Dropbox Hits 200M Users, Unveils New “For Business” Client Combining Work And Personal Files  —  CEO Drew Houston today announced that Dropbox has hit 200 million users, up from 175 million in July.  He later revealed the new Dropbox For Business client securely houses both a user's personal …
iFixit:
iPad Mini Retina Display Teardown  —  Lots of new tech ensures the iPad Mini Retina Display is a worthy successor to both the iPad Air and last year's iPad Mini—but will it carry the familial low repairability?  Follow along as we reveal the inner workings of this compact new Retina device.
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Verizon admits network faces traffic pressure in big cities  —  The wireless carrier is pouring money into the problem, and a top executive says the issues will dissipate by the end of the year.—Verizon Wireless is feeling the crush of all of those LTE-enabled devices on its network.
Jay Yarow / Business Insider:
Steve Jobs On Android Founder Andy Rubin: 'Big, Arrogant ..."  —  Steve Jobs did not like Android, or the guy that ran it, Andy Rubin, according to a new book on the Google-Apple smartphone wars.  —  Jobs told friends that he thought Rubin was a “big, arrogant f**k,” according to Fred Vogelstein's …
Nicholas Weaver / Wired:
Our Government Has Weaponized the Internet.  Here's How They Did It  —  The internet backbone — the infrastructure of networks upon which internet traffic travels — went from being a passive infrastructure for communication to an active weapon for attacks.
Tweets: @nzkoz
Chris Velazco / TechCrunch:
The Dual-Screen YotaPhone Will Launch Internationally In December  —  Russia-based Yota Devices has been working on a curious beast called the YotaPhone for years now, and it's gained quite a reputation for itself because of its split personality.  While the front of the phone sports …
More: Engadget and CNET
Jason Del Rey / AllThingsD:
Fab to Lay Off at Least Another 50 Employees  —  Restructuring efforts at Fab are about to hit its New York headquarters hard, according to sources close to the situation.  —  The e-commerce startup, which recently received massive funding, is getting ready to announce another round of layoffs in the U.S. …
More: DigitsTweets: @delrey
Jason Del Rey / AllThingsD:
LivingSocial Is Still Down, More Than 20 Hours Later (Updated)  —  More than 20 hours after its website and mobile apps stopped working, LivingSocial properties are still down in the U.S.  —  The deals site and its mobile apps have been down since at least 2:45 pm ET on Tuesday.
Sharif Sakr / Engadget:
Acer goes up against the Surface Pro 2 with its own $950 hybrid  —  What will Acer's outgoing CEO leave as his legacy, aside from a bit of financial wreckage?  It could be a pair of brand new TravelMate Ultrabooks, the X313 and P645, which were revealed a few weeks ago and now have final pricing and availability set for this month.
Reuters:
Juniper appoints Barclays executive Shaygan Kheradpir CEO  —  Network gear maker Juniper Networks Inc named Barclays Plc's chief operations and technology officer, Shaygan Kheradpir, as successor to Chief Executive Kevin Johnson.  —  Kheradpir joined Barclays in January 2011.
Dennis Fisher / Threatpost:
Microsoft warns customers away from SHA-1 and RC4  —  The RC4 and SHA-1 algorithms have taken a lot of hits in recent years, with new attacks popping up on a regular basis.  Many security experts and cryptographers have been recommending that vendors begin phasing the two out …
Brad Chacos / PC World:
Next-gen HTTP 2.0 protocol will require HTTPS encryption (most of the time)  —  Sending data in plain text just doesn't cut it in an age of abundant hack attacks and mass metadata collection.  Some of the biggest names on the Web—Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.—have already embraced default encryption …
More: lists.w3.org and GigaomTweets: @mnotThanks:@bradchacos

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