Techmeme: How a 13-year-old autistic boy became best friends with Apple's Siri (Judith Newman/New York Times)

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October 19, 2014, 3:05 PM

Top News

Glen Owen / Daily Mail:

Britain to increase maximum sentence for online bullying from six months to two years — Crackdown on the cyber-mobs poisoning Britain: Sentence for web trolls to be quadrupled to two years after shocking high-profile online abuse cases — Internet trolls who subject victims to vile abuse …

More: BBC, Phys.org, Neowin, RTÉ, Inquirer, GeekTime and The Register

Tweets: @jackofkent and @raquelevita

Brian Stucki / Macminicolo Blog:

2014 Mac mini: RAM is not user-replaceable, no dual-drive server version — A look at the 2014 Mac mini — We've been working extensively with Mac minis for nearly 10 years. (Yes, we're nearing the tenth anniversary for the more-popular-than-you-think Mac.)

More: BetaNews, Engadget, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, MacRumors, AppleInsider, MacNN and MacStories

Judith Newman / New York Times:

How a 13-year-old autistic boy became best friends with Apple's Siri — How Apple's Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.F. — Just how bad a mother am I? I wondered, as I watched my 13-year-old son deep in conversation with Siri. Gus has autism, and Siri, Apple's “intelligent personal assistant” …

More: Business Insider, Teaching Online Journalism, Gizmodo and iMore

Tweets: @smwat, @joannastern, @walterisaacson, @azmatzahra, @johnwoodrtr, @sriramk, @nytimes, @mathewi, @derekwillis, @tcarmody and @pschiller

Robert McMillan / Wired:

Behind Microsoft's controversial takedown of No-IP and other legal battles to defeat botnets — How Microsoft Appointed Itself Sheriff of the Internet — It was 7 o'clock in the morning when the knocking on Dan Durrer's front door woke him up. His dog started barking, and Durrer thought he was getting an early morning package.

More: TheDomains.com. Tweets: @csoghoian and @dangillmor

Steven Levy / Medium:

Inside the nearly decade-old Google Scholar, which is still led by its creator Anurag Acharya — The Gentleman Who Made Scholar — Ten years after a Google engineer empowered researchers with Scholar, he can't bear to leave it — Anurag Acharya is the key inventor of Google Scholar …

More: Beyond Search. Tweets: @readermeter, @mollyfication, @fintelkai and @justinwolfers

Dante D'Orazio / The Verge:

Latest leak gives best look yet at Motorola's Droid Turbo — Motorola's next Verizon-exclusive Android phone hasn't been announced, but a number of leaks have left very little to the imagination. Now we're getting our best look yet at the device, called the Droid Turbo.

More: PC Magazine, Gizmodo and Android Central. Tweets: @evleaks

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Google's Nexus Player gets FCC approval, right on cue — Well, that didn't take long. Just a couple of days after Google stopped pre-orders of the Nexus Player while it waited for the FCC's all-clear, its Android TV puck has received approval. There aren't any surprises in the regulatory filing …

More: The Verge, Gizmodo, TechnoBuffalo and AndroidPIT

Liam Spradlin / Android Police:

Google stops taking Nexus Player preorders in US Play Store due to lack of FCC certification

More: VentureBeat, AndroidGuys, AndroidPIT, TechSpot, TechnoBuffalo, Engadget, SlashGear, Android Central, Liliputing, Gizmodo, Business Insider and 9to5Google

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Android Exec Says Google Will Loosen Reins on Watches, TVs and Cars Over Time — Google is taking its versatile Android operating system into new places, like cars and watches and TVs. As part of that process, it's also severely curtailing the degree to which hardware makers can tinker with the core parts of the software.

More: SlashGear, BGR, MobileSyrup.com, PC World, Wearable World News, Tech Times and Business Insider

Marco Arment / Marco.org:

The Retina iMac versus the Mac Pro, on paper — The 5K Retina iMac is out, and it looks incredible so far on paper — so incredible that I'm seriously considering selling my new Mac Pro to get the Retina iMac instead. In fact, the case for the Mac Pro for anyone but advanced video editors …

More: MacRumors, Daring Fireball, Michael Tsai, ITProPortal and MacStories

Tweets: @panzer and @marcoarment

BuzzFeed:

Snapchat's first ad is movie trailer for Universal Pictures' Ouija, appears like other Stories — This Is What Snapchat's First Ad Looks Like — It's a trailer for the movie Ouija. — Snapchat made good on its plans to roll out its first ads this weekend, with one ad spotted …

More: Gizmodo, Business Insider, The Verge, Adweek, Re/code, Marketing Land, App Advice and Snapchat

Tweets: @joshconstine and @mattlynley

Thanks:@mattlynley

Christopher Breen / Macworld:

Remembering Macworld Expo: Why we went to the greatest trade show on earth — This morning IDG announced that Macworld Expo (later known as Macworld/iWorld) is going on hiatus. How permanent this break is depends entirely on whether those running the show can find a financial model …

Tweets: @settern

Chris Hamby / BuzzFeed:

Facebook Rebukes DEA For Impersonating Woman Online — After BuzzFeed News revealed that the Drug Enforcement Administration had created a phony Facebook page using a real woman's name — without her knowledge — the company has told the agency it committed a “serious breach” of Facebook's terms of service.

More: VentureBeat, Associated Press, Engadget, Fox News, NBC News, National Journal, The Hill and SlashGear

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