September 17, 2013 06:00 PDT | 09:00 EDT | 13:00 UTC
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>>APPLE FALLS: Apple quiet on iPhone 5c pre-orders as stock price slides 3.2 percent, by Chris Welch: "Just days ahead of launch, Apple is today breaking a trend; it's not providing any indication of how well iPhone 5c pre-orders are going. For three years running, Apple has been quick to boast about early consumer interest in the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPhone 5... Last year, Apple's update came on the Monday after pre-orders began, but the company's PR team has been mum today. And Wall Street may have noticed the silence." The Verge
>>>> China Unicom reservations for new iPhones pass 100,000 units, by Edmond Lococo, Michael Tighe: "China Unicom may follow its smaller rival in taking a less aggressive approach to iPhone subsidies." Bloomberg
>>>> Apple quiet on iPhone 5c pre-orders as stock price slides The Verge
>>>> Preorders show weaker demand for new iPhones in China WSJ Digits
>>>> The larger story is whether Apple will soon strike a deal with China Mobile, the world's largest carrier TUAW
>>>> Seven-year Odyssey that ended at the enclave: Story behind Touch ID, by Brian Roemmele Quora
>> LINUX ASCENDS: IBM again pledges $1 billion to a Linux effort, by Don Clark: "IBM on Tuesday plans to pledge that it will spend $1 billion over four or five years on Linux and related open-source technologies for use on its Power line of server systems, which is based on the internally developed chip technology of the same name. IBM has long been one of the biggest backers of Linux." WSJ Digits
>>>> Valve CEO Gabe Newell: Linux is the future of gaming Ars Technica
>>>> Google and Samsung soar into list of top 10 Linux contributors: "Microsoft's days of major Linux contributions have come to a halt." Ars Technica
>> BULLSEYE: Box joins the crew of companies trying to disrupt Microsoft Office, by Matt Rosoff: "You knew it had to happen. A year ago, file storage and collaboration service Box hired Sam Schillace, the creator of cloud-based document creation tool Writely, which later became Google Docs, the cornerstone of Google Apps… Today, Box announced that it's starting down the same road as Google, adding document creation to its cloud-based file storage and collaboration service. The new Box Notes feature is just entering private beta, and it's Web-only at this phase -- a major drawback given Box's stated intention to become the collaboration tool of choice for the cloud-plus-mobile world -- but it's a clear statement of intention." CITEWorld
>>>> Former Windows head Steve Sinofsky talks about mobile at Box conference CITEWorld
>>>> Box Notes brings streamlined document collaboration to Box PC World
>>>> Microsoft: The best free alternative to Office is Office on the web (what else could they say?) Office News
>> BLACK OPS: 106 startups who received investment from the C.I.A., by Danielle Morrill: "Since 1999 In-Q-Tel has been strategically investing in startup companies that are used by the intelligence community. These investments are primarily enterprise software companies. The CIA Library has an in-depth overview of why and how the public/private partnership came to be in the late 1990s. Today, these companies have amassed more than $3.2 billion in venture funding, and employ more than 7,000 people." Mattermark
>> SLOW-MO: Mozilla postpones Metro Firefox release to late January, by Gregg Keizer: "Mozilla last week said that slower-than-expected progress on Firefox for Microsoft's Windows 8 'Modern' user interface (UI) means that the touch-based browser likely won't launch until late January." Computerworld
>>>> You can download Firefox 24 for Windows, Mac and Linux right now The Next Web
>> SDN FREE-FOR-ALL: Juniper ships SDN controller, dismisses OpenDaylight technology, by Jim Duffy: "Juniper Networks is now shipping its SDN controller and has also made it available as open source code, signaling an intention to not develop product around the OpenDaylight SDN consortium's work. Juniper announced commercial availability of Juniper Networks Contrail and open source availability of OpenContrail. Both products are founded on the same code base and include the same functions for creating a virtual overlay network -- an SDN controller, a virtual router, and an analytics engine." Network World
>> AND ... SCENE: Netflix turns to pirates to pick new shows, by Ian Paul: "If you're wondering which TV shows Netflix hopes to add to its catalog in the coming months, look no further than sites like the Pirate Bay. When the online streaming company wants to figure out what people are watching, Netflix looks at what does well on piracy sites." TechHive
>> YOUR FLY IS OPEN (DON'T CARE): Security company says Nasdaq waited two weeks to fix XSS flaw, by Jeremy Kirk: "A Swiss security company said the Nasdaq website had a serious cross-site scripting vulnerability for two weeks before being fixed on Monday, despite earlier warnings." InfoWorld
>> ON THE COUCH: How I failed -- Six lessons learned, by Tim O'Reilly: "As a management team, you aren't just working for the company; you have to work on the company, shaping it, tuning it, setting the rules that it will live by. And it's way too easy to give that latter work short shrift… here are some reflections on how we failed as an organization in the past, and what we have been doing to change that." O'Reilly
>>>> The enduring emptiness of our technology debates has one main cause, and his name is Tim O'Reilly The Baffler
>> P.R. MACHINE: From Mars: A young man's adventures in women's publishing, by Lizzie Widdicombe: "Bustle's articles are modest, but the ambitions of its founder, a young Silicon Valley entrepreneur named Bryan Goldberg, are not. When I first spoke to him, early in the summer, he referred to Bustle as "the next great women's publication." He was in the process of raising an unusually large amount of pre-launch money -- $6.5 million -- from investors such as Time Warner Investments and 500 Startups. In six years, Goldberg told me, he hopes that Bustle will attract fifty million visitors each month and earn more than a hundred million dollars a year in advertising revenue, making it the "biggest and the most powerful women's publication in the world." The New Yorker
>> MICROSOFT MEDIOCRITY: Patch expert wants Ballmer to get to the bottom of buggy Windows, Office updates, by Gregg Keizer: "Susan Bradley calls string of flawed patches 'unacceptable;' Microsoft manager argues Office updates are 'very high' quality... 'My rant wasn't just about the quality of security updates -- but the quality of patching as a whole,' Bradley said. 'Documentation is lacking, quality of updates -- especially in certain categories of updates -- is clearly lacking... things are slipping through the cracks.'" Computerworld
>> DEPARTURE LOUNGE: Rhapsody cuts 15% of workforce, president out as new investor arrives, by Todd Bishop: "Rhapsody has struggled to reach profitability in the face of stiff competition from Spotify and other music startups." GeekWire
>> Tencent approaches Facebook's book value amid China web boom: Bloomberg
>> Pandora could raise $279.4M with sale of 12M in common stock: VentureBeat
>> How the US government inadvertently created Wikileaks: Pando Daily
>> Brazilian hacker hits 14 NASA sites, calls Obama 'heartless': The Daily Dot
>> Brazil looks to break from US-centric Internet: AP
>> U.S. government blew $321 million on redundant IT programs: AllThingsD
>> FEMA grounds private drones that were helping to map Boulder floods, threatens to arrest operators: TechDirt
>> Bjarne Stroustrup - The Essence of C++: MSDN Channel 9
>> How Facebook plans to make internet.org happen: GigaOM
>> Bill Gates retains richest American title; tech industry continues to fuel wealth: Amazon's Jeff Bezos ranked 12th with $27.2 billion, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at 13th and 14th ZDNet
>> Angry entrepreneur replies to patent troll with racketeering lawsuit: Patent trolls are legal. Can one be nailed for extortion? Ars Technica
>> Microsoft launches new Bing logo, design refresh: ZDNet
>> YouTube starts testing Chromecast support for third-party websites: GigaOM
>> Monty Python and the Holy Grail modern trailer, updated for 2013 h/t @ckindel
>> TWEET O' THE DAY: "Everyone does realize that it's not about teaching people to CODE as much as it is about teaching people to THINK ... right?" @hmason
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