Edited by T. Trent Gegax & Woody Leonhard | August 29, 2013 06:00 PDT | 09:00 EDT | 13:00 UTC
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>> BREAKING: Windows 8.1 RTM leaks: While you were sleeping, uber-leaker emeritus Wzor released two torrents, one purporting to contain English Windows 8.1 Pro RTM x86, the other x64, both OEM originals. ProTip1: Wzor traditionally puts "DVD-WZT" on the end of his torrent names. The usual disclaimers apply: Don't use pirate software, pilgrim -- wait until October 18, just like Microsoft says. Server 2012 R2 coming up. -- WL
>> BIZARRE LOVE QUADRANGLE: Android's Hugo Barra departs Google for China's Xiaomi, by Ina Fried, John Paczkowski: "Hugo Barra... has been one of the more public faces of the mobile operating system, appearing frequently at Google press events and at its annual I/O developer conference... [Barra] is leaving for a job at Xiaomi… which builds Android phones for the Chinese market." Xiaomi phones currently out-sell Apple in China. AllThingsD
>>>> Google exec departs amidst rumors of tangled love quadrangle TechCrunch
>>>> Google cofounder Sergey Brin and wife Anne Wojcicki are no longer living together BusinessInsider
>>>> Xiaomi, what Americans need to know TechCrunch
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>> REACHING FLOW: Why Twitter's new Conversations view is a big deal and why it matters for its IPO, by Om Malik: "The Conversations view ... is yet another step towards making Twitter more Facebook-like. First, what is the conversations view? Well, when someone tweets and one or more people reply, a conversation forms. It is easier for people to follow along, especially if you follow one or more people in that conversation. Conversation tweets start to look like comments on a blog post or on a Facebook posting." GigaOm
>> CLOUDY: VMware adds Pivotal hybrid Cloud Foundry and OpenStack support, by Mitch Pronschinske: "Along with adding support for OpenStack in vSphere, VMware also announced this week at VMworld that they are rolling out their joint initiative with Pivotal (a spinoff from VMware that owns SpringSource and Cloud Foundry). The commercially supported flavor of the open source Cloud Foundry PaaS that Pivotal provides, called Pivotal CF, will now be a hybrid PaaS offering available on vSphere and vCloud hybrid services." Redhat
>> UNDEADPOOL: 69 percent of Windows Phone apps are 'dead' ... as are 65 percent of Apple App Store apps and 41 percent of Google Play Store apps. "Dead" apps have fewer than 10 online reviews or notes, and have not been updated since they were first released. Stardust
>> ALL YOUR BASE: The only place people shop online is Amazon, by Rebecca Greenfield: "Online shopping in general isn't killing the great American mall, Amazon.com is -- singlehandedly so. The Internet retailer sells more stuff online than its 12 biggest competitors combined, all of which move an incredibly tiny amount of stuff through their online storefronts." Atlantic Wire
>> CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS: Hotfile loses federal copyright case, MPAA says, by Cyrus Farivar: "In a case that dates back to 2011, Hotfile, a Panama-based cyberlocker, has been found 'liable on charges of copyright infringement,' according to an… MPAA statement… Written judgment from the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida remains under seal. Most likely, Hotfile was found liable on secondary infringement, as its direct copyright infringement allegations were tossed aside in July 2011… When asked to clarify, MPAA… [said] 'the court won't make the decision public for 14 days and we can't say anything else until it does.'" Ars Technica
>> BIG BLUEBALL: IBM starts restricting hardware patches to paying customers, by Joab Jackson: "Following an Oracle practice, IBM starts to restrict hardware patches to holders of maintenance contracts." InfoWorld
>> TIE-UP: Twitter acquires Trendrr to get a better handle on tweets about TV, by Zach Miners: "Twitter has acquired Trendrr, a data analysis company, to better leverage users' tweets about television to draw in more advertisers. Trendrr analyzes data from social media sites such as Twitter to help businesses grow their brands." PC World
>> FIRST-WORLD PROBLEM: Facebook spammers make $200M just posting links, researchers say, by Charles Arthur: "Italian researchers uncover price lists for posting third-party links to Facebook fan pages -- and calculate that they earn substantial amounts for most popular ones." The Guardian
>> NSA DOWN UNDA: Australian spies in global deal to tap undersea cables, by Philip Dorling: "Australia's Signals Directorate [electronic espionage agency], is in a partnership with British, American and Singaporean intelligence agencies to tap undersea fibre optic telecommunications cables that link Asia, the Middle East and Europe and carry much of Australia's international phone and internet traffic." Sydney Morning Herald
>>>> How Twitter dodged website attack that took down New York Times Bloomberg
gt;>>> Syrian Electronic Army says revealed hacker identities are fake VentureBeat
>> HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Skype's first decade and a trail of missed opportunity, by Henry Mance: "Thursday marks 10 years since the launch of Skype, the calling software that may rank as the most successful internet company to come out of Europe... The celebrations will be muted, even among those who made billions from the technology. Skype's Swedish founders, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, who ended up suing the company twice, have moved on. EBay, which bought the company for $3.1 billion, was never able to generate synergies with its online marketplace, although it made a handy financial profit... some observers and former employees say Skype's first decade is a tale of missed opportunities." Financial Times
>>>> Skype building 3D video calls that none of us will likely use TechCrunch
>> CODE MONKEY ALERT: Building our first app in Go, by Aleksandar: "Beside being quite C-like with low-level facilities such as pointers, Go offers many features of high or even very high-level languages, like powerful data structures, duck typing and easy high-level concurrency." RenderedText
>> WASHINGTON WIRE: Former White House IP czar immediately jumps ship to Microsoft-driven anti-piracy lobbying group BSA, by Mike Masnick: "just weeks after leaving the White House, Victoria Espinel will take over as the head of the Business Software Alliance." TechDirt
>> FASHION ALERT: Texas Pastafarian becomes first in US to wear colander in driver's license photo. HuffPo
>> iOS BY THE NUMBERS: Top publisher downloads for iOS App Store: 1) Google, 2) Apple, 3) Tencent, 4) Baidu, 5) Facebook App Annie
>> ANDROID BY THE NUMBERS: Top publisher downloads for Google Play: 1) Facebook, 2) Google, 3) WhatsApp, 4) Line, 5) Outfit7 App Annie
>> TWEET O' THE DAY: "Steps of Twitter change: 1) Anger: how could they! 2) Denial: I'll find other way 3) More Anger 4) Giving In 5) Appreciation: hey this works." @dannysullivan
FEED ME, SEYMOUR: Comments? Questions? Tips? Shoot mail to Trent or Woody. Follow @gegax or @woodyleonhard.
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