Edited by T. Trent Gegax & Woody Leonhard | September 26, 2013 06:00 PDT | 09:00 EDT | 13:00 UTC
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>> BREAKING: eBay will buy PayPal rival Braintree for $800 million in cash, by Steve Kovach: "Braintree is a rival to eBay's own PayPal, so the deal effectively eliminates a competitor." Business Insider
>> EVEN DEADER: T-Mobile US will no longer stock BlackBerry in stores, by Sinead Carew: "T-Mobile US Inc, the No. 4 U.S. wireless service provider, plans to stop carrying BlackBerry Ltd smartphones in its stores and instead ship the devices directly, according to an executive for the company." Reuters
>>>> TECHBRIEF FACTS OF LIFE: Our local Radio Shack recently told us that they hadn't sold a Blackberry "in months."
>>>> About that earnings call? We're not having one VentureBeat
>>>> What can businesses learn from BlackBerry's collapse? PC World
>> DERP: Google Hangouts/GTalk glitch sends chats to wrong recipients, by Michael Lee: "There appears to be no pattern to who is receiving the messages by mistake, or who the glitch affects... the glitch is present within Google Apps for Business accounts, including those that have not yet switched over to Google's new Hangouts platform. Messages appear to be visible on the mobile version of Hangouts. There is no indication that the messages are being received by a third party." ZDNet
>>>> Started about 10 pm PDT, continuing past midnight. Google Groups conversation here
>> BUMPER APPLE HARVEST: Listen up Apple haters: iPhone sales eclipsed Microsoft and Amazon revenue, by Eric Chemi: "[iPhone's] sales haul over the last four reported quarters eclipses that of such companies as Home Depot (HD), Microsoft (MSFT), Target (TGT), Goldman Sachs (GS), Amazon (AMZN), PepsiCo (PEP), Comcast (CMCSA), Dell (DELL), Google (GOOG), Pfizer (PFE), and UPS (UPS). If this single product were its own company in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, IPhone Inc. would outsell 474 of those companies." Bloomberg Businessweek
>> WINDFALL: Chinese Internet giant Alibaba plans to issue I.P.O. in New York, by Michael J. de la Merced and Neil Gough: "No business represents the rapid rise of the Internet in China quite like Alibaba, a company that is part eBay, part Google and part PayPal.... Alibaba is now moving forward with plans for one of the biggest initial public offerings since Facebook's rocky debut last year -- but in New York and not in its home market." NYTimes (paywalled)
>> GEEK SIREN: Bill Gates admits Control-Alt-Delete was a mistake, blames IBM, by Tom Warren: "Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has finally admitted that forcing users to press the Control-Alt-Delete key combination to log into a PC was a mistake. In an interview at a Harvard fundraising campaign, Gates discusses his early days building Microsoft and the all-important Control-Alt-Delete decision. If you've used an old version of the software or use Windows at work then you will have experienced the odd requirement. Gates expains the key combination is designed to prevent other apps from faking the login prompt and stealing a password. 'It was a mistake,' Gates admits to an audience left laughing at his honesty." The Verge
>> STAYING UP WITH THE KIDS: Google supports hashtag search, emphasizes Google+, by Jennifer Van Grove: "Though a little late to the party, Google's search engine has finally embraced #hashtagmania, albeit in a totally self-serving way... people in the US and Canada query its engine for hashtags... The giant catch is that the featured updates will include only those shared on Google+, Google's own social network. Should you wish to find hashtagged content from Twitter or Facebook on Google, you're out of luck. The search giant does, however, politely link out to those destinations in the regular search results." CNet
>> ROLL-UP: Nokia weighs Alcatel tie-up after Microsoft deal, by Nadia Damouni and Ritsuko Ando: "Nokia is discussing internally whether to approach French rival Alcatel-Lucent about a tie-up, part of the Finnish company's review of how it can grow after the planned sale of its handset business to Microsoft." Reuters
>> BIG DATA MONEY SHOT: Mysterious 'big data' startup Databricks gets $14M from Andreessen Horowitz, by Christina Farr: "Databricks website doesn't disclose much information about the technology beyond that it's 'next-generation software for analyzing and extracting value from data.'" VentureBeat
>> OUT OF THE LAB: AMD unveils revolutionary 'Mantle' API to optimize GPU performance, by Tim Schiesser: "[AMD] unveiled a new development model called 'Mantle'. As a combination of both API specifications and GPU drivers, Mantle will allow developers to fully unlock the graphics potential of the GCN architecture of the new (and likely the previous) Radeon series, through low-level high-performance drivers." Techspot
>> FATAL EXCEPTION FATIGUE: Nasdaq, NYSE consider data sharing deal to prevent trading outages, by Nathan Olivarez-Giles: "Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange are currently in early talks over what would be an unprecedented partnership after the two leading US stock markets experienced recent halts in trading due to tech problems, The Wall Street Journal reports. The rival exchanges are currently considering a system that would allow each company to run a backup steam of stock-pricing data from the other in the event of an outage." The Verge
>> DOUBLE RAINBLOW: Twitter investors Williams to Branson await IPO windfall, by Douglas MacMillan & Ari Levy: "In total, Twitter has raised more than $700 million, with legendary venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers committing $200 million in 2010 when the company was already worth more than $3 billion.... More than 50 individuals and institutions now own shares through direct purchases, secondary sales and acquisitions, and hundreds more are invested through various funds." Bloomberg
>> MICROSOFT MISCHIEF: Why is Microsoft setting more money on fire with Surface 2?, by Nick Kolakowski: "Microsoft is still positioning the Surface as the best bet for people who want a tablet capable of 'real work,' as if keyboard attachments and productivity software somehow aren't available for alternate tablets on the market. It will surely pour more money into the manufacture and marketing of these new devices. But to what end?" Slashdot
>>>> Microsoft misses the mark with the new Surface Docking Station Neowin
>>>> There's reason to hope Windows 9 will be better InfoWorld
>>>> Microsoft trying to keep its top execs with bonuses of up to 150 percent Neowin
>> LOCKDOWN: Switch your site to HTTPS, now, for free, by Eric Mill: "This post shows how to do your part in building a surveillance-resistant Internet by switching your site to HTTPS. Though it takes a bunch of steps, each one is very simple, and you should be able to finish this in under an hour." Konklone
>> BEST OF BREED: Cloud Security Alliance and BSI launch STAR certification program: "[STAR is] a rigorous third party independent assessment of the security of a cloud service provider. The technology-neutral certification leverages the requirements of the ISO/IEC 27001:2005 management system standard together with the CSA Cloud Control Matrix, a specified set of criteria that measures the capability levels of the cloud service... By achieving the STAR Certification, cloud providers of every size will be able to give prospective customers a greater understanding of their levels of security controls." CIOL
>> 5 things startup founders should know when pricing their seed round VentureBeat
>> NSA chief begs public to help agency 'Get the facts out' TechDirt
>> NSA reform bill to trim back US surveillance unveiled in Congress "Snowden's disclosures have 'caused a sea change.'" The Guardian
>> Apple's Jonathan Ive and Craig Federighi: The complete interview BloombergBusinessweek
>> Why Amazon could actually beat Microsoft in enterprise tablets CITEworld
>> Evernote will digitize your Post-it notes with new 3M partnership The Verge
>> Stanford researchers develop first computer using only carbon nanotube transistors InfoWorld
>> Elop conspiracy? Not so much TechCrunch
>> Martha Stewart files lawsuit against Lodsys following patent infringement accusations The Verge
>> It's time to give Bing the respect it deserves InfoWorld
>> What is a publisher worth? SensorTower t/h Hacker News
>> Apple Maps directed drivers onto an airport tarmac taxiway The Atlantic Cities
>> What does your startup do? Eric Kerr
>>TWEET O' THE DAY: "Apparently several people have upgraded to iOS 7 and now only see tweets from me on their lock screen. Yes folks, I am the singularity." @noaspivack
FEED ME, SEYMOUR: Comments? Questions? Tips? Shoot mail to Trent or Woody. Follow @gegax or @woodyleonhard.
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