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By Jordan Valinsky 5/17 9:00am

Linkages

Mr. Cook (Photo: News.au)

Booting Up: Foxconn Employees Still Have it Pretty Terrible

Apple CEO Tim Cook is preparing for his upcoming Congress appearance about corporate tax code by promising a “dramatic simplification” of the ancient laws. [Washington Post]

It’s been a year since Facebook’s IPO. So let’s celebrate it with a ~one year later~ reflection piece. [WSJ]

Remember when you’re complaining about your long work week, it’s way worse for Foxconn employees. [NYT]

It sounds like the Facebook designers behind News Feed’s redesign were having the chillest of times on the project. They brought in lamps to create a “nice living room” and stared at posters on the wall to keep them motivated. [Taxi]

Ugh, we have some disturbing news: A website that bills itself as “Kickstarter for gigs” has launched in London. [BBC]

By Kelly Faircloth 5/16 7:35am

Linkages

(Photo: NASA)

Booting Up: Microsoft and Google Are In a Tiff Over YouTube

Microsoft recently updated its YouTube app for Windows Phones, but Google isn’t too pleased with the results–going so far as to send a cease and desist. That’s because Microsoft built in features allowing users to block ads. [The Verge]

A spokesman said they’d be “more than happy to include advertising but need Google to provide us access to the necessary APIs.” [The Verge]

“Reading is an activity more likely to be on screen than on the printed page.” So there’s that. [BBC]

Car-sharing service Relay Rides has gotten the ax (locally at least) from the New York State’s Department of Financial Services, who said their insurance is “illegal and inadequate.” [PandoDaily]

Looks like, after technical problems, NASA’s other-Earth-seeking Kepler Telescope is powering down. [Popular Science]

“Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99.” That’s the kind of email that, even if you are Steve Jobs, lands you in hot water with antitrust enforcers. [AllThingsD]

By Jordan Valinsky 5/15 8:59am

Linkages

So natural to use. (Photo: Verge/PayPal)

Booting Up: Google Might Roll Out a Spotify Competitor Today

PayPal is dropping processing charges for users of its mobile payment platform in an attempt to better take on Square and Groupon. [Verge]

Google is expected to debut a competitor to Spotify later today. Which one of you asked for this? [New York Times]

This is happening: “Boost VC is launching a fund of at least $300,000, called the Boost Bitcoin Fund to invest in Bitcoin startups.” [Forbes]

Airware, a company that creates the insides of unmanned drones, is now freshly funded. Andreessen Horowitz just pumped a $10.7 million Series A funding into it. [TechCrunch]

A Blackberry BBM app is coming to iPhone and Android phones this summer if you still remember your pins. [BGR]

By Kelly Faircloth 5/14 7:59am

Linkages

482px-Nick_D’Aloisio,_Founder,_Summly_@_LeWeb_London_2012_Central_Hall_Westminster-1238

Booting Up: You Can’t Use Square to Sell Guns Any More

The crooner Bing Crosby might’ve been a total dick, but it turns out he was a pretty smart angel investor. Guess the Biebs isn’t so special, after all! [New Yorker]

“They became a virtual criminal flash mob, going from machine to machine, drawing as much money as they could, before these accounts were shut down.” Don’t look now but someone lived out your wildest ATM-related dreams. [The Verge]

If you’re going to I/O, keep your eyes peeled for all the sensors tracking air quality, noise levels and lord knows what else. [TechCrunch]

Square’s TOS was recently updated to add that you can’t sell “firearms, firearm parts or hardware, and ammunition; or… weapons and other devices designed to cause physical injury” using the service. Guess you’re gonna have to start bringing duffle bags full of cash to the gun show again. [CNN Money]

Aereo launches in Atlanta June 17. [Aereo]

By Jordan Valinsky 5/13 8:51am

Linkages

Mr. Costolo (Photo: About.me)

Booting Up: Dick Costolo Resigns as Director of Twitter U.K.

Last week, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo reportedly quit as director of the company’s U.K. arm. The news comes just days after government regulators forced TweetDeck to dissolve following accounting issues. [Sky News]

Bloomberg is apologizing to its clients after allegations that reporters snooped on client terminals to see their Seamless orders or whatever. [CNN Money]

JackThreads’ recent push into international waters, like Australia and the U.K., is doing well for the company’s bottom line as sales overseas now make up 10 percent of its business. [AllThingsD]

Facebook Home is missing features that Android users love (widgets, docks, oh my!) because all of the developers use iPhones. The lack of “droidfooding” is causing them to scramble to add those features to turn around Home’s slow downloads. [TechCrunch]

Here’s a groovy map that shows you where in the world Wikipedia is being edited right now. [Ars Technica]

Elon Musk and David Sacks have left Mark Zuckerberg’s political action group over growing concerns over the support of certain politicians. [AllThingsD]

By Jessica Roy 5/10 8:51am

Linkages

(Photo: Ynaija)

Booting Up: All the Cool Kids Aren’t Getting Twitter Verified

President Obama issued a mandate yesterday ordering government agencies to make their data “open and machine-readable.” Perhaps soon you’ll have a machine to read Betabeat for you. [Ars Technica]

The U.S. government has been buying up cyberweapons that rely on software holes in widely used programs to attack computers overseas, but that means it doesn’t want everyday consumers to know about their own computers’ vulnerabilities.  [Reuters]

The International Space Station was using Windows up until now, apparently, which seems ill-advised? They’ve finally switched to Linux. [Extreme Tech]

Oh, you got verified on Twitter? Whatever, I don’t even want to be. [The Awl]

Cybercriminals stole $45 million from ATMs across the world in a matter of hours, and their ringleader was a 20-something kid from Brooklyn. [New York Times]

Amazon is reportedly building its own smartphone and it’s going to have a 3D screen. [Wall Street Journal]

By Jessica Roy and Kelly Faircloth 5/09 8:00am

Linkages

Special Instagram-edition. (Photo: flickr.com/diegorusso

Booting Up: Now Rumors Have Facebook Thinking of Buying Waze

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer earned $68.6 million last year. Think about that while you’re scraping together change to refill your metrocard. [Bloomberg]

Rumor has it that Facebook is looking into buying mobile map app Waze for up to $1B. Waze really gets around–last we heard it was dating Apple. [TechCrunch]

Microsoft might be mulling a $1 billion purchase of Nook Media LLC, its joint venture with Barnes and Noble. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, guys. [TechCrunch]

Time and Google have teamed up to produce Timelapse, a new package that shows how the Earth’s surface has changed over the last thirty years. (Spoiler: Not for the better, if you like nature.)  [Time]

Can’t patent software in New Zealand any more, sorry. [Forbes]

By Jordan Valinsky 5/08 8:35am

Linkages

Ms. Wong (Photo: Wikipedia)

Booting Up: White House Taps Twitter Legal Director for Chief Privacy Officer

The White House has tapped Twitter’s former legal director Nicole Wong for chief privacy officer, a newly created position. Before joining Twitter six months ago, she was at Google where her nickname was “The Decider.” [ReadWrite]

Yahoo reportedly really really wants out of its search deal with Microsoft because it’s killing the company’s revenue. [WSJ]

Betaworks’ first game, Dots, has racked up 1 million downloads in its first week of release. [TechCrunch]

Syria’s government said it’s working to repair the country’s connection to the Internet. Who is faster with customer service: Syria or Time Warner? [CNN]

In an effort to get more people back into its brick-and-mortar stores, Target is rolling out deals on people’s Facebook News Feeds that you can take to the store and redeem. [AdAge]

By Kelly Faircloth 5/07 8:49am

Linkages

(Photo: Flickr.com/gpaumier)

Booting Up: Facebook Slipped Into the Fortune 500, Somehow

Facebook is now a Fortune 500 company. [USA Today]

We still don’t know the true identity of “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the enigma who created Bitcoin. But we do know that he/she is likely filthy rich. [The Verge]

Checking in with the progress of the city’s tech campuses. [New York Daily News]

“There are many problems with the assumptions behind the “big data” narrative (above, in a reductive form) being pushed, primarily, by consultants and IT firms that want to sell businesses the next big thing.” [Quartz]

Linguists have identified a few words they say have been kicking around, in one form or another, for 15,000 years. It’s a pretty obvious list: “fire,” “mother,” “not.” [Washington Post]

By Kelly Faircloth 5/06 8:27am

Linkages

Bad news, nerds. (screencap)

Booting Up: Saturday Night Live Points Out Google Glass Are Kinda Dorky

Watch Saturday Night Live skewer Google Glass-obsessed tech reporters. [The Verge]

A drone got stuck on a statue on top of a courthouse in Ohio. Welcome to the future! [AP]

“When some future Mars colonist is able to open his browser and watch a cat in a shark suit chasing a duck while riding a roomba, they will have Vint Cerf to thank.” Mmmkay. [Wired]

Betabeat feels obliged to point out that the world’s first 3D-printed gun, the “Liberator,” has the same name as a sex pillow. [Forbes]

The sci fi folk at Tor Books say removing DRM hasn’t put a dent in its ebook sales. [Ars Technica]