October 30, 2013 06:00 PDT | 09:00 EDT | 13:00 UTC
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>> APPLE SCORES AGAIN: The iPad Air review, by Anand Lal Shimpi: "A significant re-imagining of the original 9.7-inch iPad, the Air breathes new life into the platform... I don't know that it will curb enthusiasm over the iPad mini, particularly now that the new mini shares the same hardware platform (including display), but it levels the playing field between the two models... it's smaller, lighter and faster with absolutely no tradeoffs made in the process. The iPad Air feels like a true successor to the iPad 2." AnandTech
>>>> The iPad Air: "In exactly three years, Apple has produced an iPad that outperforms a then-brand-new MacBook." Daring Fireball
>>>> What the reviews say about the iPad Air: "If you were on the fence about buying Apple's latest large screen tablet before, you won't be after reading the reviews, which are unanimous in their praise." GigaOM
>>>> Mossberg: "It is the best tablet I've ever reviewed" AllThingsD
>> ANDROID FIGHTS BACK: Lenovo Yoga tablets hands-on: 3 modes, 18-hour battery, from $249, by Daniel P Howley: "The Surface isn't the only tablet with a built-in stand. Say hello to Lenovo's new Android-powered Yoga Tablets. On sale Oct. 30, these tablets come in an 8-inch version ($249 at Best Buy) and a 10-inch flavor ($299 at most major retailers). While these slates sport mid-range specs-quad-core MediaTek CPUs, 1GB RAM, 1280 x 800 displays-they literally stand out with built-in kickstands that support three use modes and a rated 18 hours of battery life." Laptop Mag
>>>> Lenovo claims battery life crown with new Yoga tablets InfoWorld
>>>> Hands on with the Lenovo Yoga Tablet: lopsided design and 18 hour runtime Ars Technica
>> WASHINGTON WIRE: Senate confirms Wheeler to lead FCC, by Brendan Sasso: "The Senate unanimously confirmed Tom Wheeler, an investor and former industry lobbyist, to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday. The vote was delayed for two weeks by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who expressed concern about Wheeler's views on political disclosure rules. Cruz lifted his objection after Wheeler assured him in a private meeting Tuesday that tougher disclosure requirements for the donors behind political TV ads are 'not a priority' for him." The Hill
>> CALLING OFF THE DOGS: Obama orders curbs on NSA spying on U.N. headquarters, by Mark Hosenball: "Obama recently ordered the National Security Agency to curtail eavesdropping on the United Nations headquarters in New York as part of a review of U.S. electronic surveillance" Reuters
>>>> Lawmakers propose USA Freedom Act to curb NSA's powers The Hill
>>>> Legislation unveiled to bar NSA's bulk phone metadata collection Wired
>> MONEY SHOT: Man buys $27 of bitcoin, forgets about them, finds they're now worth $886K, by Samuel Gibbs: "Kristoffer Koch invested 150 kroner ($26.60) in 5,000 bitcoins in 2009, after discovering them during the course of writing a thesis on encryption. He promptly forgot about them until widespread media coverage of the anonymous, decentralised, peer-to-peer digital currencyin April 2013 jogged his memory.... Bitcoins are stored in encrypted wallets secured with a private key, something Koch had forgotten. After eventually working out what the password could be, Koch got a pleasant surprise: "It said I had 5,000 bitcoins in there. Measuring that in today's rates it's about NOK5m ($886,000)," Koch told NRK." The Guardian
>> ATTACK O' THE DAY: MongoDB support firm says intruders may have accessed databases, by Jeremy Kirk: "MongoHQ, which provides hosting and support for the open-source Mongo database, said attackers may have accessed several of its customers' databases earlier this week... contains connection information for customer MongoDB instances, along with lists of databases, email addresses, and user credentials hashed with bcrypt... The company invalidated credentials such as IAM keys it stored for customers using Amazon Web Services for backups. MongoHQ has notified AWS of the accounts that may have been affected, and AWS is offering Premium Support for organizations that need new credentials" PCWorld
>> LOCAL BIG DATA: Cloudera positions Hadoop as an enterprise data hub, by Joab Jackson: "Cloudera has expanded the scope of its software so that it can serve as a hub for all of an organization's data, not just data undergoing Hadoop MapReduce analysis. Some of Cloudera's enterprise customers have 'started to use our platform in a new way, as the center of their data centers,' said Mike Olson, Cloudera's chairman and chief strategy officer. 'We think this is a very big deal. It will change the way the industry thinks about data,' " InfoWorld
>> FRENEMIES: Exclusive: Intel opens fabs to ARM chips, by Jean-Baptiste: "At the ARM developers' conference today, Intel partner Altera announced that the world's largest semiconductor company will fabricate its ARM's 64-bit chips starting next year... Intel will build Apple's A7, Qualcomm's Snapdragon or the Nvidia Tegra for the right price." [These are the chips used by most smartphones and tablets.] Forbes
>>>> The chip times are a-changin': "Mark LaPedus at Chip Design reported on the agreement with Intel back in February" InfoWorld
>> RICKROLL: Top reviewers on Amazon get tons of free stuff, by Lisa Chow: "You're on Amazon.com. You're buying, say, a toaster, and you're checking out the customer reviews. You assume the people writing these reviews are people like you -- people who wanted a toaster, went online and bought one. As it turns out, a lot of reviews on Amazon are written by people who are nothing like you. They're written by elite reviewers who are sent free merchandise to review products. In other words, it's possible that the guy reviewing that toaster you're looking at wasn't in the market for a toaster to begin with and didn't pay a cent for it." NPR Planet Money
>> Apple claim that iCloud can store passwords 'only locally' seems to be false Ars Technica
>> Twitter rolls out expanded previews for photos and Vines on the Web, Android and iOS TNW
>> Microsoft partners with Corona Labs to attract more Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 apps ZDNet
>> BlackBerry met with Facebook last week on potential bid Wall Street Journal (paywalled)
>> Oculus Rift will make virtual reality goggles for Android phones Gizmodo
>> Barnes & Noble's Nook GlowLight is lighter, brighter, whiter, with less Simple Touch for $119 Engadget
>> Mozilla releases 10 patches, five critical, for Firefox PCWorld
>> Google+ brings massive upgrades for its most loyal users: photographers VentureBeat
>> The ultimate guide to preventing DNS-based DDoS attacks InfoWorld
>> SAP draws fire from noisy neighbor IFS over HANA: "We can beat SAP in a straight fight for business" says IFS Computerworld UK
>> Australia's National Broadband Network posts loss of nearly $1B in past year ARN
>> AWS updates big data analytics platform with new support for Hadoop and its ecosystem TechCrunch
>> Python is the only programming language in LinkedIn's 2013 Most Demanded Skills LinkedIn (t/h Hacker News)
>> Google shows off second gen Google Glass w/ mono earbud coming later this year 9to5Google
>> TWEET O' THE DAY: "Self-destructing food packaging. Reaction yields in 3 formats: 1) Flower seeds 2) Vapor that smells like chocolate 3) A rainbow." @BoredElonMusk
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