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"What's the news?" - October

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Microsoft's Band Strives to Watch You More Closely. There are so many fitness bands and smartwatches on the market that the intrepid consumer could cover both arms with them, leaving a little room for next year’s Apple Watch.

Microsoft's Band Strives to Watch You More Closely

Microsoft (MSFT) is betting that its Band, on sale today, will be able to distinguish itself by digging deeper into users’ devices and apps to suck up data on their fitness, sleep, and general health habits. Then its companion app, Health, predicts future issues and serves as a free source of advice. Microsoft Band works with Android, iPhone too. Windows Phone fitness tracker packs a range of features including a color touchscreen, heart rate tracker and GPS.

Microsoft Band works with Android, iPhone too

Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system has largely missed out on the smartwatch and fitness tracker fun, but with the new Microsoft Band it's finally in the game. And what's more, the Band actually works with more than just Windows-based mobiles: it syncs with your iPhone or Android phone too. In terms of features, the Microsoft Band covers the field. It has common fitness tracker features like step tracking and more premium features such as GPS and a heart rate monitor. Microsoft Band Hands-On: An Activity Tracker That's Actually Smart. Demystifying the MOOC. When massive open online courses first grabbed the spotlight in 2011, many saw in them promise of a revolutionary force that would disrupt traditional higher education by expanding access and reducing costs.

Demystifying the MOOC

The hope was that MOOCs — classes from elite universities, most of them free, in some cases enrolling hundreds of thousands of students each — would make it possible for anyone to acquire an education, from a villager in Turkey to a college dropout in the United States. Taco Bell unveils mobile ordering. Food used to be what drove folks into restaurants.

Taco Bell unveils mobile ordering

But these days, it's also increasingly the technology behind it. That's why two major restaurant chains, Taco Bell and Outback Steakhouse, made marketing waves on Tuesday, not with new product rollouts, but with industry-leading technology announcements. Taco Bell went way outside the bun to unveil an advanced mobile app that lets folks order and pay on their smartphones and then walk or drive in and pick up their food. The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed. A contractor at the Manila office of TaskUs, a firm that provides content moderation services to U.S. tech companies.

The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed

Moises Saman/Magnum. Google Express shopping service grows: new cities, partners and Prime-style s... Google started experimenting with same-day deliveries early last year, but now it's getting serious.

Google Express shopping service grows: new cities, partners and Prime-style s...

Google Express (shortened from Google Shopping Express) is expanding its service areas from just the Bay Area, parts of NYC and Los Angeles -- now it's shipping goods from local merchants to their customers in Chicago, Washington D.C. and Boston. There's a slew of new retailers on board including Barnes & Noble, PetSmart and Sports Authority, and in the Bay Area it's added alcohol and fresh foods to the delivery menu. Welcome to Forbes. Apple Pay Is Disabled by Rite Aid and CVS as a Rival Makes Plans.

Apple Pay, the Silicon Valley giant’s highly anticipated mobile wallet, has been available for only one week but already may be inciting a battle within the payments industry.

Apple Pay Is Disabled by Rite Aid and CVS as a Rival Makes Plans

The spirit of experimentation and the evolution of your home timeline. As we’ve shared a few times, we constantly try new experiments around here, which serve to inform the evolution of the product.

The spirit of experimentation and the evolution of your home timeline

We believe that each successful experiment, big or small, can make your Twitter experience simpler and more relevant to you. One of our goals for experimentation is to continue improving your home timeline. Free shipping is going to cost you more. Free shipping is getting more expensive.

Free shipping is going to cost you more

Retailers including Amazon.com Inc., Best Buy Co. and Gap Inc. are boosting the amount online shoppers must spend to qualify for free shipping, hoping to cover the growing cost of providing the perk. Starbucks Will Test Pre-Order App at 150 Portland Stores This Year. This Is What Snapchat's First Ad Looks Like. Coca-Cola Profit Declines 14%, Future Growth Plan Fails To Impress. Digital Medicine? High-Tech Health Care On the Way. Disruption in health care seems to have been a long time coming.

Digital Medicine? High-Tech Health Care On the Way

Whether it's cutting down wait times or revamping outdated IT systems, the sector is innovating, fast. Apple Pay launches today - Oct. 20, 2014. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) The new mobile payments system for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will be up and running this afternoon following the release of a software update for Apple's iOS mobile operating system. CBS to Offer Stand-Alone Web Subscription Service. CBS announced a new subscription Internet streaming service on Thursday that allows people to watch its live television programming and thousands of its current and past shows on demand without paying for a traditional TV subscription.

The new “CBS All Access” service, costing $5.99 a month, is the first time that a traditional broadcaster will make a near-continuous live feed of its local stations available over the web to non-pay-TV subscribers. At its start, the live stream will be available in 14 markets in the United States. CBS’s announcement comes a day after HBO said it would start an Internet-only offering that would not require a traditional television subscription. Cloud Computing Is Forcing a Reconsideration of Intellectual Property. Photo Almost overnight, our technology revolution is shaking up entire industries and remaking society. Don’t get caught up in the small stuff, though: Tech really is changing how we think about our ideas. We’ve used ideas to sculpt the globe since the Industrial Revolution, thanks largely to the way we handle intellectual property. When machines, and machines to make identical machines, mass-produced reliably identical goods, it was because people understood the same set of instructions.

Mass-produced books, music and movies were possible, too. Google Launches "Same-day Delivery" Subscription Service for $95/year. Google Express offers same-day and overnight delivery options What once was known as Google Shopping Express now has a new name: Google Express. The service provides same-day (or next day) delivery of everyday items from stores in your area. In addition to the name change, Google is also providing a yearly membership for heavy users of Google Express.

Chip-makers are betting that Moore’s Law won’t matter in the internet of things. For five decades, computing has followed one inexorable trend: that processors will double in power every 18 months. Ever since the Intel co-founder Gordon Moore first articulated this thought in a 1965 paper (pdf), pointing out that the number of transistors on every chip was multiplying, it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with chip-fabricators racing to make processors ever smaller, faster, and cheaper.

Nearly 50 years since Moore published his paper, however, the foundational trend of modern computing appears to be plateauing. HBO to Launch Stand-Alone Streaming Service - WSJ - WSJ. Now on Sale: A Gadget to Fix Your Bent iPhone 6. Twitter users in France can now tweet money. F.B.I. Director Calls ‘Dark’ Devices a Hindrance to Crime Solving - NYTimes.com. Facebook Versus Twitter In Numbers [Infographic] Mysterious Clowns Terrorizing California City. There's no Moore's law for batteries.

Don't Listen to Snapchat's Excuses. Security Is Its Job. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel poses for photos in Los Angeles on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013. Snapchat Hacked: 'The Snappening' Three Ways to Use Cloud as a Service. KualiCo Acquires rSmart SaaS Business and Expands Team to Drive Development and Adoption of Cloud-Based Products for Higher Ed Administration. This article was originally distributed via PRWeb. Easyjet now lets you check in using a photo of your passport. Nike Rebounds: How (and Why) Nike Recovered from Its Supply Chain Disaster.

Pay TV’s New Worry: ‘Shaving’ the Cord. Snaps are allegedly leaking from third party Snapchat service Snapsaved. Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images. Snapchat Hacked: 'The Snappening' Report: Amazon to open retail store in NYC. Wearable Technology That Feels Like Skin. Walmart's Drive-Through Grocery Concept Is A Head Scratcher.

Facebook's Data Now Available For Advertisers To Use Across Apps. Amazon’s Tax Deal in Luxembourg Is Latest Target of E.U. Inquiries. Big Tech pledges student privacy; critics scoff - Stephanie Simon. Facebook Opens Its Mobile Ad “Audience Network” To All Advertisers And Apps. Amazon Fire Phone review: setting nothing ablaze. Amazon will battle the FTC over kids’ in-app purchases, rejecting a Google-st... Bezos helps Washington Post go national with Kindle app. Silicon Valley giant Hewlett-Packard to split in two: WSJ. Amazon Picks Up ‘Hand Of God’ & ‘Red Oaks’ To Series, Orders More Scripts Of ‘The Cosmopolitans’ Which states make you pay an Amazon sales tax. Ello and Academic Social Networks.

CI's MVS School of Business and Economics announces Fall 2014 Speaker Series - News Releases - CSU Channel Islands. Business Grads Lag Other Majors in Work Interest. Everything You Need to Know (and Fear) About Facebook’s New Ad Network, Atlas. Use Porter's Five Forces to Widen Your View on Competitive Forces. Pepsi to launch naturally sweetened soda on Amazon, bypassing stores.