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Google has adopted the Facebook Home strategy. Facebook took its normal Android app and grafted an app launcher onto it—it replaced the Android home screen with something that revolved around Facebook. The wallpaper became images and status updates from your friends, and Facebook notifications were given top billing. Everything was designed to get you to use Facebook as much as possible. With KitKat, Google is working toward a similar idea. Google took its search app and gave it wallpapers, a home screen, and an app drawer, and now it's the first thing you see when you unlock a Nexus 5.

After a million and one leaks, the Nexus 5 has finally been announced. There aren't too many surprises on the hardware front: the device packs a 4.95-inch 1080p IPS LCD, a 2.26GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, and a 2300 mAh battery. The Nexus 5 is made by LG and internally seems very similar to the G2 (aside from a smaller battery and camera). Most importantly, the Nexus 5 ships with a new version of Android KitKat, version 4.4. KitKat brings across-the-board memory improvements, a new full-screen mode, a smart dialer, and a refreshed home screen experience.

RT @Techmeme: Best Buy promotes price-matching in a move to embrace showrooming (@drewfitzgerald)

RT @Techmeme: Best Buy promotes price-matching in a move to embrace showrooming (@drewfitzgerald)

RT @dangillmor: The idiocy of Daylight Savings Time and what we should do about it:

RT @Techmeme: BlackBerry-Fairfax deal dies; Thorsten Heins out (@boyderman / Globe and Mail)

RT @Techmeme: BlackBerry-Fairfax deal dies; Thorsten Heins out (@boyderman / Globe and Mail)

Within three days of going on sale, the iPad Air accounts for 0.75 percent of active devices as compared to 0.21 percent iPad minis and 0.15 percent iPad 4s in the corresponding period last year. One point that, however, might make this comparison unfair is that last year, the cellular iPad variants weren’t available from day-one of launch.

The organizers say that DarkMail will be available as an add-on or an option to existing e-mail providers—so Gmail could use it if Google chose to participate. The service is meant to incorporate a lot of high-end security features in a way that's not noticeable to regular users, like end-to-end encryption and perfect forward secrecy. The organizers have not released any technical details as of yet, but they promised that their setup would be open-source.

And the idea that someone could just release into the wild a multi-platform multi-motherboard highly resistant BIOS because of UEFI only exposes epic ignorance of what UEFI is. UEFI is NOT A DAMN PORTABLE EXECUTABLE SYSTEM. It is about PORTABLE CODE, and even that is fundamentally broken – Intel Tiano code will not run on Phoenix SecureCore will not run on Aptio V will not run on InsydeH2O without modifications. The end. Period. Actually running the code means building it against your target platform – the same as portable C. (Hey, funny how UEFI which uses C behaves just like portable C code, isn’t it? Siiiiiiigh.)

Some Helpouts charge nothing for their time; for example, the “Cooking” section of the Website already features a handful of chefs willing to talk users through baking, broiling, slicing and dicing for free. A few vendors in the Computers & Electronics section, by contrast, charge $2 per minute or even $200 per Hangout session for advice on WordPress setup, Website design, and more.

Unfortunately for Everpix, they went out to raise money in the midst of what has become known as “the series A crunch.” The number of initial (or "seed") investments has increased dramatically in the past few years, while series A investments have plateaued. Many investors remain willing to write a $100,000 check to see if a startup becomes an overnight success. But when it comes time to write a $1 million check, or a $5 million check, they have become much more selective.

In fact, it’s been famously written by Chris Dixon, now a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, that 10 million users is the new 1 million users. I’ve previously written that Mobile Startups are Failing Like It’s 1999, due to the long launch cycles that the Apple Store encourages. I’ve also written about mobile getting harder and not easier over time.

The new fiber network would offer free Internet access of 2Mbps to 5Mbps (possibly subsidized by advertising) and paid tiers of up to a gigabit. The fiber network would also power Wi-Fi hotspots in public areas.

KitKat-powered devices will dip into Google Places and Google Apps to present users with the ability to search for nearby contacts, while the phone will show a name and image for businesses/colleagues that call, and those who you call out to.

The very last line of Apple’s report today states “Apple has never received an order under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. We would expect to challenge such an order if served on us.” The cleverness of this becomes evident when you realize that if it had received such an order, it could not disclose it under current rules surrounding national security orders for user data. This tactic of announcing ‘nothing’ with regards to a government subpoena for data is known as a kind of ‘warrant canary’. Basically, Apple says that at this point it has not received any such order. But, if that phrase stops appearing in future transparency reports, this acts as a ‘canary in a coal mine‘ that indicates to users that it may have been forced to comply with such an order and not disclose it in the future. Civil Liberties attorney Matt Cagle notes that Lookout Security has also recently stated they’ve never received a national security order for user data. This tactic was used by offsite backup company Rsync in what is believed to be the first commercial company application. While Apple’s specific application differs from that of an ISP or pure data provider, it shares the ‘silent alarm’ characteristics.

That’s because Pro Populi downloaded the database through the CrunchBase API, a digital interface that allows anyone access to the data. Buried in the terms-of-service for the CrunchBase API is this caveat: AOL “reserves the right to continually review and evaluate all uses of the API, including those that appear more competitive than complementary in nature.” And AOL “reserves the right in its sole discretion (for any reason or for no reason) and at anytime without notice to You to … terminate your rights” to use “any CrunchBase content.”

While Android’s market share is down slightly Samsung’s is up. September data show Android with 51.8 percent of the smartphone market to Apple’s 40.6 percent. Microsoft also gained slightly, perhaps at Android’s expense, as the clear “third platform” now.

Two of the senior designers working on Google Maps told the Roadmap 2013 conference in San Francisco on Tuesday that maps are just a “canvas for the stuff we know about the world,” and the search and web-content giant is trying to build as much knowledge into its maps as possible. Soon, they said, every map will be customized for a specific person and a specific location — and the more context it has about you, the more useful it can be.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has narrowed its list of external candidates to replace Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to about five people, including Ford Motor Co chief Alan Mulally and former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, according to sources familiar with the matter. The world's largest software maker also has at least three internal candidates on its shortlist, including former Skype CEO Tony Bates, who is now responsible for Microsoft's business development, and Satya Nadella, the company's cloud and enterprise chief, the sources said.

We designed this system to keep criminals out . There's no ambiguity here. The warrant system with skeptical judges, paths for appeal, and rules of evidence was built from centuries of hard won experience. When it works, it represents as good a balance as we've got between the need to restrain the state and the need to keep crime in check. Bypassing that system is illegal for a good reason .

I've spent the last ten years of my life trying to keep Google's users safe and secure from the many diverse threats Google faces. I've seen armies of machines DOS-ing Google. I've seen worms DOS'ing Google to find vulnerabilities in other people's software. I've seen criminal gangs figure out malware. I've seen spyware masquerading as toolbars so thick it breaks computers because it interferes with the other spyware. I've even seen oppressive governments use state sponsored hacking to target dissidents. But even though we suspected this was happening, it still makes me terribly sad. It makes me sad because I believe in America.

As noted in IHS iSuppli's component cost analysis released earlier today, the iPad Air now uses just 36 LEDs to light its display, down from as many as 84 in previous generations. Apple has also reduced the thickness of the display assembly, and so it appears that the display is indeed one of the areas where Apple has been able to make the most improvement on size and weight, both in the components themselves and in the battery capacity needed to drive them. In a new analysis comparing the iPad Air's display to that of the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 and the Google Nexus 10, Ray Soneira of DisplayMate Technologies confirms that Apple has indeed changed display technologies in the iPad Air, moving to indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) semiconductor materials from the amorphous silicon (a-Si) compounds used in previous iPads. While rumors of Apple moving to IGZO for the iPad and other products have circulated for several years, Sharp has experienced difficulties ramping up production and it has taken until now for Apple to bring the technology to its products.

With very little effort, we have already recovered an awful lot of information about the breached passwords, including: identifying the top five passwords precisely, plus the 2.75% of users who chose them; and determining the exact password length of nearly one third of the database.

Knock uses a combination of an iPhone app (currently offered at an introductory price of $3.99) and a Mac app (available for free at Knock’s website) to enable unlocking of your Mac, wirelessly, by just knocking the back of your iPhone. (Leo's pick for 11/12)

Leo's app cap for 11/7