Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth has articles for your weekend reading

f You Were Apple, You'd Ignore Low-End Smartphones, Too

when you look at smartphone revenues and profits, there appears to be no upside for Apple in chasing the low end.

430 million units of low-end smartphone sales have resulted in very little profit for anyone but possibly Samsung.

Apple earned far more profit than everyone else -- including Samsung -- despite the competition releasing a flurry of seriously good smartphones. The competition has never been stronger.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/79998.html




Advertisers Are Cranky Because Apple Protects Our Privacy

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/advertisers-are-cranky-because-apple-protects-our-privacy




Advertisers Not Thrilled With Apple’s Practice Of Protecting Its Users’ Data

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/18/advertisers-not-thrilled-with-apples-practice-of-protecting-its-users-data/




That makes Madison Avenue very mad, according to a new AdAge article

http://adage.com/article/digital/amazon-apple-catch-a-break-madison-ave/291724/




Apple Is Already Building Its Next Massive Business And No One Seems To Have Noticed
Apple is building a national shopping infrastructure.

Apple is building a mobile retail marketing infrastructure across the U.S. It's called iBeacon.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ecommerce-and-mobile-payments-plans-2014-2




The Smartphone App Wars Are Over, and Apple Won

http://techland.time.com/2014/02/21/ios-vs-android-2/




Apple releases iOS 7.0.6 with security connection fix

http://www.zdnet.com/apple-releases-ios-7-0-6-with-security-connection-fix-7000026617/




U.S. Air Force deploys 5,000 Apple iOS devices to replace BlackBerrys ahead of phaseout

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/02/21/us-air-force-deploys-5000-apple-ios-devices-to-replace-blackberrys-ahead-of-phaseout




MIT lists the 50 smartest companies (and Apple isn’t among them)

http://bgr.com/2014/02/19/50-smartest-companies-mit-apple/




10 iOS Business Programs Topping Apple's App Store

http://www.eweek.com/mobile/slideshows/10-ios-business-programs-topping-apples-app-store.html




When You Fall in Love, This Is What Facebook Sees

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/02/when-you-fall-in-love-this-is-what-facebook-sees/283865/




When You Fall Out of Love, This Is What Facebook Sees

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/when-you-fall-out-of-love-this-is-what-facebook-sees/283902/




Undeterred by a court decision earlier this year, the FCC is redoubling its efforts to defend net neutrality, to stop broadband providers like Verizon from favoring one kind of Internet traffic over another.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/frank-underwood-has-a-fan-at-the-fcc-2014-02-19




How the Feds Can Take Even Legally Earned Bitcoins

If you are paid in cash for mowing the lawn of a notorious drug dealer, the money is yours to keep even if the dealer obtained it illegally. But if the dealer pays you in Bitcoins, the government may seize them from you someday when you least expect it.

This is Bitcoin’s nemo dat quod non habet problem, that being Latin for an old principle of English common law: “No one gives what he does not have.” If the drug lord didn’t legitimately own the Bitcoins in question because he got them via crime, then he can’t legitimately give them to you. You must give them up even if you’re not at fault. The same principle is at play when certain unwitting art buyers are forced to surrender works that were seized by the Nazis in World War II.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-18/how-the-feds-can-take-even-legally-earned-bitcoin




There is certainly a possibility that bitcoin gets truly destroyed by pirates or by a better, future digital crypto-currency. But as more and more merchants and their customers simply start using bitcoin to instantly transfer wealth to each other and make payments and as all the services and applications and developers that are right now at work to make that transfer of wealth even easier using bitcoin - well, there's also the possibility that bitcoin holds its value because it is such a good means of exchanging value that the self-fulfilling cycles are commencing in front of our eyes.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/cody/2014/02/21/know-the-difference-between-bitcoin-gamblers-investors-and-merchants/




Why Facebook Bought WhatsApp In One Chart

WhatsApp message volume growth is still accelerating. Has probably now overtaken SMS.

http://www.businessinsider.com/whatsapp-growth-2014-2




A Bunch Of People Say They Are Ditching WhatsApp Now That Facebook Is Buying It

http://www.businessinsider.com/tweets-about-deleting-whatsapp-2014-2




Why would Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pay $16 billion for WhatsApp? Because, at a time when fewer people actually talk on the phone or send emails, experts say messaging is becoming a dominant mode of human communication.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/talk-is-dead-long-live-whatsapp-2014-02-20




Google was reportedly willing to outbid Facebook for WhatsApp

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2014/02/20/google-was-reportedly-willing-to-outbid-facebook-for-whatsapp/




Facebook and WhatsApp: The worst deal since Bank of America bought Countrywide

it looks to me like a very bad deal.
this move makes Facebook appear desperate. I consider this deal to be a defining moment in Mark Zuckerberg's tenure at Facebook.

Facebook is not a buy, sell, short, or hold. Until such time as Facebook tests longer term support or resistance again, it is a stock to avoid.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-paid-too-much-for-whatsapp-2014-02-21




Everyone Who Thinks Facebook Is Stupid To Buy WhatsApp For $19 Billion Should Think Again 

Is WhatsApp really worth $19 billion?  The short answer is: No one knows.

Is WhatsApp was worth $19 billion to Facebook?  I think the answer is yes.

The bottom line:  This is a very bold move.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-facebook-buying-whatsapp-2014-2




In Korea, they punish banks for ID theft
Companies held responsible when customers' data stolen

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/in-korea-they-punish-banks-for-id-theft-2014-02-17




Reporting From the Web's Underbelly

"The work that he's done exposing Eastern European hackers has been seminal," said Tom Kellermann, vice president for cybersecurity at Trend Micro, a computer security company. "But Brian needs a bodyguard."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/technology/reporting-from-the-webs-underbelly.html

http://krebsonsecurity.com/




How Target Managed an Historic Data Breach

http://live.wsj.com/video/how-target-managed-an-historic-data-breach-2014-02-18/8043B3F3-E0EE-4C78-B748-5156C4957F9B.html#!8043B3F3-E0EE-4C78-B748-5156C4957F9B



the Neiman Marcus breach is almost certainly not the work of the same hackers who stole 40 million credit card numbers from Target, said Aviv Raff, an Internet-security expert.

The hackers moved unnoticed in the company's computers for more than eight months, sometimes tripping hundreds of alerts daily because their card-stealing software was deleted automatically each day from the Dallas-based retailer's payment registers and had to be constantly reloaded. Card data were taken from July through October.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-21/neiman-marcus-hackers-set-off-60-000-alerts-while-bagging-credit-card-data