10 Things In Tech You Need To Know This Morning

ScreenshotMahbod Moghadam.

Good morning! Light rain is expected in the late afternoon. Otherwise, it's a pretty warm one here in New York City. Here's what happened over the long weekend:

1. Rap Genius fired its co-founder, Mahbod Moghadam. He made inane comments using RapGenius to annotate the manifesto of the California shooter. This wasn't the first time he's opened his mouth to say something silly, but it was the worst.

2. Apple will reportedly unveil a new platform for creating a smart, connected house through your iPhone. It won't have its own hardware, it will enable other companies to make accessories.

3. New York Times media writer David Carr checks in on Evan Williams' blogging platform, Medium. Not much new here, but after struggling to define Medium in its early days, Williams seems to have a good idea about what he's doing now. It seems to be gaining momentum.

4. Google subsidiary Nest is thinking about doing home security next. As part of that, it has talked about buying Dropcam, a company that records your home and uploads it to the internet allowing you to access security footage anywhere.

5. Here's a story on Erin McElroy, one of the women at the heart of San Francisco's anti-gentrification protests. The arguments are more nuanced than you may think.

6. iPhones in Australia are being remotely hacked, then held hostage by the hackers until people pay a ransom through PayPal.

7. Don't feel like typing words to send a friend a message? Then send a sticker, which is popular on Line, a Japanese messaging app.

8. Steve Ballmer met with Shelly Sterling, who is selling the Clippers. Ballmer has long wanted an NBA team.

9. Bill Gates has slowed his contributions to the Gates Foundation because the foundation has too much cash. It's hard to give away all that money.

10. Here's an interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher about Apple, Yahoo, Google, and their new website, Re/code.