Daily Links for Thursday, February 18, 2016:

Scribd waits until Valentine’s Day has passed, then breaks romance readers hearts (LA Times) – Interesting take on the Scribd situation.

Neverware turns your old PC or Mac into a Chromebook, adds dual-booting (9 to 5 Google) – So, who has an old netbook just waiting to be resurrected?

When phone verification and recycled numbers collide, Lyft leaks user data (Ars Technica) – Wasn’t the phone identification supposed to make things safer?

Appeals court says Apple’s settlement in e-book price-fixing case can stand (Ars Technica) –  No surprises here….

Why are some of the ugliest sites on the Web also the most popular? (The Next Web) –  A look at websites that look like they belong back in the 1990s and why they are so popular.

Hospital pays $17K ransom to get back access to encrypted files (Computer World) – In an update to this story from a few days ago, the hospital has paid up.

Flexible smartphones may be coming sooner than you think (Engadget) – Is five years soon enough?

The 227-Year-Old Statute Being Used to Order Apple to Endanger Your Privacy, Explained  (Gizmodo) – The irony of this is overwhelming….

Deals of the Day:

Amazon’s Kindle Daily Deal includes Neil Gaiman’s Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances for $1.99.

The Barnes and Noble Nook Daily Find is Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinsonfor $2.99. The Romance Daily Find is #scandal by Sarah Ockler for $1.99 (clever title!).

Kobo’s Daily Deal is Chasing Darkness: An Elvis Cole Novel by Robert Crais for $1.99.

iTunes’ Weekly Bestsellers Under $4 includes The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan for $2.99.

(A note on Daily Deals: All prices current at the time of posting and subject to change. Most items marked Daily Deals are good for only the day posted.

Many large promotions have discount pricing that is set by the publisher. This usually means that titles can be found at a discount price across most platforms (with iTunes sometimes being the exception). If you have a favorite retailer you like to patronize, check the title on that website. There is a good chance that they will be matching the sale price.)

Daily Links are interesting links I discover as I go about my online day. The frequency and number of links posted depend upon the daily news. I also post other, different links of interest on Twitter and on the Google Plus eBook Evangelist Page.