Techmeme
July 11, 2012, 2:40 PM

Top News

Amazon Appstore Developer Blog:
Announcing Amazon GameCircle - A New Gaming Experience for Kindle Fire  —  Announcing Amazon GameCircle, a new set of services designed to make it easier for you to create more engaging gaming experiences and grow your business on Kindle Fire.  —  GameCircle will make achievements …
Chris Velazco / TechCrunch:
Amazon Pumps Up Kindle Fire Gaming With GameCircle, Opens APIs To Developers  —  Amazon has just announced a bit of good news for avid Kindle Fire gamers and developers — the company has been working to revamp the gaming experience on their wallet-conscious tablet and have decided to share the fruits of their labor.
Mark Jardine / Tapbots:
Tweetbot for Mac  —  It's finally here! (sort of)  —  Tweetbot for Mac is finally available!  However it may not be quite as you had hoped.  Developing for the Mac is no easy task, especially a full-featured Twitter client.  However, we've gotten to a point where while not complete, it is useable.
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
Tweetbot for Mac: Public Alpha Review  —  Today, Tapbots released the first public alpha of Tweetbot for Mac.  This is not a final review of the app: being in the development stage — albeit ready to be tested by the public — Tweetbot for Mac is still lacking several features that will be available …
Chris Foresman / Ars Technica:
Confirmed: Mountain Lion sends some 64-bit Macs gently into that good night  —  Mountain Lion won't support all 64-bit Macs when it ships in late July.  —  Apple, Inc.  —  Apple has now confirmed via its Mountain Lion upgrade page that previously published limitations on some 64-bit Macs will extend to the final release.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Twitter's Pitch Deck for Big Advertisers (Slides)  —  Twitter's ad business is looking less like an experiment and more like a real business, one that could generate $1 billion a year in the not-too-distant future.  —  If Twitter ads really take off, it will be because CEO Dick Costolo …
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Google's Nexus 7 Costs $152 To Make, IHS iSuppli Teardown Finds  —  Google's Nexus 7 tablet may be all about an attempt to compete with Apple's incredibly popular iPad, but when you crack it open it sure looks an awful lot like Amazon's Kindle Fire inside.  —  That's the impression that analysts …
Lorraine Luk / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon, With Suppliers, Is Testing a Smartphone  —  TAIPEI—Amazon.com Inc. is working with component suppliers in Asia to test a smartphone, people familiar with the situation said, suggesting that the Internet retail giant, which sells the Kindle Fire tablet computers, is considering broadening its mobile-device offerings.
Lauren Barack / Fortune:
Facebook wants to be your online bank  —  The social media giant is quietly supporting new services for banks that want to engage socially with their customers: The decidedly unsocial business of online banking.  —  FORTUNE — Someday soon, Facebook users may pay their utility bills …
Zack Whittaker / ZDNet:
Viacom, DirecTV talks fail; 26 channels go dark  —  Summary: Negotiations between Viacom and DirecTV have failed, forcing 26 channels off DirecTV's airwaves and leaving its customers to pay a 30 percent price hike if they want reconnected service.  —  Zack Whittaker  —  Follow @zackwhittaker
Ryan Kim / GigaOM:
New York starts turning payphones into free Wi-fi hotspots  —  Payphones, those relics of the pre-cellphone era, may just get a new lease on life in New York.  The city is testing a pilot program in which it installs free Wi-Fi on select payphone kiosks.  —  The hotspots are initially coming …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft to reach 44 retail store total by mid-2013  —  Summary: Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner told Worldwide Partner Conference attendees more retail stores are coming, including two outside the U.S., in fiscal 2013.  —  Follow @maryjofoley
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Google Ventures Leads $5M Investment In Virtual Currency Startup Pocket Change  —  Pocket Change, a startup offering a virtual currency platform for Android games, has raised $5 million in a Series A round of funding.  —  Creating a currency platform that works across Android games …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Judge Rejects Key Universal Music Argument In Legal Fight With Grooveshark  —  Two and a half years ago, Universal Music (UMG) sued Grooveshark (or, really, its parent company Escape Media).  The case has had a few twists and turns since then, but the judge has issued a ruling (embedded below) …
AppleInsider:
Rumor: Next-gen iPhone, ‘iPad mini’ engineering samples pictured  —  A pair of reports on Tuesday allege to show an “engineering samples” of Apple's rumored next-generation iPhone and smaller 7-inch iPad, the latter being one of the first mock-ups to hit the web.
Sean Ludwig / VentureBeat:
AdRoll nabs $15M from Foundation, Accel, & Merus to get you clicking more ads  —  Online ad retargeting startup AdRoll has raised $15 million in its second-round of funding with an aim of expanding the company and improving its tech that allows companies to serve more relevant display ads, the company announced today.
Stuart Dredge / Guardian:
Ouya games console blasts past $2.3m  —  The challenge now is to deliver on the expectations of its 19,000 early backers  —  US startup Ouya has attracted $2.3m (£1.47m) of pledges for its Android-based games console, less than 24 hours after launching its campaign on crowdfunding website Kickstarter.
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Microsoft and Google agree to stay three U.S. patent lawsuits until FRAND issues are resolved  —  Microsoft and Google subsidiary Motorola Mobility have reached an agreement on a procedural course of action: as far as their three lawsuits pending in the Western District of Washington are concerned …
Greg Sandoval / CNET:
Netflix's lost year: The inside story of the price-hike train wreck  —  Before he angered customers by raising prices, before he became the butt of Saturday Night Live satire for his Qwikster schemes, Netflix CEO Red Hastings alienated some of his key executives.
More: ZDNet
Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:
Confessions of an Internet Addict  —  Newsweek's cover story this week posits that “new research says the Internet can make us lonely and depressed—and may even create more extreme forms of mental illness.”  We found an Internet addict to tell us all about his affliction.
Brian Stelter / New York Times:
NBC and Facebook to Announce Olympics Partnership  —  Users of Facebook, later this summer, will be reminded about NBC's coverage of the Olympic Games in London.  And viewers of NBC's coverage, at the same time, will be nudged to talk about the Games on Facebook.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Cloud Storage Wars!  LogMeIn's Cubby Bumps Referrals To 1 GB, Double That Of Dropbox  —  The online storage wars continue!  Yesterday, Dropbox announced new pricing plans which doubled the storage space for users at no additional cost, and today, new player Cubby is also making a change …

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Featured Podcasts

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