Techmeme: How emoji conquered the world (Jeff Blagdon/The Verge)

March 5, 2013, 4:15 AM

Top News

Brian X. Chen / NYT Bits:

Samsung's New Smartphone Will Track Eyes to Scroll Pages — Samsung's next big smartphone, to be introduced next month, will have a strong focus on software. A person who has tried the phone, called the Galaxy S IV, described one feature as particularly new and exciting: Eye scrolling.

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:

Samsung posts first teaser video for Galaxy S 4

More: CNET, Engadget, App Advice, MobilesPie, Examiner, IntoMobile, Wired, Los Angeles Times, TechSpot, PC Magazine, The Huffington Post, Pocketnow, Ars Technica, WebProNews, BGR and LAPTOP Magazine

Bloomberg:

Apple's Planned ‘IWatch’ Could Be More Profitable Than TV — While Tim Cook has dropped hints that Apple Inc. (AAPL) is hard at work on a television to drive the next era of growth, the company's wristwatch-style device, still in development, may prove more profitable.

More: Selfscreens, SiliconANGLE, CNET, Light Reading, Forbes, digitaltrends.com, PadGadget, Gear Live, Bloomberg and PC Magazine

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple executives and a long history with watches — Apple design chief Ive pictured with Ikepod designer Newson — Apple is building a device for the wrist, and it may even launch later this year. One of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' most famous sayings is that “we build the products that we want to use.”

More: Business Insider, Selfscreens, Macworld, MacRumors, Edible Apple and Redmond Pie

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Apple's watch will run iOS and arrive later this year, say sources — Jony Ive wants a spot on your wrist — More details are emerging about Apple's forthcoming watch, which is targeted for release this year, according to aBloomberg report this morning and corroborated by our sources.

More: Selfscreens, The Register, Examiner, PC Magazine, Macworld, InvestorPlace and iPhone Hacks

Tweets: @markgurman, @joemfbrown and @tomwarren

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:

White House: It's Time to Legalize Cellphone Unlocking — The White House on Monday came out in support of a consumer's right to unlock their cell phone once they have fulfilled the terms of the contract. — Responding to a petition on whitehouse.gov, the executive branch stated …

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:

Backer of Cellphone Unlocking Petition Sets Sights on Modifying Copyright Act

More: Mashable!, digitaltrends.com, digiphile and TechPresident

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Google Is Building A Same-Day Amazon Prime Competitor, “Google Shopping Express” — Google is stealthily preparing to launch an Amazon Prime competitor called “Google Shopping Express.” According to one source the service will be $10 or $15 cheaper than Amazon Prime, so $69 or $64 a year …

More: The Verge and Business Insider

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

The rise and fall of Andy Zaky — How an Internet-trained Apple analyst lost tens of millions of other peoples' money — FORTUNE — In the late 1990s, an ad agency creative director I'll call Joe Smith to protect his privacy bought several hundred shares of Apple (AAPL) at $60 apiece.

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @9to5mac and @jlgolson. Thanks:@philiped

Jeff Blagdon / The Verge:

How emoji conquered the world — The story of the smiley face from the man who invented it — In 1995, sales of pagers were booming among Japan's teenagers, and NTT Docomo's decision to add the heart symbol to its Pocket Bell devices let high school kids across the country inject a new level of sentiment …

Carl Franzen / The Verge:

The Pirate Bay's move to North Korea is probably more satire than fact — The Pirate Bay published a blog post today claiming that it has relocated to a “new provider” in North Korea after being invited by the totalitarian country's leadership “to fight our battles from their network.”

More: The Pirate Bay, Will's Blog, CNET, Falkvinge on Infopolicy, FP Passport, ZDNet, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Los Angeles Times, digitaltrends.com and The Next Web

Sam Byford / The Verge:

Twitter discontinuing iPhone, Android, and Air versions of TweetDeck — Twitter has announced that it will be discontinuing several TweetDeck apps in favor of the web client. The Android, iPhone, and Air-based desktop clients will all be affected; the apps will be removed from their stores in early May …

More: TweetDeck, Mashable!, Mobile Marketing Watch, CNET, The Next Web, MobileSyrup.com, Engadget, Gizmodo, WindowsObserver.com, TUAW, AllThingsD, TechCrunch, Marketing Land, Apple Fan Site, 9to5Mac and Pocket-lint

Tweets: @dannysullivan and @davewiner

TechCrunch:

Fitness And Health Tracker Fitbit Is Raising $30M At A $300M-Plus Valuation — Fitness technology and hardware startup Fitbit is raising north of $30 million in growth capital at a $300 million-plus valuation, according to multiple sources. The company last raised $12 million in January 2012 …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Google, Microsoft Dominate Forbes' List Of Tech Billionaires; Zuckerberg, Moskovitz Are The Youngest — Forbes has today published its annual list of the world's richest people — and once again tech and its related tentacles continue to lead the top of the list.

More: Forbes, Forbes, GeekWire, Computerworld, VentureBeat, AllTwitter, AllFacebook, Biz Beat Blog, Poynter, Neowin, Mashable!, bizjournals and nbcnews.com

Harry McCracken / TIME:

How an 83-Year-Old Inventor Beat the High Cost of 3D Printing — If there were an award for Emerging Gadget Most Likely to Change Everything, it might well go to the 3D printer. These devices, which turn digital blueprints into physical objects made out of plastic or other materials …

Thanks:@harrymccracken

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple considered calling iPhone the ‘Telepod’, ‘Mobi’, ‘iPad’, or ‘Tripod’, former Apple ad man reveals — At an event at the University of Arizona's Department of Marketing, former Apple advertising lead Ken Segall has shared some additional details into the naming behind Apple's massively popular smartphone.

More: Engadget, The Verge, Mashable! and App Advice. Thanks:@apollozac

John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:

Netflix Has No Current Plans for a BlackBerry 10 App — If BlackBerry is “in talks” with Netflix about a BlackBerry 10 version of the company's popular video-streaming app, they aren't going very well. — Sources say Netflix isn't developing a version of its app for BlackBerry 10 — native or port.

More: Windows Phone, Gotta Be Mobile, Mashable!, WMPoweruser, PC Magazine, WebProNews, MobileSyrup.com, The Verge, BGR and Electronista

Julie Bort / Business Insider:

Microsoft: No, We're Not Abandoning Our Anti-Google Campaign — Microsoft has no intention of completely ending its Google-bashing ad campaign, “Scroogled,” the company told Business Insider. — Reports flew on the Internet today that Microsoft would kill off the controversial effort …

More: CNET, Search Engine Watch, GeekWire, TechCrunch, Fortune, DailyTech, bizjournals, WinBeta, VentureBeat and Neowin

Andy Abramson / VoIP Watch:

Exclusive-Skype's Jonathan Rosenberg, Father of SIP, Bolts Back To Cisco — Jonathan Rosenberg, who is widely acknowledged to be the real father of SIP (session initiation protocol) has left Skype to return to Cisco where he will be CTO of Cloud Collaboration.

More: TechCrunch. Tweets: @om

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

Warren Buffett: If he were Tim Cook, he'd be buying Apple — “If you could buy dollar bills for 80 cents, it's a very good thing to do.” — FORTUNE — In a three-hour appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box Monday morning, Berkshire Hathaway's (BRKA) Warren Buffett addressed two burning issues …

More: Tech Trader Daily, Guardian, TUAW, CNET, MacRumors, VentureBeat and bizjournals

Jeremy C. Owens / Mercury News:

Apple loses title of most valuable company to Exxon

More: 9to5Mac, SlashGear, The Verge, MacNN, AllThingsD and Business Insider. Thanks:@mercbizbreak

Paul Thurrott / SuperSite for Windows:

Office and SharePoint 2013 Developer Tools Now Available — Microsoft delivers tools for developers targeting Office 2013 and SharePoint — Microsoft announced today that the Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012 are now available, allowing developers to create apps that target Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Office 365.

More: MSDN Blogs, Visual Studio Magazine, Computerworld, VentureBeat, The Register, Neowin, TechNet Blogs and The Official Microsoft Blog

Jeff Blagdon / The Verge:

Verizon considering LTE-only phones in 2014 in push to lower subsidies — Soon after Verizon transitions to Voice over LTE for ordinary telephone calls around the end of the year, it could start selling phones without CDMA chipsets, reducing costs and associated subsidies, said the company's CFO Fran Shammo.

More: CNET, 9to5Mac, FierceWireless, PhoneArena and Electronista

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Former Top Yahoo Ad Exec Sues Yahoo, Accusing It of Trying to “Cheat” Him Over Acquisition Compensation — Michael Katz, a former high-profile advertising exec at Yahoo who sold Interclick to the Silicon Valley Internet giant, has filed a lawsuit claiming the company tried to …

More: Reuters and bizjournals

Donna Tam / CNET:

Facebook adds VoIP to Android messaging app for Canadians — Android users — at least those in Canada — can now try out actual voice calls through Facebook thanks to an update to the Messenger app. — Facebook's Messenger app for Android will now include free VoIP calls for its Canadian users.

More: TechCrunch, PandoDaily, Engadget, AllFacebook, MobileSyrup.com, SlashGear, Softpedia News and The Verge

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