Techmeme
April 17, 2013, 12:45 AM

Top News

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Facebook's Chat Heads Come to iPhones, iPad With App Update  —  You can't get Facebook Home on iPhone.  But very soon you'll be able to get one of the most buzzed-about features from Facebook's new mobile software set: “Chat Heads” are coming to iOS devices, via a Facebook app update.
Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:
Talking heads: how a late-night hack turned into Facebook's next big thing  —  Facebook gambles on private messages as the future of mobile  —  On a Wednesday almost one year ago, Facebook product designers Joey Flynn and Brandon Walkin decided to work from home.
Sascha Segan / PC Magazine:
Motorola Plans Stock Android Phones, Sized ‘Just Right’  —  Motorola might be building my dream phone.  Jim Wicks, Motorola's design chief, said the company's first round of products designed after Google's purchase of the company will follow a philosophy of “better is better” rather than …
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:
Facebook Said to Hire Apple Maps Executive Amid Mobile Push  —  Facebook Inc. (FB) has nabbed another member of Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s original iPhone team, hiring Richard Williamson, the manager who had led Apple's mapping efforts, according to people with knowledge of the hire.
Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:
Yahoo's Q1 2013 revenue of $1.14 billion doesn't excite, but its $0.35 in EPS beats expectations  —  Today Yahoo reported its first quarter financial performance, including revenue of $1.14 billion, and earnings per share of $0.35 on a GAAP basis, and $0.38 on a non-GAAP basis.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft's Windows 8 Plan B(lue): Bring back the Start button, boot to desktop  —  Summary: Microsoft may be moving toward bringing back the Start Button and allowing users to boot straight to the desktop with its coming Windows 8.1 release later this year.
Declan McCullagh / CNET:
CISPA vote means companies can't promise to protect privacy  —  Proposed amendment to CISPA said Internet companies' promises to protect customer privacy were legally enforceable.  But then Republicans voted it down.  —  Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet companies and e-mail providers …
More: ZDNet and The Next Web
Horace Dediu / asymco:
Escaping PCs  —  The Windows PC market is contracting.  The market data has been showing unit shipment declining for some time with the latest quarter having perhaps the steepest decline for two decades.  —  What remains undocumented however is how the market looks when considering economic value.
More: Macworld and InfoWorld
Cotton Delo / AdAge:
Facebook Seeks 7-Figure Price Tag for Summer Debut of Video Ads  —  TV-Like Ads Can Be Bought for Four Broad Demographic Swaths  —  Facebook is hoping that its hotly anticipated video-ad units can be a more-than-$4-million daily business out of the gate — if its asking price is met.
Spencer Ackerman / Wired:
Data for the Boston Marathon Investigation Will Be Crowdsourced  —  The investigation of Monday's deadly twin bombings in Boston will rely to an extraordinary extent on crowdsourced surveillance, provided by Marathon spectators' cellphone photos, Vine videos, and Instagram feeds.
Steve Kovach / Business Insider:
Leaked Document Shows AppGratis Used Lure Of App Store Rankings To Attract Cash From Developers  —  AppGratis, the app-discovery app that Apple removed last week for closely mimicking the official App Store, started an online petition yesterday that encourages users to ask Apple to let it return.
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Quick View  —  Google Search for mobile has a new feature called “Quick View”.  Right now, it only shows up for Wikipedia results and it allows users to load search results almost instantly.  —  “Quick view is an experimental project and is currently enabled for pages from Wikipedia when you search in English on Google.com.
Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:
Time Warner Cable to Offer Live Mobile TV for Apple Devices  —  Time Warner Cable Inc., the second- largest U.S. cable operator, is adding live out-of-home programming for the first time to its TWC TV application, letting customers watch shows on Apple Inc. (AAPL) mobile devices.
Somini Sengupta / NYT Bits:
Start-Up Lets Users Track Who Tracks Them  —  Is your Web browsing history your business - or everyone else's?  —  A start-up based in Palo Alto, Calif., Disconnect, which helps you track who is tracking you online, this week released its latest tool to help safeguard your browsing history.
More: The Verge
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
ACLU asks feds to probe wireless carriers over Android security updates  —  “Defective” phones from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile pose risks, ACLU says.  —  Civil liberties advocates have asked the US Federal Trade Commission to take action against the nation's four major wireless carriers …
More: Washington Post, The Verge and CNETTweets: @csoghoian
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Windows Phone Head Myerson: Android “Still Kind of a Mess”  —  In an interview at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference today, the leader of Microsoft's Windows Phone division, Terry Myerson, said that the software giant's mobile effort continued to cast it as a “challenger,” but that Google's Android market was “still kind of a mess.”

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Earlier Picks

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch: