Techmeme: FreedomPop Expands Its Free Service to Voice (Ina Fried/AllThingsD)

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June 5, 2013, 2:00 PM

Top News

The White House:

Fact Sheet: White House Task Force on High-Tech Patent Issues — Today the White House announced major steps to improve incentives for future innovation in high tech patents, a key driver of economic growth and good paying American jobs. The White House issued five executive actions …

More: Electronic Frontier Foundation, GeekWire, Forbes, eWeek, Guardian, Examiner, Fortune, Softpedia News, FOSS Patents, Engine.is, ConsortiumInfo.org …, White House.gov Blog, Datamation.com, www.idigitaltimes.co.uk, TWICE, Gizmodo and Businessweek

Edward Wyatt / New York Times:

Obama Orders Regulators to Root Out ‘Patent Trolls’ — WASHINGTON — One company threatened to sue 8,000 coffee shops, hotels and retailers for patent infringement because they had set up Wi-Fi networks for their customers. Another claimed that hundreds of small businesses were violating …

Christopher Mims / Quartz:

Why patent trolls will laugh in the face of the US government's weak attempts to fight them — The White House today introduced an executive order intended to combat “patent trolling,” in which companies buy up patents and use them to sue “infringing” companies that actually make things.

More: Wall Street Journal

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:

Obama administration comes out swinging against patent trolls

More: FOSS Patents

Chris Schneider / The Microsoft Office Blog:

Outlook 2013 RT Coming to Windows RT Tablets as part of Windows 8.1 Update — Today at Computex 2013, Tami Reller, CFO and CMO of Microsoft's Windows Division, announced that Outlook 2013 RT will be available on Windows RT tablets as part of the free Windows 8.1 update coming later this year.

Tom Warren / The Verge:

‘Small’ Windows 8 tablets will ship with a free version of Office 2013 — Microsoft has revealed that future 7- and 8-inch Windows 8 tablets will ship with a free copy of Office 2013. Speaking at Computex on Wednesday, Windows CFO Tami Reller revealed plans for Office Home and Student 2013 …

More: Engadget, LiveSide.net, BetaNews, AllThingsD, Ubergizmo, BGR, CNET and 9to5Google

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Mozilla Readies Major Firefox Redesign As It Ponders What The Browser Of The Future Should Look Like — “Maybe we shouldn't even call it a browser anymore,” Mozilla's VP of Firefox engineering Jonathan Nightingale told me a few days ago. “'Browser' is really an antiquated word.

More: The Next Web and Business Insider

James Trew / Engadget:

HTC One ‘mini’ leaks showing 4.3-inch 720p display and UltraPixel camera — HTC One mini? HTC M4? Whichever moniker you want to give it, that appears to be what we see above. Shown in a bunch of photos on Estonian site forte.delfi.ee the 4.3-inch device seems to corroborate much of what we've heard already.

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Pandora Launches New HTML5-Based TV Experience, Starting With Xbox 360 and PS3 — Pandora today launched a new browser-based interface for TVs that it hopes will help set the standard for using the service in the living room. The first devices to support this new HTML5-based interface …

More: Pandora Blog, GeekWire, CNET, TechHive, BetaNews, VentureBeat, www.idigitaltimes.co.uk, The Next Web, Ubergizmo, Engadget, The Verge, Lifehacker, SlashGear, WebProNews and Evolver.fm. See also Mediagazer

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Bloomberg Launches Bloomberg Beta, A $75 Million Early-Stage Investment Fund Led By Former IGN Exec Roy Bahat — Media company Bloomberg is launching its own venture capital fund, called Bloomberg Beta today. With the fund, the company is putting aside $75 million to invest in early-stage startups.

More: New York Times, Venture Capital Dispatch, Betabeat, CNET, AllThingsD, Poynter and ventureburn. See also Mediagazer

Jeff Blagdon / The Verge:

Samsung Galaxy S4 Active offers a more rugged, waterproof variant of Android bestseller — Today, Samsung is announcing a new variant of its Galaxy S4 more suited to the great outdoors. The phone has a high degree of dust and water protection (IP67), allowing it to be submerged in water up to a meter …

Alistair Barr / Reuters:

EBay to open ‘shoppable windows’ in New York — (Reuters) - EBay Inc is launching virtual stores called “shoppable windows” this month that the e-commerce company hopes will help retailers generate more sales from their existing physical store networks. — The first four of these screens …

More: Betabeat, eBay Inc, Computerworld, CNET, The Verge, Engadget and TechCrunch

Gerry Smith / The Huffington Post:

Apple, Samsung Face Grilling Over Stolen Smartphone Epidemic — New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has summoned representatives of the four largest smartphone makers to a summit next week where he plans to press them on their failure to address soaring thefts of their products.

More: NY Daily News, Betabeat, Cult of Mac and iDownloadBlog.com. Thanks:@gerryfsmith

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:

FreedomPop Expands Its Free Service to Voice — While there are lots of discount cellphone plans out there, alternative carrier FreedomPop is trying to introduce a new price tier — free. — This summer, the company plans to offer a plan with various Android phones that gives customers …

More: Forbes, Mashable, SiliconANGLE, TechCrunch, Engadget, PC Magazine, GigaOM, The Verge, FierceWireless, DSLreports, CNET, TUAW, socalTECH.com, SlashGear, PhoneArena and VentureBeat

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

Yahoo Officially Rolls Out New Yahoo Search Results Design — Yahoo has officially announced the redesign they've been testing for the past couple weeks is now live. — The new design boasts a faster load time, search results higher up on the page, a new navigation bar at the top, and a more consistent look with the Yahoo homepage.

More: Exclamation, Los Angeles Times, Search Engine Watch, TechCrunch, The Next Web, CNET, Inquirer, Business Insider, The Verge, Mashable, WebProNews, Techdows and Yahoo! Search Blog

Adrianne Jeffries / The Verge:

Airbnb will fight regulators in New York City on behalf of host who was fined $2,400 — After initial hesitation, the company hired a prestigious law firm and is ‘in it for the long haul’ — The popular vacation rental service Airbnb is starting to clash with regulators in New York City …

More: Betabeat, TechCrunch and AllThingsD

Brooke Crothers / CNET:

Intel's ‘Thunderbolt 2’ official, coming later this year — Intel's next Thunderbolt technology — hitherto known by the code name Falcon Ridge — now has an official moniker. The tech is slated to be built into future Intel chipsets. — Intel has officially dubbed the next version of its high-speed port “Thunderbolt 2.”

More: Technology@Intel, Cult of Mac, AppleInsider, SlashGear, Engadget, Ubergizmo, Gizmodo, The Register and iMore

David Barboza / New York Times:

Lei Jun Builds His Xiaomi Empire by Aping Apple and Steve Jobs — BEIJING — China is notorious for its knockoffs. But now comes a knockoff of one of the gods of American ingenuity: Steven P. Jobs. — In a country where products like iPhones are made but rarely invented, Lei Jun …

More: Gizmodo, Business Insider and Quartz

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

TweetDeck revamped for Chrome and the Web with a new sidebar that simplifies finding and moving feeds — Twitter is rolling out a pretty radical redesign for the Chrome and Web versions of TweetDeck today, adding a slim, expandable sidebar on the left-hand side of the screen that handles search …

More: Twitter Blog, Gizmodo, Gizmodo, Engadget and The Verge

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

comScore: Apple increases lead as top US smartphone maker, Samsung gains; Android down fourth month in a row — In the US, Apple's dominance as the top smartphone OEM during the first quarter of 2013 has spilled over into April. Samsung is gaining as well, but not quite as quickly.

More: comScore, Inc., NYT Bits, Examiner, Computerworld, CNET, Mashable and Benzinga

Wall Street Journal:

Microsoft Looks to Expand Windows 8 Discounts — TAIPEI—Microsoft Corp. plans to expand discounts to more tablet makers using its Windows 8 software, as it tries to stimulate adoption of the operating system that has received a lukewarm response partly due to its high retail price.

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

Dell to investors: Icahn's deal dicey, business stinks — Summary: A special committee argues that Dell shareholders should take the cash and run and that Carl Icahn's leveraged buyout plan will hamper the company too much. — Dell's special committee to evaluate the company's plan …

More: AllThingsD, DealBook, Reuters, Datamation.com, Bloomberg and MoneyBeat

Chris Davies / SlashGear:

Windows 8.1 shares highlights in video walkthrough — Windows 8.1 is a big deal for Microsoft, the first significant update for the OS, and the opportunity to address some of the lingering user frustrations: not just add in the Start button. The company has shared a new video …

More: CNET, Engadget, The Verge, ExtremeTech, Crave and LaptopMemo

Jon Ward / The Huffington Post:

Republican National Committee Hires Senior Facebook Engineer As Chief Technology Officer — WASHINGTON — The Republican National Committee has hired a senior Facebook engineer with a decade of experience in Silicon Valley to fill its newly created position of chief technology officer, The Huffington Post has learned.

More: GOP.com, AllFacebook, Post Politics, Reuters, San Francisco Chronicle and WebProNews

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Google to keep its calendar CalDAV API public after developer backlash, debuts contacts CardDAV API to boot — Google today announced it is keeping its API for CalDAV, an Internet standard allowing a client to access calendar and scheduling information on a remote server, public for all developers.

More: Google Developers Blog, TechCrunch, The Verge and 9to5Google

Rip Empson / TechCrunch:

Instructure Lands A Hefty $30M To Take On The Blackboards And Moodles In A Multi-Billion Dollar eLearning Market — The Learning Management System market is a wild and wooly place, relatively speaking, of course. “LMSes,” as they are known, are software applications and platforms …

More: GigaOM and VatorNews

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Thalmic Labs Raises $14.5M To Make The MYO Armband The Next Big Thing In Gesture Control — Thalmic Labs, the Waterloo-based startup working on an all new form of user input for computing devices with the MYO amrband, today announced the close of its $14.5 million Series A funding round, led by Spark Capital and Intel Capital.

More: Xconomy, VentureBeat, Globe and Mail, GigaOM, VeloCity, Financial Post and PandoDaily. Thanks:@chrisvelazco

Kevin Fitchard / GigaOM:

T-Mobile's plan to supercharge LTE: A whole lot of antennas — T-Mobile USA has been talking some smack lately about how its brand-spanking-new LTE network gives it an edge over the competition. Being the last major U.S. carrier to launch LTE means T-Mobile is using the most up-to-date radio access gear …

Thanks:@kfitchard

John McDermott / AdAge:

Apple to Sell Audio Ads on iRadio, its Upcoming Streaming Music Service — New Ad Product Could Be Pricier Than Pandora, Thanks to Targeting Abilities — Now hear this: Apple will sell audio ads on its forthcoming streaming music service, already being dubbed “iRadio” by many.

Thanks:@lowbrowkate

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