Techmeme
November 13, 2013, 4:45 PM

Top News

Digits:
Snapchat Spurned $3 Billion Acquisition Offer from Facebook  —  Snapchat, a rapidly growing messaging service, recently spurned an all-cash acquisition offer from Facebook for $3 billion or more, according to people briefed on the matter.  —  The offer, and rebuff, came as Snapchat …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
HP and Google order ‘pause’ in Chromebook 11 sales after reports of chargers overheating  —  The HP Chromebook 11 has been pulled from Best Buy store shelves, and sales halted on Amazon and HP and Google's online stores, following customer complaints of chargers overheating.
Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:
Apple's $10.5B on Robots to Lasers Shores Up Supply Chain  —  Apple Inc. is putting a record $10.5 billion to work in new technology — from assembly robots to milling machines — that consumers will never see.  —  To get a jump on rivals like Samsung Electronics Co. and lay the groundwork for new products …
Jeff Barr / Amazon Web Services Blog:
Amazon WorkSpaces - Desktop Computing in the Cloud  —  Once upon a time, enterprises had a straightforward way to give each employee access to a desktop computer.  New employees would join the organization and receive a standard-issue desktop, preconfigured with a common set of tools and applications.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked  —  On-Demand Photography Marketplace Scoopshot Snaps $3.9 Million Series A  —  Motorola held a special event today to reveal its new Moto G, a spiritual sibling to the Moto X and a way for the Google-owned smartphone maker …
iFixit:
iPad Mini Retina Display Teardown  —  Lots of new tech ensures the iPad Mini Retina Display is a worthy successor to both the iPad Air and last year's iPad Mini—but will it carry the familial low repairability?  Follow along as we reveal the inner workings of this compact new Retina device.
Polygon:
PlayStation 4 review: focus on gaming is undermined by lack of compelling software at launch  —  PlayStation 4 Review  —  In the seven years since the introduction of the PlayStation 3, we've seen our gaming consoles transform into living room hubs through constant evolution and software updates.
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Verizon admits network faces traffic pressure in big cities  —  The wireless carrier is pouring money into the problem, and a top executive says the issues will dissipate by the end of the year.—Verizon Wireless is feeling the crush of all of those LTE-enabled devices on its network.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft's Visual Studio 2013 Launches With New Online Tools, Previews Browser-Based Code Editor  —  Microsoft today launched the latest version of its Visual Studio tools for developers at an event in New York City.  The new version includes a number of user interface improvements …
Reuters:
Apple under investigation in Italy for alleged tax fraud: source  —  (Reuters) - U.S. tech giant Apple is under investigation in Milan for allegedly hiding more than 1 billion euros ($1.34 billion) from the Italian taxman, a judicial source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, confirming a local media report.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Dropbox Hits 200M Users, Unveils New “For Business” Client Combining Work And Personal Files  —  CEO Drew Houston today announced that Dropbox has hit 200 million users, up from 175 million in July.  He later revealed the new Dropbox For Business client securely houses both a user's personal …
Bryan Bishop / The Verge:
Netflix introduces one unified TV interface to rule them all  —  The streaming video giant turns into a TV channel programmed just for you  —  Watch Netflix instant streaming on your television and you know what content you'll get — but you likely won't know how you'll find it.
Jim Edwards / Business Insider:
Google Is Now Bigger Than Both The Magazine And Newspaper Industries  —  Google has become so big that sometimes it's difficult to understand just how big it is.  It's on course to do $60 billion in revenue this year, almost all of that from advertising.  But how big is that in terms of the media it competes against for ad dollars?
Mike Beasley / 9to5Mac:
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects A7-based Apple TV in 2014, television set in 2015-2016  —  Ever since hearing that Steve Jobs had “cracked” the TV industry, Apple fans have been waiting for the day the company would release an actual television set.  For now, Apple has given us the Apple TV set-top box …
Jason Del Rey / AllThingsD:
LivingSocial Is Still Down, More Than 20 Hours Later (Updated)  —  More than 20 hours after its website and mobile apps stopped working, LivingSocial properties are still down in the U.S.  —  The deals site and its mobile apps have been down since at least 2:45 pm ET on Tuesday.
Jason Del Rey / AllThingsD:
Fab to Lay Off at Least Another 50 Employees  —  Restructuring efforts at Fab are about to hit its New York headquarters hard, according to sources close to the situation.  —  The e-commerce startup, which recently received massive funding, is getting ready to announce another round of layoffs in the U.S. …
More: Betabeat and DigitsTweets: @delrey
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Foursquare's Longtime Head of Product Leaves, Midway Through a Huge Product Rollout  —  Foursquare is saying goodbye to its product head, a longtime employee whose ties to CEO Dennis Crowley go back many years.  —  Yesterday, Crowley told employees that Alex Rainert, who was the mobile discovery app's 10th hire, is leaving.
Shara Tibken / CNET:
Apple demands $380M in patent trial, but Samsung wants to pay $52M  —  Outside US District Court in San Jose, Calif., the scene of the Apple v. Samsung trial.  —  (Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET) SAN JOSE, Calif. — An Apple attorney told a jury on Wednesday that the company wants $380 million …
Jay Yarow / Business Insider:
Steve Jobs On Android Founder Andy Rubin: 'Big, Arrogant ..."  —  Steve Jobs did not like Android, or the guy that ran it, Andy Rubin, according to a new book on the Google-Apple smartphone wars.  —  Jobs told friends that he thought Rubin was a “big, arrogant f**k,” according to Fred Vogelstein's …
Alex Colon / Gigaom:
A week with the Jawbone UP24: One of the best activity trackers gets better  —  I like to think I'm a relatively health-conscious kind of guy.  I go to the gym a few times a week, walk across the Brooklyn Bridge almost daily, sleep upwards of seven hours a night and eat boatloads of kale.
John Koetsier / VentureBeat:
Twitter adds more ad targeting capabilities: OS, device, and WiFi  —  Nov. 12 - 13, 2013  —  Advertisers using Twitter to connect with potential customers can now target with even more fine-grained accuracy, thanks to three new updates that Twitter announced today.

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