Techmeme
November 14, 2013, 5:20 AM

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 …
Evelyn M. Rusli / Digits:
Why Snapchat may have turned down Facebook: a young, fast-growing, highly-engaged user base  —  Why Would Snapchat Turn Down a $3 Billion Cash Buyout?  —  On Wednesday, Digits reported that Snapchat's CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel spurned a $3 billion or more cash offer from Facebook …
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.
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.
Sam Biddle / Valleywag:
Leaked Memo: Fab's Struggling CEO Names New Top Execs  —  With another round of layoffs coming, a co-founder departure, and top management hemorrhaging, haute-shopping startup Fab.com needs a corporate Hail Mary.  Here's CEO Jason Goldberg's plan to remake the company.
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 …
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Dart, Google's controversial Web language, turns 1.0  —  Dart leader Lars Bak speaking at Google I/O 2013  —  Dart is done.  —  Well, not completely done — anything not actually cancelled at Google is a constant work in progress — but the company on Thursday announced version 1.0 of its controversial Web programming language.
More: Chromium Blog and The Next WebTweets: @niko_nava and @d0gada
Chris Velazco / TechCrunch:
The Dual-Screen YotaPhone Will Launch Internationally In December  —  Russia-based Yota Devices has been working on a curious beast called the YotaPhone for years now, and it's gained quite a reputation for itself because of its split personality.  While the front of the phone sports …
Seth Rosenblatt / CNET:
Mozilla: No Firefox phones in US  —  Mozilla's Mitchell Baker stresses Firefox OS's appeal to developing countries — and (pay attention, Apple and Google) the importance of price.  SAN FRANCISCO — If you're a Firefox OS fan and you live in the United States, you're going to have to wait a bit longer to get your Firefox phone.
Caleb Garling / The Technology Chronicles:
Value of a bitcoin doubles, breaks $400 over last two weeks  —  Don't look now, but everyone's favorite crypto-currency is creeping back up the charts again.  Over the past two weeks the value of a bitcoin has skyrocketed from just over $200 to just shy of $450.  —  And it's not entirely clear why.
David Kravets / Wired:
NSA Transparency Hurts Americans' Privacy, Feds Say With Straight Face  —  Adding limited public accountability to the NSA's vast electronic spying programs would actually harm the privacy of Americans, Obama administration officials told a Senate hearing today.
Shara Tibken / CNET:
Apple demands $380M in patent trial, but Samsung wants to pay $52M  —  The amount requested by Apple during opening arguments in a damages retrial is less than the $450 million awarded by a jury last year.  And Samsung's proposal is much lower.  SAN JOSE, Calif. — An Apple attorney told …
Klint Finley / Wired:
New Service Rates Your Phone Number Just Like Your Credit History  —  Most web companies want to attract as many users as possible.  But they don't want scammers, spammers, and bots using their web applications.  Companies use everything from email verification to IP address bans …
More: Marketwired and Forbes
Nathan Donato-Weinstein / bizjournals:
Twitter more than doubles its office space in Sunnyvale, leasing another 10,000 square feet  —  Twitter more than doubles its footprint in Silicon Valley  —  Twitter Inc., fresh off its initial public offering, isn't just expanding its office space in San Francisco.  It's also growing its footprint in Silicon Valley.
Tweets: @sfcitizenThanks:@svbiznate
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
MapQuest Updates Its iPhone App With Improved Cartography And Routing To Take On Google And Apple Maps  —  On the iPhone, Apple Maps and Google Maps app have gotten all the headlines over the last several years, but MapQuest is still hanging in there, despite a lack of real innovation over the years.
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 …
John Glenday / The Drum:
Google chief Eric Schmidt joins board of The Economist  —  Dr Eric Schmidt, executive chairman and former CEO of Google, has joined the board of The Economist Group as a non-executive director.  —  The three year appointment followed a shareholder vote and will commence next month …
More: Guardian
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
Lonely Planet Acquires Mobile Travel App TouristEye  —  Earlier this year, we wrote about TouristEye, a mobile app for planning trips and discovering new things to do while traveling.  Today the startup is announcing that it has been acquired by travel heavyweight Lonely Planet …
More: Tnooz
Steve Johnson / Mercury News:
Cisco stock tumbles over company's sales projections  —  Cisco Systems (CSCO)' shares took a nose dive after its earnings report missed Wall Street's projections — which the computer networking giant partly attributed to the government shutdown and fallout over the NSA's spying revelations …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Cultivating creativity and innovation in the modern workspace  —  In the realm of modern business, success depends on more than just delivering products or services—it requires an environment where creativity thrives and new ideas are welcomed.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
How to Cultivate Everyday Dharma, Suneel Gupta (#54)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Wed. 04/24 - What Now For TikTok?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:20 AM ET, November 14, 2013.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks