Techmeme
December 2, 2013, 10:30 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Apple acquires Topsy, a company specializing in Twitter search and analytics, for more than $200M  —  Apple Taps Into Twitter, Buying Social Analytics Firm Topsy  —  Apple Inc. has acquired social-media analytics firm Topsy Labs Inc. for more than $200 million, according to people familiar with the matter.
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple Buys Topsy For Price Reportedly North Of $200M, Could Use Social Signals To Bolster Siri, App Store Relevance  —  Apple has purchased social analytics firm Topsy, which focuses on parsing data from Twitter, reports The Wall Street Journal.  The deal was apparently worth ‘more than $200M’ according to the publication.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft codename ‘Threshold’: The next major Windows wave takes shape  —  Summary: Microsoft's wave of spring 2015 updates to its various Windows-based platforms has a codename: Threshold.  —  When I blogged recently about Microsoft's plans on the operating-systems front following Windows 8.1 …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Salesforce Says Hackathon Winner Didn't Cheat But Declares Tie, Gives Two Finalists $1M Each  —  Microsoft Rolls Out Student Advantage, Giving Students Free Access To Its Office Suite  —  Salesforce has responded to cries of foul play in its $1 million hackathon by announcing …
Sean Buckley / Engadget:
Engadget's Cyber Monday 2013 roundup  —  As tempting as post-Thanksgiving savings are, some of us simply aren't brave enough to face the Black Friday hordes.  That doesn't mean stay-at-home shoppers aren't still looking for a bargain: Cyber Monday is upon us, and there are deals aplenty.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
U.S. Department of Justice gives Microsoft-Nokia deal the OK  —  Summary: The U.S. DOJ has given its approval to Microsoft's planned $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia's devices and services business.  —  The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has given its approval to Microsoft's pending acquisition …
Greg Stohr / Bloomberg:
Amazon Rejected by U.S. High Court on New York Sales Tax  —  The U.S. Supreme Court stayed out of the multibillion-dollar fight over Internet sales taxes, leaving intact a New York law that forces Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) to collect money from customers in that state.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Dropping the needle: the life and death of Turntable.fm  —  Meet me in the club, it's going down  —  Tonight at 10PM EST, the virtual DJs at Turntable.fm will be escorted off the stage for the last time.  Two and a half years after founders Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein captivated music fans …
More: Mashable.  Tweets: @calebgarling and @turntablelive
Brad Stone / Businessweek:
Amazon's Drone Fleet Delivers What Bezos Wants: An Image of Ingenuity  —  In his 2010 internal “Amazon.Love” memo to senior executives, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos identified a serious problem that can plague big, successful companies: they tend to be feared and, in some quarters, hated.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Apple Gets “Significant Bounce” On 5c, 5s iPhones; Android Still Trumps With 71% Share Of All Sales  —  Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the WPP market research division that provides a rolling check-in on how smartphones are selling in key markets, has put out its latest figures this morning covering the 12 weeks that ended October 31.
Guardian:
Edward Snowden revelations prompt UN investigation into surveillance  —  UN's senior counter-terrorism official says revelations ‘are at the very apex of public interest concerns’  —  The UN's senior counter-terrorism official is to launch an investigation into the surveillance powers …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
BlackBerry Sends Out Another 'We're Not Dead' Notice, This Time Homing In On Enterprise  —  BlackBerry got a lot of chaff from the press for issuing full-page print newspaper ads effectively reminding customers they're not dead, likely to counter rumors to the contrary in a lot of headlines and article feature art.
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
OCZ Says Toshiba to Buy Assets for $35 Million  —  Defunct flash-storage vendor OCZ Technology Group (OCZ) this afternoon announced that Toshiba (6502JP) will buy the company's assets out of bankruptcy for $35 million, including both OCZ's consumer business and its enterprise solid-state drive business.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Copilot to autopilot: Why no single safeguard is enough  —  Microsoft designed a layered model that lets an AI agent resolve network incidents on its own within defined boundaries.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
Diwali 2026: Your festive planning checklist with Zoho Notebook  —  The Diwali countdown is on!  From lighting up every corner of the house to going a little overboard with the festive shopping …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

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Sundar Pichai on Gemini 4 and the AI compute crunch
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Machine Gods:
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
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Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai: AI's Infinite Possibilities, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products
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Cheeky Pint:
How Toto Wolff built the most valuable team in F1
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
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Earlier Picks

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Jon Fingas / Engadget: