Techmeme
January 8, 2014, 7:25 PM

Top News

Sean Hollister / The Verge:
T-Mobile will now pay $350 for you to leave AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon  —  Just as predicted, T-Mobile's latest hyped-up new plan to change the cellular industry is this: the company will pay your early termination fee if you agree to switch.  While T-Mobile CEO John Legere hasn't yet announced it onstage …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
T-Mobile CEO: “This industry blows,” biggest carriers offer “horsesh**”  —  T-Mobile US CEO John Legere has had an eventful week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  He was thrown out of AT&T's CES party Monday night after the company detected his presence.
Kara Swisher / Re/code:
Microsoft CEO Selection Unlikely to Come in January, as Candidate List Contracts and Expands  —  The selection of a CEO to take over Microsoft is not expected to come before February, according to multiple sources, due to a range of issues, including the packed schedule of the software giant's chairman Bill Gates this month.
Spencer E. Ante / Wall Street Journal:
IBM Struggles to Turn Watson Computer Into Big Business  —  Revenue Is Far From Company's Ambitious Targets … Three years after International Business Machines Corp. began trying to turn its “Jeopardy"-winning computer into a big business, revenue from Watson is far from the company's ambitious targets.
Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon's Current Employees Raise the Bar for New Hires  —  Scores of Workers are Deputized to Vet Job Candidates, Ensure Cultural Fit  —  In fulfilling online orders, Amazon.com Inc. is all about expediency.  The fewer people involved the better.  —  But when it comes to filling higher-level jobs …
More: Business InsiderTweets: @wsjgraphics
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Nokia's Android phone UI revealed in leaked photos  —  Nokia has been building its own Android phone, codenamed Normandy, and the first examples of its user interface are now starting to emerge.  Evleaks has posted an image of Nokia's custom Android implementation, with three examples of how the smartphone maker has tweaked the UI.
John Herrman / BuzzFeed:
In interview with David Pogue, Nick D'Aloisio touts positive Yahoo News Digest reviews likely written by Yahoo employees  —  The Curious Case Of Yahoo's App Reviews  —  Summly founder Nick D'Aloisio, in an interview with Yahoo's David Pogue, touted his new app's positive reviews.  But who's writing them?
Brian Stelter / CNNMoney.com:
New York Times redesign points to future of online publishing  —  The last time The New York Times embarked on a wholesale redesign of its Web site, in 2006, the iPhone wasn't on the market.  Tablets like the iPad were still years away.  —  So the new design that The Times is unveiling Wednesday …
Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Uber CEO: Surge Pricing Is Here to Stay … Some year in the near future, Travis Kalanick could transform the car-service app Uber into a multipurpose logistics conglomerate, delivering an array of physical products around cities in addition to people.  —  For now, though, he's still fighting in the trenches.
Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:
Confide: an app for execs who want sensitive messages to vanish Snapchat-style  —  Many people associate “disappear” apps like Snapchat with young people who want to send each other bong or boob shots.  But kids are hardly the only ones who want to relay sensitive or silly messages without leaving a permanent trace on the internet.
Chad Bray / DealBook:
Chinese E-Commerce Giant Alibaba to Ban Bitcoins on Its Sites  —  LONDON — The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group said on Wednesday that its online marketplace Taobao would not accept the popular virtual currency Bitcoin as a form of payment or allow the sale of Bitcoins on its website.
Emily Parkhurst / bizjournals:
Seattle's fiber-network deal with Gigabit Squared is dead  —  Mayor Ed Murray has declared the city's deal with startup broadband company Gigabit Squared dead.  In fact, the city's deal with the company may have been doomed before Murray was even elected.  —  “We understand the Gigabit problems …
More: GeekWire, Gigaom, Ars Technica and EngadgetTweets: @blowdart
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Mystery Shopping Service Mobee Acquires Kickscout, The Startup From RunKeeper Co-founder Michael Sheeley  —  Boston-based Mobee, the mystery shopping app built by former Googlers aimed at leveraging mobile to collect real-world data from inside stores and other businesses …
Ben Fritz / Wall Street Journal:
Digital movie sales up 47% in 2013 as studios allow digital purchases before rental, physical  —  Sales of Online Movies Jumps; DVDs Continue to Decline  —  Delaying Availability of DVDs, Rentals Nudged Consumers … After years of trying to convince consumers to buy movies online …
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / ZDNet:
1 PC, 2 operating systems: Intel introduces Dual OS, AMD adds Android apps to Windows  —  Summary: Intel and partners are going to be bringing us PCs that run both Android and Windows 8.1.  Meanwhile, AMD and its partner BlueStacks will enable users to run Android and its apps on Windows.
More: eWeek, The Verge, AMD and WinBeta

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