Techmeme
January 16, 2014, 3:45 PM

Top News

James Ball / Guardian:
NSA collects almost 200 million text messages a day in global “untargeted” sweep  —  NSA collects millions of text messages daily in ‘untargeted’ global sweep  —  The National Security Agency has collected almost 200 million text messages a day from across the globe …
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Now integrated in Chrome Canary builds, with weather, scores, traffic, and reminder cards  —  Google Now in Chrome for Desktop  —  Google Now cards are available in the latest Chrome Canary build for Windows and Mac (34.0.1788).  You only need to go to chrome://flags/#enable-google- now …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Launches Trending Topics On Web With Descriptions Of Why Each Is Popular  —  Following tests of Twitter-style Trending Topics on the web and mobile in August, Facebook today officially launches a redesigned “Trending” section on its web homepage's sidebar in the US, UK, Canada, India and Australia.
Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
NPD: Apple grabbed 42% of US smartphone share in Q4 2013, Samsung took 26%, as HTC, Motorola, and BlackBerry fell  —  In Q4 2013, Apple and Samsung were the clear winners in the US smartphone race. iPhone ownership increased from 35 percent in Q4 2012 to 42 percent in Q4 2013 …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
OUYA Founding Team Member And VP Of Product Development Departs  —  One of OUYA's founding members, Muffi Ghadiali, has left the company, TechCrunch has learned.  Ghadiali was instrumental in helping launch the OUYA on Kickstarter and to the consumer market, and has previous experience working for Lab126 …
Ben Gilbert / Engadget:
Steam Controller drops touchscreen, adds physical buttons (update: new controller image)  —  It turns out that Valve's hardware beta was an actual beta: the Steam Controller is dropping its touchscreen and adding some physical buttons before going up for sale via Steam and at retail later this year.
Christopher Mims / Quartz:
Someone's refrigerator just took part in a malicious cyberattack  —  Between December 23 and January 6, more than 100,000 internet-connected smart “things,” including media players, smart televisions and at least one refrigerator, were part of a network of computers used to send 750,000 spam emails.
More: Gizmodo
Brad Molen / Engadget:
LG G Flex coming to Sprint January 31st for $300, preorders begin today  —  The LG G Flex was finally announced for three carriers in the US at CES, but we didn't know any pricing or availability.  It looks like Sprint is the first to strike with the news: the G Flex will be coming …
Nick Summers / The Next Web:
Samsung announces the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite, a low-end 7-inch Android tablet  —  Samsung is throwing yet another Android tablet into the mix; a 7-inch slate called the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite.  —  The WSVGA display sports a 1024×600 pixel resolution (170 ppi), which falls far below high-end devices …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Secondhand Clothing Marketplace Twice Raises $18.5M From Andreessen Horowitz  —  Online fashion marketplaces are fast picking up steam these days, quickly replacing the traditional auction model pioneered by eBay, as a way to consign, and sell your clothes.  Twice, an online consignment shop …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Shopkick Starts 100-Store iBeacon Trial For American Eagle, Biggest Apparel Rollout Yet  —  Apple's iBeacon technology, which uses Bluetooth LE to send notifications to users when they're inside a physical store, is making another mainstream advance today: Shopkick — the location-based offers startup …
More: Gigaom, MacRumors and 9to5MacTweets: @mdudas
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Spotify Drops Free Web Listening Time Limit Everywhere - A Big Scalability Milestone  —  Spotify's advertising engine and paid customer conversion funnel are finally working well enough that today it eliminated all limits on free, ad-supported web listening in all countries.
JP Mangalindan / Fortune:
A third of SF cabbies switched from registered cabs to Uber, Lyft or Sidecar in the past year  —  San Francisco cab drivers are Uber's latest pickup  —  Uber, Lyft and other ride-sharing upstarts are transforming a slow-to-change industry from the outside in.  —  FORTUNE — Being a cab driver isn't what it used to be.
More: ParisLemon, Street Fight and SlashGearTweets: @fillouxThanks:@jpmanga
Mike Grishaver / Pandora Blog:
Discover More Music with Personalized Station Recommendations  —  Music discovery has always been at the heart of the Pandora experience and today we're thrilled to announce the launch of personalized station recommendations on both iOS and Android mobile devices.
Kara Swisher / Re/code:
He Was Fired: Here's Marissa Mayer's De Castro Buh-Bye Memo to Yahoo Staff  —  Here it is, the internal memo to Yahoo staff about the sudden — though it was not sudden, by any means — leave-taking today of its COO, Henrique De Castro, courtesy of one of my 10,563 sources left at Yahoo!
Jason Del Rey / Re/code:
Amazon Warehouse Workers Vote Against Joining Union  —  In the first vote of its kind among workers employed by Amazon in the U.S., a group of up to 30 of the commerce giant's warehouse workers at a Delaware distribution center voted against unionization today.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Wed. 03/27 - Hulu Comes To Disney+; WWDC Gets A Date
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 3:45 PM ET, January 16, 2014.

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

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Larry Seltzer / ZDNet: