Techmeme
April 2, 2014, 2:20 PM

Top News

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana, Action Center, customizable lockscreens  —  At its Build 2014 conference today, Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 8.1.  Among the new features is a personal digital assistant named Cortana, a new Action Center …
Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
Microsoft announces universal Windows apps, which work across PCs, phones, tablets and Xbox One  —  At its Build 2014 conference today, Microsoft announced universal Windows apps, which work across PCs, phones, tablets and even the Xbox One.  In other words, the Windows runtime in Windows 8.1 Update 1 …
The Verge:
Live from Microsoft's Build 2014 keynote  —  In San Francisco, at 8:30AM PT on Wednesday, April 2nd, Microsoft will kick off its Build developer conference for 2014.  Microsoft's new CEO Satya Nadella is expected to take the stage and unveil Windows Phone 8.1, a big update to Microsoft's mobile OS.
Amazon.com:
Amazon Fire TV ships today with Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, YouTube, WatchESPN, and more  —  Introducing Amazon Fire TV: The Easiest Way to Watch Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, and More on Your Big-Screen TV  —  Powerful performance with 3x the processing power …
Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:
Amazon launches Fire TV, an Android-powered streaming and gaming set-top box for $99  —  We've been waiting for it for quite sometime, but now Amazon is finally ready to make its play for the living room.  Fire TV is not a barebones device like the Chromecast, it's a powerful Android-driven platform …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Amazon Fire TV hands-on: Prime comes to your living room  —  Amazon has just unveiled Fire TV, its first attempt at a set-top box for streaming movies, television shows, photos, games, and more straight to your TV.  The Fire TV is all black and consists of a small, square box that connects …
Dana Wollman / Engadget:
Windows 8.1 update aims to win over mouse-and-keyboard users, arrives April 8th as an automatic download  —  The whole point of Windows 8 was to make Microsoft's aging OS easier to use on touchscreen devices.  Mission accomplished, we'd say (more or less).  But now the folks in Redmond …
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
Lyft Raises $250 Million From Coatue, Alibaba, And Third Point To Expand Internationally  —  Lyft has officially closed a huge, $250 million round of funding that it will use to aggressively expand its on-demand ride-sharing service in the U.S. and internationally.
Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:
Spotify's new design is cleaner, darker and puts the focus on content  —  If you're using Spotify on the web, desktop or iOS you should notice a pretty massive change starting today.  (The new look should be coming to Android “near future.")  The company is launching its most dramatic overhaul since its launch in 2008.
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Box wants to let businesses control cloud encryption keys “this year”  —  Box CEO Aaron Levie told Ars last September that the cloud storage company is trying to build a service that would let customers store data in Box data centers but would keep encryption keys in-house.
More: ReadWrite and ZDNet
Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon Will Now Allow Returns Using Lockers  —  Amazon.com has quietly rolled out a new service to let customers return unwanted merchandise using large metal lockers it has installed for deliveries in garages, convenience and grocery stores in major metropolitan areas.
Jennifer Van Grove / CNET:
Apple praised, Amazon shamed in Greenpeace report on clean energy  —  In a report that looks at the energy footprint of top IT companies, the nonprofit calls out Amazon for being among the last to embrace clean energy sources like wind and solar.  —  Facebook's data center in Sweden.
Tom Hals / Reuters:
Judge orders Mt Gox CEO to U.S. for questions on failed bitcoin exchange  —  (Reuters) - The chief executive of Japan's Mt. Gox, once the world's leading bitcoin exchange, was ordered to the United States to answer questions related to its U.S. bankruptcy case, filed after the company lost $400 million of customers' digital currency.
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Reversible USB 3.1 Type-C connector shown in renderings, will be finalized in July  —  This is the reversible USB cable that will end your frustrations  —  The most abundant connector standard in technology, the Universal Serial Bus, is getting ready for its most revolutionary change yet …
Agam Shah / PC World:
Newton is the first MIPS-based mini-computer for wearables  —  A Chinese company has released a computer about the size of an SD card that can run a full version of Android and should make it easier to build wearable devices.  —  Called the Newton, the computer was developed …

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More News

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

Earlier Picks

Will Connors / Wall Street Journal:
Stephen Shankland / CNET: