Techmeme
April 2, 2014, 4:40 PM

Top News

Joe Belfiore / Windows Phone Blog:
Cortana (yes!) and Many, Many Other Great Features coming in Windows Phone 8.1  —  Whew, what a day!  What a week!  I've just gotten off the stage at Build in front of 5,000 of our beloved developers talking about the future of the Windows platform.  And now I'm here to tell YOU about the stuff we've …
Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:
Microsoft making Windows free on devices with screens under nine inches  —  Microsoft today said it will make Windows free of charge for phones and tablets with screens smaller than nine inches, a move designed to help boost the company's market share.  The announcement comes alongside plans …
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 …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
The story of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri killer  —  Technically, Cortana isn't supposed to exist for at least another 500 years, but that's not stopping Microsoft from bringing her to life this week.  While Apple has Siri and Google has Google Now — both digital assistants that run on smartphones …
Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:
Nokia introduces the Lumia 930, 630, & 635, designed for Windows Phone 8.1  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Nokia has just announced its latest phones, the Lumia 930, 630, and 635.  —  The 930 is designed to take advantage of all the new aspects of Windows, wrapped up inside the new Windows Phone 8.1 operating system …
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 …
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 …
Brandon LeBlanc / Windows Experience Blog:
Windows 8.1 Update - important refinements to the Windows experience  —  As Joe mentioned here, today we're announcing two important updates to the Windows platform: Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update.  With these updates, we continue to refine and improve Windows based on feedback …
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 …
Yuichiro Kanematsu / Nikkei:
Report: Apple in talks to buy 55% stake in Renesas SP display chip design unit for $479M  —  Apple looking to buy Japanese chipmaker  —  SILICON VALLEY — Apple is in talks with Japan's Renesas Electronics to take over a unit that designs chips for smartphone displays …
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.
Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:
Ubuntu to shut down Dropbox competitor Ubuntu One as storage wars heat up  —  Canonical, owner of the popular Linux operating system Ubuntu, today announced that it is shutting down its file-storing service Ubuntu One.  —  Aside from being a distraction, Canonical says the service is being shut down because …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Automated Investment Service Wealthfront Raises $35M From Index, Ribbit Capital  —  Financial services as an industry is a sector that is rapidly being disrupted from all directions.  One of the startups helping to lead the pack is Wealthfront, an automated investment firm that serves …
Thanks:@wauckward
Andrew Brust / ZDNet:
Pivotal Big Data Suite released  —  Summary: Pivotal reveals its strategy for unifying different data technologies: license them all together.  —  Pivotal, the Big Data spinoff from EMC and VMWare, has announced today its “Pivotal Big Data Suite,” which it refers to as the industry's first Big Data Mega Bundle.
Chipworks:
Samsung Galaxy S5 teardown reveals innards of 16MP camera, biosensor, fingerprint scanner  —  Inside the Samsung Galaxy S5  —  Contributed by M. Alarcon, R. Fontaine, P. Gamache, D. James, J. Morrison, D. Yang and C. Young  —  Check back often as more analysis comes out of our labs!
Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:
Google launches Andromeda, a software defined network underlying its cloud  —  For everyone saying that software-defined networking is a pipe dream, Google is about to prove you wrong.  The search engine giant and cloud provider said it has made its Andromeda software-defined network platform available …

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