Techmeme: Nike Denies FuelBand Shutdown, but Layoffs Could Reveal New Cracks in Wearables Market (James Temple/Re/code)

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April 19, 2014, 2:35 PM

Top News

Nick Statt / CNET:

Exclusive: Nike fires majority of FuelBand team, will stop making wearable hardware — The sportswear company has decided that only software has a future in the company's technology vision. That means cutting the FuelBand, and those who helped make it.

James Temple / Re/code:

Nike Denies FuelBand Shutdown, but Layoffs Could Reveal New Cracks in Wearables Market — Nike confirmed a “small number” of layoffs in its digital sports division, but attempted to tamp down a CNET report late Friday that said the company was shuttering the hardware side of its FuelBand team.

More: TechCrunch, Business Insider, I4U News, Owened, App Advice and Neowin. Tweets: @jessicalessin

Rod Boshart / Quad City Times:

Microsoft brings $1.13 billion data center to Iowa — DES MOINES — Central Iowa is emerging as an economic magnet for high-tech data centers, state and local leaders declared Friday after plans were unveiled for global computer giant Microsoft to phase in a $1.13 billion regional data center over the next four to five years.

More: Computerworld, GeekWire, HotHardware.com News, WinBeta and VentureBeat

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Beats Bites the Bullet, and Starts Selling Subscriptions From Apple's App — Apple has a crazily powerful digital store, used by hundreds of millions of customers. But if you want to sell something there it will cost you: In almost every case, Apple keeps 30 percent of the purchase price on whatever its users buy.

More: VatorNews, TechCrunch, iMore, Engadget, MacRumors, 9to5Mac and AppleInsider

Tweets: @pkafka and @pkafka

Karl Bode / DSLreports:

Experian: Nearly a fifth of Americans who use Netflix or Hulu don't subscribe to cable TV — Cord Cutting on The Rise, Especially Among the Young — Cord cutting is on the rise, according to a new study by Experian Marketing Services. According to the report, the number of cord cutters …

More: The Huffington Post, PC Magazine, Business Insider, ReelSEO Video Marketing, Salon and ReelSEO Video Marketing

Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica:

Neil Young's music-player Kickstarter closes at $6.2 million — Neil Young's trek into high-end gadgetry didn't just stop with launching and promoting the PonoPlayer. He also apparently installed lasers in his fingers so that he could sign his own limited edition series of the product.

More: The Next Web, TechSpot, Crowdfund Insider and CNN

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

What Does the Recent Tech Stock Downturn Mean? The Truth Is Nobody Knows. — In his new book on high-frequency trading, “Flash Boys,” Michael Lewis opens with the very simple premise he gleaned from watching the stock market crash in October of 1987: — “If you ever needed proof …

More: Fortune

Issie Lapowsky / Wired:

How carriers' greed for additional revenue streams almost sabotaged the smartphone kill switch — How Greed Almost Sabotaged the Smartphone Kill Switch — About one third of robberies in major cities across the country involve the theft of a mobile phone, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

Mike Beasley / 9to5Mac:

Apple reaching out to developers who didn't win WWDC lottery, offering chance to buy unclaimed tickets — If you didn't get a chance to buy a WWDC ticket in the lottery last week, you might just get another chance soon. Developers who won were given until April 14 to buy a slot at the conference …

More: App Advice, Softpedia News, CNET, MacRumors, SlashGear and iMore

Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:

Hands-on with Ubuntu Touch 14.04: Coming along, but miles to go — We install it so you don't have to. Seriously, you probably shouldn't. — The last time we installed Ubuntu Touch on anything was about a year ago, shortly after the release of Ubuntu 13.04.

Les Shu / Digital Trends:

Toshiba's U3 MicroSD cards are fast enough to handle 4K video, still tiny and easy to lose — MicroSD cards have become so ubiquitous that even some digital cameras are now using it. That's fine and dandy if speed isn't a concern, but if you're snapping lots of photos and you need your camera to keep up …

More: Toshiba America Inc, Gizmodo, Maximum PC, TechSpot, PetaPixel, Electronista, Ubergizmo, TechEye, Engadget and I4U News

Daniel Cid / Sucuri Blog:

Heartbleed status scan: 0.52% of top 10K sites, 2% of top 1M sites still vulnerable — HeartBleed in the Wild — As most of you probably already know, ten days ago security Researchers disclosed a very serious vulnerability in the OpenSSL library, which is used to power HTTPS on most websites nowadays.

More: M-unition, PC Magazine, PandoDaily, Neowin and Business Insider

Tweets: @sucuri_security and @virusbtn

Kim Zetter / Wired:

Certificate Revocation Lists increase sharply in size in the wake of Heartbleed, hogging bandwidth

More: eWeek, CloudFlare Blog and Ars Technica. Tweets: @xor

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Airbnb closes TPG-led $450M-500M funding round valuing company at $10B — Airbnb Has Closed Its $500M Round Of Funding At A $10B Valuation, Led By TPG — TechCrunch has learned that Airbnb, the fast-growing site that lets people become hoteliers by renting out sofas, rooms or entire private homes …

More: VentureBeat, VatorNews, Skift, Wall Street Journal, Mashable, Re/code, PandoDaily and Business Insider. Thanks:@alex

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