Techmeme: Quora, now valued at $900M, to join YC's summer batch, “a new experiment for us” (Sam Altman/Y Combinator Posthaven)

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May 9, 2014, 11:45 PM

Top News

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Beats founder Dr. Dre seemingly confirms Apple acquisition in a now-removed Facebook video, still visible on YouTube — Did Dr. Dre just confirm that Apple is buying Beats for $3.2 billion? [Updated] … Apple is rumored to be acquiring Beats Electronics in a landmark deal worth $3.2 billion.

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Why Tim Cook might be interested in Beats — What Is Tim Cook Thinking? Let's Read His Mind! — If Apple were Google or Facebook, its $3.2 billion deal-to-be for Beats wouldn't be that big of a deal. — Those guys drop billions all the time. We just don't blink anymore.

More: Business Insider, New York Times, The Awl, DailyTech, eWeek, hypebot, Network World, Gigaom Research, InvestorPlace and Guardian

Tweets: @davidsacks, @pmarca, @asymco, @pmarca, @pmarca and @pmarca

Wall Street Journal:

Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine expected to take on senior roles at Apple as part of Beats acquisition

More: BuzzFeed and 9to5Mac. Tweets: @ethanwsj, @jyarow, @mattlynley, @briansolis and @tim. See also Mediagazer

Jon Maples:

Apple buying Beats is an affordable bet on streaming to hedge against the decline of downloads

Wall Street Journal:

Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine could help strengthen iTunes Radio, increase ad revenue with his industry clout

More: Daily Dot, Medium and Gigaom Research

Tweets: @pmarca, @ampressman, @erinade, @delrey, @neiltwitz, @benbajarin, @kepano, @stevekovach and @pkafka

See also Mediagazer

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Oracle wins Android-Java copyright appeal: API code copyrightable, new trial on fair use — The most spectacular decision in the ongoing smartphone IP disputes has been handed down today by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit: District Judge William Alsup has been overruled …

More: Re/code, madisonian.net, ZDNet, Guardian, 9to5Google, SiliconBeat, PC World, ReadWrite, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Business Insider, Ars Technica, The Verge, ZDNet, InfoWorld, xda-developers, Electronista and CNET

Tweets: @grimmelm, @grimmelm, @mmasnick, @drnic, @ejnaughton, @sarahjeong, @binarybits, @binarybits, @fosspatents, @codinghorror and @dalmaer

Thanks:@fosspatents

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Appeals Court Doesn't Understand The Difference Between Software And An API; Declares APIs Copyrightable — We sort of expected this to happen after the appeals court for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) held its oral arguments back in December, but CAFC has now spit at basic common sense and has declared that you can copyright an API.

More: Gigaom

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Web host gives FCC a 28.8Kbps slow lane in net neutrality protest — Lots of people are angry about FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's Internet “fast lane” proposal that would let Internet service providers charge Web services for priority access to consumers. But one Web hosting service called NeoCities …

More: Neocities, The Verge, PandoDaily, Mashable, Re/code, Digital Trends, theWHIR.com, Techdirt, Daily Dot, Softpedia News and GamePolitics blogs. Thanks:@brianmcc. See also Mediagazer

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

AT&T claims common carrier rules would ruin the whole Internet — AT&T today urged the Federal Communications Commission to avoid reclassifying broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service, which is something network neutrality advocates are asking the FCC to do.

More: eWeek and SlashGear

Amy Schatz / Re/code:

FCC's Wheeler Denies Trying to Divide Internet Into “Haves” and “Have Nots”

More: Washington Post and The Verge. Tweets: @dangillmor. See also Mediagazer

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Facebook has pulled Poke and Facebook Camera from the App Store — Facebook Poke is dead — To Facebook, Poke was always “more of a joke” than anything else — so why did the company leave it in the App Store for more than a year after its troubled debut? We may never know, but today, Facebook finally put an end to Poke.

More: The Register, CNET News, Engadget, PC World, AppleInsider, Wall Street Journal, TechnoBuffalo, iMore, MacRumors, Business Insider, The Next Web, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, SlashGear, iPhone Hacks and Gigaom

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Apple trade-in promotion begins: up to $99 for iPhone 4, $199 for 4s towards purchase of 5s, 5c — Apple kicks off its big in-store iPhone upgrade event — In line with our earlier report, Apple has just kicked off a big iPhone trade-in event at its U.S. retail stores …

More: MacRumors, iLounge, BGR, Electronista, BBY, Redmond Pie, TechnoBuffalo, Ubergizmo, iMore and iPhone in Canada Blog

Sam Altman / Y Combinator Posthaven:

Quora, now valued at $900M, to join YC's summer batch, “a new experiment for us” — Quora in the next YC batch — This month, YC will be participating in Quora's most recent investment round and Quora will be joining this summer's YC batch. This is a new experiment for us …

More: Quora, VentureBeat, Gigaom and The Next Web

Tweets: @mathewi, @schlaf, @startupljackson, @eringriffith, @caseynewton, @amir, @eringriffith and @besvinick

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Apple Store employees switching from iPod touch to iPhone 5s for EasyPay POS system — Apple is in the process of updating the iPod touch units used by Apple Store employees as a mobile point-of-sale system to the iPhone 5s, according to sources familiar with the roll out.

More: AppleInsider, App Advice, ifoAppleStore and iMore

Tweets: @markgurman and @ifostore

Thanks:@jordankahn

Steve Dent / Engadget:

Apple hires Ari Partinen, senior engineer who worked on Nokia's PureView camera technology — Apple just hired one of Nokia's PureView camera experts — Now that Nokia is out of the smartphone game, many of its key engineers are undoubtedly considering their options.

David Streitfeld / New York Times:

Amazon is delaying delivery of some books “for reasons of their own”, says publisher Hachette — Hachette Says Amazon Is Delaying Delivery of Some Books — Amazon has begun discouraging customers from buying books by Malcolm Gladwell, Stephen Colbert, J. D. Salinger and other popular writers …

More: Good E-Reader, Salon, Business Insider, GeekWire, Re/code and The Awl. Tweets: @eileen_gunn. See also Mediagazer

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Samsung Won't Be Launching Any New Products at May 28 Health Care Tech Event — A lot of people assumed when they saw a teaser invite from Samsung for a May 28 event that the company was looking to launch some new health-care product just ahead of Apple's developer conference the following week.

More: Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo and SlashGear

Abhijeet M. / SamMobile:

EXCLUSIVE: First photos of Galaxy Tab S 10.5, Samsung's AMOLED tablet — We recently published exclusive info on Samsung's upcoming tablet with an AMOLED display, the Galaxy Tab S. The Galaxy Tab S will come in 8.4-inch and 10.5-inch variants and will be Samsung's return to OLED tablets …

More: Engadget, SlashGear, Sammy Hub, Phandroid, TechnoBuffalo, 9to5Google and MobileSyrup.com

Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

Boom! Google integrates Chrome apps into the Mac OS X Finder — Google's strategy to use the Chrome browser as a desktop replacement took another step forward on Friday. Users of Chrome Canary, an experimental version of Google's browser, can now associate Mac files with supporting Chrome apps in the Finder.

More: Franç, Engadget, 9to5Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Next Web, MacRumors, iDownloadBlog.com, VentureBreak, MacNN and Computerworld

Tweets: @edd and @bfeld

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