Techmeme: Chumby's smart alarm clock relaunches with 1,000 apps (Mariella Moon/Engadget)

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July 2, 2014, 12:00 PM

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Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Developer preview test for Android L's Project Volta shows promise, 2 hours or 35% more battery life on Nexus 5 — Examining Project Volta: We put Android L through our battery test — For each Android release, Google likes to have a “Project” that picks an area of weakness and focuses on tuning the whole OS to fix it.

More: Gigaom, TechnoBuffalo, Geeky Gadgets, Geek.com, Business Insider, Android Police and SlashGear

R. Jai Krishna / Wall Street Journal:

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg apologizes for poorly communicating controversial News Feed study: “We never meant to upset you” — Sandberg: Facebook Study Was ‘Poorly Communicated’ — Facebook 's psychological experiment on nearly 700,000 unwitting users was communicated “poorly …

More: USA Today, PandoDaily, ROUGH TYPE, Times of India and Mashable

Tweets: @nycjim and @dangillmor

Jillian Ward / Bloomberg:

Facebook's News Feed Experiment Probed by U.K. Regulators

More: The Register, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, bizjournals, WebProNews, Ubergizmo, Reuters, iMore, Gigaom, Engadget, The Next Web, BBC, The Laboratorium and CNET

Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:

Investor Tim Draper wins auction for 29,655 bitcoins seized from Silk Road, partners with Vaurum to leverage the pool as a liquidity source in emerging markets — Famed investor Tim Draper wins auction of Silk Road's 29,655 bitcoins — Draper to partner with Vaurum, which offers “secure storage solutions” to banks.

More: New York Times, Re/code, Medium, Gigaom, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CoinDesk, On Bitcoin, NEWSBTC and TIME

Tweets: @boostvc and @adamdraper

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Source: Google paid more than $39M for Songza — Google Buys Songza, a Playlist Service for Any Occasion — In a sign of growing consolidation in the digital music business, Google announced on Tuesday that it had bought Songza, a three-year-old app that competes with Pandora and others …

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Google acquires music streaming service Songza for undisclosed amount, will keep product intact for now

Mariella Moon / Engadget:

Chumby's smart alarm clock relaunches with 1,000 apps — Remember Chumby? You probably haven't heard much about the snuggly tiny computer/smart alarm clock since its makers' company disbanded, but now it's back from its semi-retired state. Its current owner, Blue Octy LLC …

More: The Verge, Connectedly, Geeky Gadgets and Liliputing. Tweets: @chumby

Husain Sumra / MacRumors:

Apple Launches $49 Mac Pro Security Lock Adapter in Online Store — Apple today launched a new $49 Mac Pro Security Lock Adapter in its online store, offering users of the new Mac Pro a way to easily secure their machines using existing Kensington locks. Previously, users had to resort …

More: iMore, Softpedia News, SlashGear, AppleInsider, iPhone in Canada Blog, 9to5Mac and App Advice

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

An Upper Limit For Apps? New Data Suggests Consumers Only Use Around Two Dozen Apps Per Month — There are now well over a million mobile applications in both Google Play and the iTunes App Store alike, and growth of those app marketplaces shows no sign of slowing down.

More: asymco.com, ZDNet, 9to5Google, MacDailyNews and TIME

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

BlaBlaCar Raises A Massive $100 Million Round To Create A Global Long Distance Ride-Sharing Network — In what is the largest VC round in a French startup of all time, BlaBlaCar just raised a $100 million round led by Index Ventures, with existing investors Accel Partners, ISAI and Lead Edge Capital also participating in the round.

More: Gigaom, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, Re/code, VentureBeat, CNET, New York Times, Guardian, Skift, PE Hub Blog, Rude Baguette, PandoDaily, Webrazzi, Tnooz and Engadget

Tweets: @robinklein and @scottmaustin

Cindy Cohn / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Flawed Oversight Board Report Endorses General Warrants — The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) issued a legally flawed and factually incomplete report late Tuesday that endorses Section 702 surveillance. Hiding behind the “complexity” of the technology …

More: Computerworld, Techdirt, Re/code, Alexander B. Howard, Softpedia News, Reuters, Guardian, Nextgov and Inquirer. Tweets: @matt_cagle

Julian Hattem / The Hill:

Privacy board backs NSA's foreign spying

More: Forbes, Bloomberg, Associated Press and Wired.co.uk

Tweets: @the_intercept and @granick

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Amazon sues former employee for taking Google cloud job, in new test of non-compete deals — Amazon is suing a former Amazon Web Services strategic partnerships manager, Zoltan Szabadi, alleging that his new job at Google Cloud Platform violates the terms of a non-compete agreement that he signed when he originally joined Amazon.

More: CNET, Gigaom, The Register, VentureBeat, SlashGear, Business Insider and 9to5Google

Tweets: @ywxwy and @adamnash

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Tinder CEO's Internal Memo Says Harassment Complaint Is Inaccurate — TechCrunch has obtained an internal memo sent from Tinder CEO Sean Rad to employees in the wake of a new lawsuit waged against the company. The lawsuit focuses on the relationship between Whitney Wolfe …

More: VentureBeat, VatorNews, Valleywag, Gawker, Slate, USA Today, Washington Post, Guardian and The Verge

Nicholas Stango / Gizmodo:

Inside the Secret Building That's Bringing Cell Service To NYC's Subway — As Hurricane Sandy revealed almost two years ago, New York's 100-year-old subway is not a modern and robust system. In fact, compared to other cities, it's downright dirty, unpredictable and technologically behind.

More: ANIMAL

Ian Austen / New York Times:

Canadian antispam law goes into effect, resulting in a flurry of ‘please opt in’ emails — Canadian Antispam Law Whips Up a Storm of Last-Minute Messages — OTTAWA — The email has all the markings of malicious spam: an overwrought subject line screaming “Urgent Action Required …

More: Craig Addy, Toronto Star, CAUCE, Marketing Pilgrim, Financial Post, natlawreview.com, Ottawa Citizen, Politico, Canadian Business, Rachel Rodgers Law Office, Slate and Michael Geist Blog

Steven Millward / Tech in Asia:

Xiaomi sells 26.1 million smartphones in first half of 2014, still on target for 60 million this year — Xiaomi founder Lei Jun said this morning that the Chinese phone-maker has sold 26.1 million smartphones in the first half of 2014. He pointed out that it's a leap of 271 percent …

More: The Next Web, PC World, 9to5Google, CNET, TechCrunch, Reuters and Bloomberg

Hitesh Arora / NDTV Gadgets:

Google Discontinues SMS for Hangouts; Might Integrate Google Voice Soon — Google on Monday has updated that it is discontinuing SMS for Google Hangouts feature for Web from July 2. Up till now the feature was available for India, Pakistan, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Congo and many other countries from Africa and Asia.

More: Gizmodo, Google Operating System, Google Operating System, Droid Life, The Next Web and AndroidGuys

TechCrunch:

Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don't Store Personal Data In Russia — The Russian government has moved one step closer towards a “China-like” approach towards Internet services. — Last night, the Russian State Duma (parliament) passed the first bill requiring that the personal data …

More: VentureBeat, Gigaom, Geek.com, Geeky Gadgets and Ubergizmo

Mark Hearn / 9to5Google:

Google's Smarty Pins map game tests your knowledge about location-based events — Google released another web-based game today called Smarty Pins that will most likely distract you from other things that you should be doing. Powered by Google Maps, this quiz game tests your knowledge …

More: Guardian, PC World, The Next Web, Tnooz, Engadget, Softpedia News, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Google Maps Mania and Google Operating System

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