Techmeme @ 2:20 PM ET, July 8, 2014

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

July 8, 2014, 2:20 PM

Top News

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Bye Google Maps: Apple brings its Maps to the web for Find my iPhone — Update: Apple appears to be testing or slowly rolling out the feature as some users report still seeing Google Maps. Apple Maps are live on the iCloud.com beta site and available for some users on the main iCloud.com site as well.

More: AppleInsider, BGR, MacRumors, VentureBeat, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, MacNN and App Advice

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple bolsters iOS 8 Health app with on-device steps counting & caffeine tracking — Apple has made significant enhancements to its upcoming Health application for iOS 8 in the latest beta of the new iPhone operating system. Most notably, the Health application can now utilize …

More: AppleInsider, LAPTOP Magazine, TechCrunch, Inquirer, VentureBeat, MacDailyNews, Gigaom, iLounge, App Advice, MacRumors, MacNN and Softpedia News. Tweets: @tim. Thanks:@mikebeas

Liam Tung / ZDNet:

BlackBerry reveals why the Passport is hip to be square: It's all about the spreadsheets — Summary: BlackBerry's Passport has inspired a lot of head-scratching, but the company reckons it does have a good reason for going out on a square limb. — Liam Tung

Jessica E. Lessin / The Information:

Senior Apple Maps app and Mapkit engineer Chris Blumenberg leaves for Uber — Apple Maps Engineer Moving to Uber — Uber has poached Chris Blumenberg, a senior engineering manager who worked on Apple Maps, according to three people familiar with the move.

More: AppleInsider, iMore, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Business Insider, iPhone in Canada Blog, MacNN and App Advice. Tweets: @joshconstine

JP Mangalindan / Fortune:

How John Arrillaga Sr. turned orchards into office parks for Silicon Valley's tech giants — The secretive billionaire who built Silicon Valley — How John Arrillaga Sr. transformed California fruit orchards into high-priced office space for the likes of Google, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Cisco.

More: Technologizer, Valleywag and SiliconBeat

Tweets: @howardlindzon and @stephaniemehta

Thanks:@jpmanga

Se Young Lee / Reuters:

Samsung estimates a ~24% YOY decline in profits, missing market expectations; reports slowing smartphone, tablet sales — Smartphones weigh on Samsung Electronics as guidance disappoints — (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Tuesday issued unexpectedly weak quarterly earnings guidance …

More: Samsung Investor Relations, New York Times, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, Re/code, CNET, Fortune, ZDNet, Businessweek, Reuters, DisplayBlog, MobileBurn.com, App Advice, ABC News, Electronista, Inquirer, TIME, Pocketnow, NBC Bay Area, 9to5Google, SamMobile, AndroidGuys, Quartz and Bloomberg

Tweets: @fmanjoo, @fmanjoo, @mattrosoff and @satariano

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

Spark Labs raises $4.9M to make an OS for the internet of things — Spark Labs, the company that last year built a development board that lets people make connected devices that could connect to a cloud service, has raised $4.9 million to take its business to the next step.

More: VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, TechCrunch, The Next Web, PE Hub Blog and Re/code

Mario Aguilar / Gizmodo:

Popcorn Time's “Netflix for Torrents” Is Coming to Chromecast — Popcorn Time is a miracle: It lets you stream torrents of movies and TV shows as though they were on Netflix or Hulu. Is it illegal? Probably! But it's also awesome, hard to trace, and soon, it'll work with your Chromecast.

More: BetaNews, Business Insider, Pocket-lint, 9to5Google, Softpedia News, Digital Trends, Ubergizmo, TechSpot, AndroidHeadlines.com and CNNMoney.com

Philip Guo / Communications of the ACM:

Python is now the most popular introductory teaching language at top U.S. universities … At the time of writing (July 2014), Python is currently the most popular language for teaching introductory computer science courses at top-ranked U.S. departments. — Specifically, eight …

More: PC World, ReadWrite and linux.com. Tweets: @holdenweb

Kif Leswing / Gigaom:

Android Wear teardown: These watches are made for tinkering — The two Android Wear smartwatches, the LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live, are finally shipping to early adopters, and the iFixit crew has done its customary teardown, pulling off both watch cases and faces to sneak a peek at the electronics underneath.

More: iFixit, iFixit, Engadget, Inquirer, CNET, Wearables Arena, SamMobile, Android and Me, Droid Life and Liliputing

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

Facebook likely better than the FBI at facial recognition due to its larger photo database — Why Facebook is beating the FBI at facial recognition — If you're worried about Big Brother and computerized facial recognition, this summer has given you plenty of reason to be scared.

More: Marketing Pilgrim

Roger Cheng / CNET:

Scoop: Sprint tests out family data plan, other discounted offers — The wireless carrier is testing a cheaper version of plans offered by AT&T and Verizon Wireless, underscoring the notion that it's moving away from being simply the “unlimited data” carrier. — Sprint CEO Dan Hesse at a company event in June.

More: DSLreports and Light Reading. Tweets: @johnlegere. Thanks:@jeskillings

John Biggs / TechCrunch:

Bitcoin Vault Xapo Raises $20 Million From Greylock, Index And Announces BTC Debit Cards Are Shipping This Month — Secure BTC vault Xapo has announced they've raised $20 million from Greylock Partners and Index Ventures, bringing their total investment capital to $40 million.

More: Wall Street Journal, Re/code, NEWSBTC, Bloomberg and PE Hub Blog

Horace Dediu / asymco.com:

As US smartphone penetration crosses 70%, signs that iPhone will fare well among late adopters — Late late majority — Seven years after the iPhone was launched, 70% of the US population is using smartphones. Smartphones existed before the iPhone so the category is older than seven years …

More: 9to5Mac

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

LG's Android Wear-based G Watch is now on sale across the world on Google Play and key retailers — LG took the wraps off the G Watch in March, a smartwatch powered by Android Wear, Google's platform for wearables. Now the G Watch is finally available for purchase worldwide on Google Play …

More: LG Newsroom, CNET, Gizmodo, ZDNet, Droid Life, Android Central, Pocketnow, Ubergizmo and Gotta Be Mobile

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:

Cloudian Raises $29 Million Because Not Everything Needs To Live In “The Cloud” — As the cloud storage provider Box continues to slouch toward its public offering (staggering under the weight of new invested capital), a number of startups continue to raise cash on the premise that sometimes sensitive data needs to remain grounded.

More: VentureBeat, Tech in Asia, pevc.dowjones.com, PE Hub Blog and Forbes

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

iPhone 6 Front Panel Subjected to Scratch Test, Significant Bending — Earlier today, we shared a video of what appeared to be the front panel of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 subjected to a limited bending stress test, but YouTube user Marques Brownlee has now acquired the same front panel and subjected …

More: YouTube, PC Magazine, LAPTOP Magazine, Inquirer, BGR, Business Insider, iPhone Hacks, Gotta Be Mobile, TIME, DisplayBlog, The Register, VentureBeat, Cult of Mac, Daring Fireball and MacRumors

Tweets: @lukew and @thetechblock

Joseph F. Kovar / CRN:

EMC VMAX3 Array Runs Server Apps, Gets Cloud Tiering Via TwinStrata Acquisition — Pages — In a move that could significantly shake up the way data centers are architected, EMC Tuesday updated its flagship VMAX storage solution with new software and a new storage hypervisor …

More: Gigaom, InfoWorld, Computerworld, bizjournals, The Register, CloudWedge, Channel Partners News …, BetaBoston and cloudcomputing-news.net

Andrea Peterson / Washington Post:

Chinese cyberspies have hacked Middle East experts at major U.S. think tanks — Middle East experts at major U.S. think tanks were hacked by Chinese cyberspies in recent weeks as events in Iraq began to escalate, according to a cybersecurity firm that works with the institutions.

More: CrowdStrike, The Register, CNET, Softpedia News, Computerworld, Inquirer, SC Magazine, Reuters and VentureBeat

Tweets: @dylanwelch and @teamcymru

Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:

Keith Rabois' Homebuying Startup OpenDoor Raises $9.95M From Everyone — Well. — It seems like a lot of Valley investors want to see the process of buying homes become a lot more efficient. — After Khosla Ventures VC and former Square COO Keith Rabois teased that he was working …

More: Fortune, The Technology Chronicles, Inman News, bizjournals, VentureBeat and Re/code

Tweets: @howardlindzon and @mike_greenfield

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:

Azure Content Understanding: Building on lessons from a decade of Document Intelligence — What a decade of teaching machines to read real-world documents taught us about what LLMs can and can't do.

Will Reed:

The best sales leaders aren't job hunting. Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach. — Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.

Zoho:

Ask an Expert: How to effectively recover stuck TDS refunds with reduced TDS reconciliation time — The 26AS/Form 168 gets updated quarterly and often gets checked only during the time of ITR filing.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Great Chat:

The launch industrial complex

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Big Technology Podcast:

Can AI Keep Growing Exponentially? Let's Ask SemiAnalysis — With Dylan Patel and Jordan Nanos

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Larry Ellison's Media Ambitions & Kevin Roose on AI's Biggest Gamble

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

Training Data:

Google's AI Infrastructure Chief, Amin Vahdat, on the Physics & Economics of Frontier AI

Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.

Subscribe to Training Data.

Invest Like the Best:

Andrew Huberman - The Frontier of Neurotechnology

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Sources:

Reflection's founders on building a DeepSeek of the West

Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Subscribe to Sources.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:20 PM ET, July 8, 2014.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.