Techmeme
July 16, 2014, 1:50 PM

Top News

Laura Hazard Owen / Gigaom:
Amazon is testing “Kindle Unlimited,” an ebook subscription service for $9.99/month  —  Amazon is testing an ebook and audiobook subscription service called “Kindle Unlimited” that offers “unlimited access to over 600,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks on any device for just $9.99 a month.”
Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
In IBM and Apple's wake, what will team Android do?  —  Summary: The biggest challenge for team Android is that Google and Samsung, two partners with enterprise ambitions, will have to herd cats to reach corporations to counter Apple and IBM.  —  Google, Samsung and team Android may have to form …
Apple:
Apple and IBM partner to develop iOS enterprise apps and cloud services, tailor AppleCare for enterprise; IBM will sell iPhones and iPads to business clients  —  Apple and IBM Forge Global Partnership to Transform Enterprise Mobility  —  Apple® and IBM (NYSE: IBM) …
Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:
New York Times:
Time Warner rejected $80B takeover bid by Murdoch's 21st Century Fox last month, no longer in discussions  —  Rupert Murdoch Said to Have Made Offer for Time Warner  —  Twenty-First Century Fox, the media empire run by Rupert Murdoch, made an $80 billion takeover bid in recent weeks …
Mark Harris / Guardian:
FBI warns driverless cars could be used as ‘lethal weapons’  —  Internal report sees benefits for road safety, but warns that autonomy will create greater potential for criminal ‘multitasking’  —  The FBI believes that the driverless car is a “game changing” vehicle could revolutionise high …
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Samsung In Talks To Scoop Up SmartThings For Around $200 Million  —  Google has Nest, Apple has HomeKit and Samsung has...SmartThings, we're hearing.  The deal was completed for around $200 million dollars, though it might have been less according to one source.  —  (Update: The deal is not done yet, says another.)
Ben Woods / The Next Web:
BlackBerry Assistant officially introduced as part of BlackBerry 10.3, Siri et al likely not worried  —  Canadian handset maker BlackBerry has officially introduced its virtual assistant for the BlackBerry 10.3 OS, and it's called simply ‘BlackBerry Assistant’.
Google:
Google+ removes all name restrictions, apologizes for “unnecessarily difficult experiences”  —  When we launched Google+ over three years ago, we had a lot of restrictions on what name you could use on your profile.  This helped create a community made up of real people …
Daniel Cooper / Engadget:
FiftyThree's Pencil iPad stylus arrives in the UK  —  Are you a Briton who's been itching to try out Pencil, FiftyThree's Bluetooth-connected iPad stylus?  Until now, the only way to get hold of the device would be to order it from the US and bracing yourself for the inevitable barrage of paperwork and annoyance from customs.
Liam Tung / ZDNet:
One in five ex-Nokia workers in Finland could be axed as Microsoft prepares layoffs  —  Summary: Speculation mounts in Finland about heavy cuts for Microsoft's Nokia employees.  —  The job cuts Microsoft is expected to announce this week could fall hard on Nokia's home country …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Comcast loves the FCC's net neutrality rules, wants limits on “fast lanes”  —  There are a lot of good things for Comcast in the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality proposal, and Comcast is smart enough to recognize it.  —  Today, Comcast Executive VP David Cohen announced that …

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Dana Wollman / Engadget:

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