Open Links In New Tab
Mobile Archives Advertise Site News
Techmeme
August 13, 2014, 6:55 AM
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter

Top News

Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
Samsung may unveil VR headset at September 3 event; image shows similarities to Google's Cardboard  —  This is Samsung's VR headset  —  Samsung will be showing its rumored virtual reality headset at its upcoming product event in early September, The Verge has learned, where the company widely expected to announce the Galaxy Note 4.
Daniel Cooper / Engadget:
Amazon introduces its $10 mobile card reader, Local Register, and undercuts Square and PayPal transaction fees  —  Amazon undercuts Square and PayPal with its own mobile card reader  —  Square's grand plan to democratize credit card payments has inspired a clutch of imitators, the latest of which is Amazon.
Ina Fried / Re/code:
HTC builds separate business unit to make software for more than just HTC phones, launching Zoe video app for Android this week  —  HTC Builds Software Business Amid Tough Phone Market  —  Despite building some of the sexiest smartphones this side of Apple, HTC's hardware and financial challenges have been well documented.
Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:
WeChat climbs to 438 million monthly active users, closing in on WhatsApp's 500 million  —  Tencent published its earnings today for the second quarter of 2014, revealing a new milestone for its WeChat messaging app: it has risen to 438 million monthly active users, up from 396 million the previous quarter.
Sonja Hegman Andras / AllFacebook:
Facebook Engineers Kill iOS Bug, Reduce Crash Rate by 50%  —  Facebook engineers have solved a long-term mobile bugging issue in iOS, reducing its crash rate by more than 50 percent.  According to the company's engineering blog, one of mobile's top crashes was in the Apple Core Data system.
Steven Levy / Wired:
Ex-Siri engineers promise consumer-friendly digital assistant “Viv” that can teach itself  —  Forget Siri: This Radical New AI Teaches Itself and Reads Your Mind  —  Viv was named after the Latin root meaning live.  Its San Jose, California, offices are decorated with tsotchkes bearing …
Victor H. / PhoneArena:
Samsung launches Galaxy Alpha, 4.7 inch, metal frame, octa-core, $689 off-contract, arrives September  —  Samsung Galaxy Alpha is now official: metal-made and the thinnest Galaxy yet  —  After months of endless leaks, rumors and speculations, the Samsung Galaxy Alpha has finally gone official.
Sebastian Anthony / ExtremeTech:
Reversible USB Type-C connector finalized: Devices, cables, and adapters coming soon  —  The USB Promoter Group has announced that the greatest invention in the known universe — the reversible Type-C USB connector — is finally ready for mass production.  The USB Implementers Forum …
Takashi Mochizuki / Wall Street Journal:
New on Messaging App Line: Stock Trading  —  In Asia, people are using messaging apps to do a lot more than just send messages.  Popular Asian apps like Line, WeChat and Kakao Talk all offer many additional features like photo-sharing, games and online shopping.  Now, you can add one more to the list: stock trading.
Jillian D'Onfro / Business Insider:
Internal documents from LinkedIn explain how the Bizo acquisition could lead to a $US1B B2B marketing platform by 2017  —  Leaked: Here's How LinkedIn Plans To Have A New Billion-Dollar Business In 3 Years  —  LinkedIn plans to break into the $50 billion business-to-business marketing space …
More: Bloomberg
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Uber says Lyft cancelled 12.9K Uber rides, and Lyft investors pressured Uber to buy Lyft  —  Accusations Fly Between Uber and Lyft  —  All is fair, they say, in love and war.  And Uber and Lyft, two smartphone-based car services, are most certainly at war.
Roy Goldenberg / Globes Online:
Taxi hailing app co GetTaxi raises $150m  —  The company will expand services to European cities beyond its existing operations in London, Moscow and St. Petersburg.  —  Taxi hailing app company GetTaxi has raised $150 million in a huge financing round.  The company has yet to name …
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple Stores to start offering iPhones via carrier financing on Aug. 20th  —  A significant number of Apple Stores in the United States will likely begin offering iPhone sales via the latest carrier financing programs later this month, according to several sources.
More: MacNN and SlashGear
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Shift Is Developing A Debit Card That Lets You Spend Digital Currency, Loyalty Points And Regular Money  —  In the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in the world, 100 people are testing out a debit card that lets them pay with bitcoin and ripple, and, in the future, regular money and loyalty points.
Nick Summers / The Next Web:
Sony has sold 10 million PlayStation 4 consoles worldwide  —  Sony is on a roll.  During its press conference at Gamescom 2014, the company announced it has now sold 10 million PlayStation 4 consoles worldwide.  —  To be clear, this is the number of consoles that have been bought by consumers …
Ben Thompson / stratechery:
BuzzFeed's valuation reflects how the Internet is narrowing the difference between media and software distribution  —  Is BuzzFeed a Tech Company?  —  It's telling that Chris Dixon, in a blog post explaining Andreessen Horowitz's $50 million investment, goes out of his way to explain …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
The best time to become a Zoho Partner  —  The business world is not only changing but it is being rebuilt.  Customers want connected ecosystems that will help them automate, unify their data, and do more with less.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box 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

Big Technology Podcast:
 OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
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.
Hard Fork:
 Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Access:
 Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
 So what happens after AGI?
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
 Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
 Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
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.
Add your podcast here
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:55 AM ET, August 13, 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.

From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Financial Times:
OpenAI hopes the Disney deal boosts Sora, which has high costs and limited traction; Sensor Tower: users average 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

More News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft will offer a $499 Call of Duty Xbox One bundle with 1TB of storage, but no Kinect

Earlier Picks

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
OnePlus asks women to participate in degrading contest to get a smartphone
Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
Twitter launches Promoted Video ads in beta, only charging advertisers when a user hits play
Ina Fried / Re/code:
Apple's Diversity Report: 70 percent Male, 55 percent White in U.S.
Mediagazer memeorandum WeSmirch
Home River Leaderboards About Events Newsletter