Techmeme
October 23, 2014, 4:55 PM

Top News

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Launches Pseudonymous App “Rooms” That Lets You Create Forums About Any Topic  —  It's not quite anonymous, but forums standalone app Rooms is Facebook's first product that allows you to ditch your real name.  Rooms lets you set up a mobile-only in-app discussion space about any topic …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Q&A With Facebook's Josh Miller On Why His Rooms App Isn't Anonymous, It's The Early Web Reborn  —  Is Rooms the anonymous Facebook app people were expecting?  “No. Unequivocally No...because you cannot be anonymous in our app,” Josh Miller tells me.  The Branch founder turned Facebook product manager's …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Cloud Strength and Hardware Progress Drive Record First-Quarter Revenue  —  Strong performance across commercial and consumer segments delivers revenue of $23.20 billion.  — REDMOND, Wash. — October 23, 2014 — Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $23.20 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2014.
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Up 3% After Reporting Better Than Expected FQ1 Revenue Of $23.20B, EPS Of $0.54  —  After gaining more than 1 percent in regular trading, Microsoft reported its fiscal first quarter 2015 earnings: Revenue totaled $23.20 billion in the period, leading to profits of $0.54 per share.
Kurt Wagner / Re/code:
Ello raises $5.5M round led by Foundry Group; investors and founders commit to ad free mission and convert Ello to a public benefit corporation  —  Ello Raises $5.5 Million to Grow Its Ad-Free Social Network  —  Ello, the ad-free social network that promises users it will never sell their data …
Amazon.com:
Amazon.com Announces Third Quarter Sales up 20% to $20.58 Billion  —  Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2014.  —  Operating cash flow increased 15% to $5.71 billion for the trailing twelve months …
Bloomberg:
Christian Bale to play Steve Jobs in Aaron Sorkin's film, which will begin shooting in the next couple of months  —  Christian Bale Didn't Have to Audition for Jobs Film Role  —  Actor Christian Bale didn't have to audition for the role of Steve Jobs in the coming biopic of the Apple Inc. …
Matthew Miller / Reuters:
Apple CEO says to add 25 stores in China within two years: Sina  —  Apple CEO Tim Cook holds a new iPad after a presentation at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California October 16, 2014.  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook said the company is planning to open 25 retail stores …
Kara Swisher / Re/code:
Yahoo's new home page, rolling out next month, emphasizes mail, video, and big-name content  —  Wanna See the Latest New Yahoo Home Page, Rolling Out Next Month?  Bokay!  —  I have been a little lax in lifting interesting tidbits out of Yahoo for some months now, mostly because it felt …
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Sprint undercuts AT&T, Verizon with $20, 1GB family data plan  —  At $20, Sprint is offering twice as much data as Verizon and more than three times the data as AT&T.  —  The wireless wars over family plans continue, with Sprint once against taking it up a notch.
David Meyer / Gigaom:
AWS comes to Germany as Amazon unveils second EU region, out of Frankfurt  —  The move has big implications for latency and resilience, and of course data protection — a particular concern for German businesses.  —  Amazon has launched its long-awaited German-based region - its second in Europe …
Sarah Buhr / TechCrunch:
Fountain, founded by former Mint execs including Aaron Patzer, an app where expert answers your questions, raises $4M from Shasta and First Round, now in beta  —  Mint's Aaron Patzer Launches Beta Version Of An On-Demand Answers App With $4 Million In Funding From Shasta And First Round
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Google's DeepMind Acqui-Hires Two AI Teams In The UK, Partners With Oxford  —  Earlier this year Google acquired DeepMind in the UK to expand the work that it is doing in artificial intelligence, and today the company announced that it is making some more significant moves to build this out even further.
Nick Summers / The Next Web:
Mozilla's Webmaker app will make it easy for anyone to create Web apps on their smartphone  —  Mozilla is working on an app for Android, iOS and Firefox OS that gives smartphone users the ability to easily create and share Web apps.  —  It's called Webmaker, after the initiative that Mozilla created to promote Web literacy.
Yoree Koh / Wall Street Journal:
Behind Twitter's Move to Become a Mobile-Services Shop  —  Twitter is looking to have its Google moment, the time when the tech giant began pushing to become more than just an Internet search engine.  —  For Twitter, this means staking a claim on the mobile universe as smartphones …
Marcus Wohlsen / Wired:
Mark Zuckerberg gives 30-minute public interview in Chinese at Tsinghua University  —  Mark Zuckerberg Speaks Mandarin, Blows Everyone's Mind  —  Think you're too busy to learn another language?  Well, you're not the CEO of a $205 billion company, and apparently, even this rather demanding …

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