Techmeme
October 31, 2014, 1:20 PM

Top News

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Slack raised $120M at $1.12B valuation in a round led by Kleiner and Google Ventures, all previous backers participated too  —  Slack's One-Year-Old Software Business Valued at $1.12 Billion  —  Workplace collaboration tool Slack didn't exist two years ago.
Elisabeth Hulette / Virginian-Pilot:
Circuit court rules criminal defendant may be forced to unlock phone with his fingerprint, but not his passcode  —  Police can require cellphone fingerprint, not pass code  —  A Circuit Court judge has ruled that a criminal defendant can be compelled to give up his fingerprint …
JP Mangalindan / Fortune:
Amazon exec: We priced the Fire phone wrong  —  When it introduced the Fire smartphone in July, Amazon bet sales would be something worth bragging about.  But three months in, it's obvious the Fire phone is more dud than runaway success.  —  Last week, Amazon CTO Tom Szkutak disclosed …
Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:
Google's robotics lead and Android founder Andy Rubin leaving the company to start an incubator for hardware startups, will be replaced by James Kuffner  —  Former Android Leader Andy Rubin Leaving Google  —  Rubin Is Starting an Incubator for Startups Interested in Building Technology-Hardware Products
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC nears reclassifying ISPs as common carriers on back-end, while still allowing fast lanes  —  FCC reportedly close to reclassifying ISPs as common carriers  —  FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler speaking to the cable industry in April 2014.  —  NCTA  —  The head of the Federal Communications Commission …
Jessica Dolcourt / CNET:
Samsung Galaxy A5 and A3: Sleek, slim, fully metal (hands-on)  —  Side by side on a table, the two nearly identical rectangular handsets look innocuous enough and extremely familiar.  Yet two things quietly make the Samsung Galaxy A3 and A5 stand out: their all-aluminum material and their unibody construction.
Kip Kniskern / LiveSide.net:
Microsoft's Outlook.com will get third-party app support in spring 2015  —  3rd party apps coming to Outlook.com  —  Microsoft continues to re-examine and bolster its platform company roots, this time by announcing app support for Outlook.com, coming in Spring 2015.
Adriana Lee / ReadWrite:
Google now lets developers add “Ok Google” voice search functionality to third party apps  —  OK, Google: Search Inside My Apps!  —  Soon Android users won't have to trifle with actually opening apps to dig up social photos, find restaurants or conduct other in-app searches.
Abhimanyu Ghoshal / The Next Web:
Facebook is now available on Tor for more secure browsing  —  After enabling secure HTTPS browsing by default for all users in August last year, Facebook has taken another step to allow for secure browsing, and has made their social network available via the Tor network for users who want to maintain …
Sophie Knight / Reuters:
Sony reports strong Q3 PS4 sales of 3.3M units, cuts annual smartphone sales forecast to 41M, after lowering them to 43M from 50M in Q2  —  Leaner Sony gains smartphone lift despite its own mobile malaise  —  (Reuters) - Sony Corp (6758.T) posted a smaller than expected second-quarter operating loss …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
BlackBerry updates BBM with timed messages and message retraction, unveils plans for a paid subscription  —  Above: BBM for iOS/Android, now beefed up with Voice and Channels  —  BlackBerry today released a new version of BBM, adding timed messages, message retraction, HD picture transfer, among other features.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
App spotlight: Devart ODBC for Zoho CRM  —  An efficient CRM tool helps sales teams maintain strong customer relationships.  However, for a business to leverage a CRM fully, it needs to be connected with other databases to ensure a smooth two-way data flow.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
How to Cultivate Everyday Dharma, Suneel Gupta (#54)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 04/26 - Net Neutrality Is Back
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:20 PM ET, October 31, 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.

More News

RT:

Earlier Picks

Yoree Koh / Wall Street Journal:
Dave McNary / Variety:
Casey Newton / The Verge: