Techmeme: Uber and Its Shady Partners Are Pushing Drivers into Subprime Loans (Nitasha Tiku/Valleywag)

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November 4, 2014, 9:40 PM

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Chris Welch / The Verge:

Amazon Prime customers now get unlimited cloud storage for photos — With so many backup options, losing your photos should be impossible — When it comes to backing up your photo library and life's most precious memories, it's good to have multiple options.

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Amazon Begins Extending Prime-Member Perks to Other Shopping Sites — Can Amazon Prime become the VIP pass for the rest of the web? — For the first time since launching its Prime membership program in 2005, Amazon is extending some of the club's perks to its members as they shop on other big shopping sites around the Web.

More: Gizmodo, Mashable, WebProNews, Engadget, SlashGear, TechCrunch, GeekWire and Business Insider

Tweets: @gregbensinger and @delrey

Nitasha Tiku / Valleywag:

Uber and Its Shady Partners Are Pushing Drivers into Subprime Loans — The subprime lending market that plunged America into the Great Recession is back and as unscrupulous as ever. Instead of mortgages, this time a bubble has formed around auto loans, and reliably ruthless Uber is in the thick of it.

More: Wall Street Journal and Business Insider. Tweets: @backlon, @mikeisaac, @ellenhuet, @mims and @caseyjohnston

Brian Stevens / Google Cloud Platform Blog:

Google lets you run clusters of Docker containers with Container Engine, reduces cloud computing prices, announces new cloud connectivity options — Google Cloud Platform Live: Introducing Container Engine, Cloud Networking and much more — Today, tens of thousands of developers from around …

More: VentureBeat, CITEworld, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, SiliconANGLE, eWeek, Mashable, EnterpriseTech, InfoWorld, InfoQ, ReadWrite, Seeking Alpha, Business Insider, WebProNews and PLUMgrid

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Dropbox and Microsoft partner to let users access Dropbox from Office apps, edit Office files from Dropbox app — Dropbox and Microsoft form surprise partnership for Office integration — Office mobile apps will soon seamlessly sync to Dropbox — Microsoft and Dropbox are teaming …

More: The Dropbox Blog, News Center, Office Blogs, ZDNet, Re/code, BGR, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Tech Times, GeekWire, TechSpot, theWHIR.com, Computerworld, The Next Web, SlashGear, Gigaom, The Mac Observer, PC World, Wall Street Journal, Ars Technica and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @satyanadella, @levie, @thurrott and @tomwarren

Chris Matyszczyk / CNET:

Marketing firm claims it started #AlexFromTarget meme using Twitter accounts it controls, but not on behalf of Target — Marketing company claims responsibility for ‘Alex from Target’ — Breakr, a company that wants to bring fans and fandom together, says it's behind the latest overnight viral sensation.

More: LinkedIn Pulse, Marketing Land, Business Insider, Gigaom, abc7.com, Yahoo Tech, Mashable, Gawker, The Daily Dot and ClickZ

Tweets: @auscalum, @dannysullivan, @acl163, @breakrnation, @tomgara, @theellenshow, @ashfein, @fmanjoo, @joshuatopolsky and @mikeisaac

Chris Sonderby / Facebook:

Facebook says government requests for data up 24%, content removal up 19% in just 6 months — Global Government Requests Report — Today, we're releasing our third Government Requests Report, which provides information about the number of government data and content removal requests …

More: Los Angeles Times, Slate, The Register, Gigaom, VentureBeat, CNET, Mashable, Computerworld, Ubergizmo, SlashGear, The Next Web, TIME, VatorNews, TechCrunch, Reuters, The Hill and AllFacebook

Hannah Karp / Wall Street Journal:

Warner Music Group Signs Deal to License Music to SoundCloud — Warner Is First Major Record Label to Start Earning Money From German Audio-Sharing Site — Warner Music Group has signed a deal to license its music to SoundCloud Ltd., the companies said, making Warner the first major record label …

More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Digital Trends, Engadget, Fortune, CNET, New York Times, Gigaom, The Next Web, The Verge, Gizmodo and SlashGear. Tweets: @pkafka. See also Mediagazer

Mitchel Broussard / MacRumors:

Emoji to Gain Expanded Racial Diversity With Skin Tone Modifier Option in Mid-2015 — The Unicode Consortium has released a technical report (via Emojipedia) detailing a new method for handling the representation of multi-ethnic groups in emoji. Previous guidelines have stated that emoji people be …

More: TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Emojipedia Blog, The Verge, Unicode Consortium, Ars Technica, Associated Press, ABC News, AppleInsider, Windows Phone Central and Tech Times

Steven Bertoni / Forbes:

Sean Rad to step down as Tinder CEO, will become president and remain on board — Exclusive: Sean Rad Out As Tinder CEO. Inside The Crazy Saga — Sean Rad, the cofounder and CEO of Tinder, an app that over the past two years has completely reinvented how young people date and mate, has been generating news regularly.

More: VatorNews, Wall Street Journal, Valleywag, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Salon, Gigaom, CNNMoney.com, SocialTimes, WebProNews, The Daily Dot, Fortune, Re/code and Mashable

Tweets: @bonatsos, @dmac1, @dmac1 and @stevenbertoni

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Tinder testing its paid product Tinder Plus in select countries outside US; features include Undo and Passport, with prices from $.99 to $19.99

More: Gizmodo

Walt Mossberg / Re/code:

MCX CEO: CurrentC exclusivity deal blocking Apple Pay at CVS will expire in months, not years — What Are the Anti-Apple Pay Merchants Afraid Of? — I've been a regular customer at CVS/pharmacy, the country's second-largest drugstore chain, for 20 years.

More: Class Action Lawyers, Forbes, MacRumors, Mercury News, iMore, BGR, Ubergizmo, Electronista, iDownloadBlog.com, AppleInsider, Gigaom, iPhone in Canada Blog, Gizmodo, Cult of Mac, Digital Trends, The Verge, PE Hub Blog, 9to5Mac, MacDailyNews and App Advice. Tweets: @mdudas

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Google and LG will license each other's patents for the next decade — Samsung isn't the only Android device maker getting cozy with Google's patents, apparently. LG has just entered into a cross-licensing deal with Google that will let the two companies use each other's patents (including new ones) for the next 10 years.

More: LG Newsroom, PC World, TechCrunch, Ubergizmo, FOSS Patents and MobileSyrup.com

Mic Wright / The Next Web:

Consumer version of Oculus Rift VR headset ready to arrive in ‘months’, says CEO — Oculus VR CEO, Brendan Iribe, told the audience at Web Summit 2014 in Dublin, that a consumer-version of the company's Rift VR headset is “close”. While he understandably declined to offer a timetable for launch …

More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, PC Magazine, Upstart Business Journal, InfoQ, The Register, Electronista, Ubergizmo, The Verge, Business Insider, Geeky Gadgets, CNET, Tech City News and Gamasutra

Melissa Riofrio / PC World:

HP announces Omen, a 15.6-inch gaming laptop with Intel Core i7 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M GPU, available in US today for $1,499 — HP's Omen laptop seeks gaming cred with hot hardware that runs cool — With the new Omen gaming laptops announced Tuesday, HP is throwing down its gauntlet …

More: Engadget, The Verge, Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware Guide, Maximum PC, SlashGear, Laptop Mag and CNET

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:

BitPay Launches Bitcoin Checkout App For One Tap Payments — In the latest move to bring bitcoin payments to the masses, BitPay is launching a new point-of-sale app, Bitcoin Checkout, for in-store payments. — With the launch of the mobile checkout app at Money20/20 in Las Vegas …

More: Gigaom, Upstart Business Journal, The BitPay Blog and Inside Bitcoins

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Intel Capital invests $62M in 16 tech startups — Intel Capital, the venture arm of the world's biggest chipmaker, is unveiling it has invested $62 million in 16 tech startups today. The investments show that Intel is still bullish about funding new tech companies that could one day spur lots …

More: TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Mercury News, Los Angeles Times, bizjournals, Ubergizmo, CNET, PE Hub Blog, PC World, GeekWire and Stratoscale

Andy / TorrentFreak:

Pirate Bay founder Fredrik Neij arrested in Asia, all three founders now behind bars — Pirate Bay Founder Fredrik Neij Arrested in Asia — Following the criminal convictions of Pirate Bay founders Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, each went their separate ways.

More: Associated Press, Digital Trends, Guardian, Upstart Business Journal, TechSpot, theWHIR.com, CNET, Computerworld, Kotaku, Engadget, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Ars Technica and Tech in Asia. See also Mediagazer

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