Techmeme
November 18, 2014, 9:20 PM

Top News

Shirley Sun / Facebook:
Facebook launches standalone Groups app for iOS and Android  —  Introducing the Facebook Groups App  —  People use Facebook Groups every day to stay in touch with family, collaborate on projects, plan trips and offer support to friends.  —  Today, we're introducing a new Facebook Groups app …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
With some 650M MAUs, Facebook gives Groups its own app with more control over notifications, no ads for now  —  The new Groups app makes Facebook about your friends again  —  Imagine you have an online service for chatting with friends, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 650 to 700 million monthly active users.
More: 9to5Google, GeekWire and GizmodoTweets: @xdamman
Yi Zhuang / The Twitter Blog:
Twitter search finally indexes all public tweets since 2006  —  Building a complete Tweet index  —  Today, we are pleased to announce that Twitter now indexes every public Tweet since 2006.  —  Since that first simple Tweet over eight years ago, hundreds of billions of Tweets …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple Seeds iOS 8.2 With WatchKit SDK for Apple Watch Apps to Developers  —  Apple today announced that its set of WatchKit development tools are now available for developers, allowing them to begin creating apps and software for the company's upcoming Apple Watch.
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick says exec's remarks on targeting the press “a departure from our values”  —  Uber CEO Condemns “Terrible” Comments  —  “We should lead by inspiring our riders, our drivers, and the public at large,” Travis Kalanick said in an 11-tweet tweetstorm this afternoon.
Nitasha Tiku / Valleywag:
Ten good questions Travis Kalanick failed to address in his tweetstorm apology  —  Uber CEO Posts 13-Tweet Apology Without Answering a Single Question  —  Uber CEO Travis Kalanick just responded to privacy and ethics concerns about Emil Michael, after the top executive publicly suggested paying $1 million …
Ryan Smith / AnandTech:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Far from killing it, native apps have made the open web even stronger  —  Native Apps Are Part of the Web  —  Christopher Mims, writing in the WSJ, “The Web Is Dying; Apps Are Killing It”: … I can't believe someone is still writing this in 2014.  Users love apps, developers love apps …
Lucian Constantin / PC World:
EFF and Mozilla back new certificate authority “Let's Encrypt” offering free SSL certificates  —  EFF, Mozilla back new certificate authority that will offer free SSL certificates  —  A new organization supported by Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others is working …
Cliff Edwards / Netflix:
Netflix to launch in Australia and New Zealand in March 2015  —  World's Leading Internet Television Network to Offer Original Series, Movies, Documentaries, Stand-Up Comedy Specials and TV Shows for Low Monthly Price  —  Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), the leading Internet movie and TV subscription service …
Bloomberg:
Apple told to pay $23.6M for infringing pager technology patents from the 1990s  —  Apple Told to Pay $23.6 Million Over Pager Technology  —  Apple Inc. (AAPL) was told to pay a Texas company $23.6 million after a jury found its iPhone and other devices used pager technology from the 1990s without permission.
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
WhatsApp rolls out end-to-end encryption using TextSecure code  —  The most recent update to WhatsApp's Android app includes a surprising feature: strong end-to-end encryption, enabled by default.  It's the strongest security any major texting app has offered, even compared with similar tools …
Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:
WeMail Raises $1M From Twitch, Reddit Founders For Intelligently Designed Mobile E-mail  —  Sure, there have been plenty of attempts at re-thinking e-mail on mobile devices.  But that's no reason not to try, try again.  —  A pretty experienced team of founders who have sold companies …
More: Re/code and GeekWire
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google's mobile search results get ‘mobile-friendly’ label to show you which sites work best on your phone  —  Google today announced the debut of a new “mobile-friendly” label on its mobile search results page.  The company says the change will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks, so don't fret if you don't see it yet.
Pete Rizzo / CoinDesk:
Coinbase launches Coinbase Tip, a one-click bitcoin micropayments tool  —  Coinbase Launches ‘One-Click’ Bitcoin Tipping Tool  —  Coinbase has officially launched a new micropayments tool that aims to provide websites and blogs with the ability to bolster revenue through online donations.

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