Techmeme
January 5, 2015, 5:20 PM

Top News

Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Dish announces Sling TV: stream channels like ESPN, CNN, and TNT over the internet for $20 per month without a cable subscription  —  You Can Finally Get ESPN on the Web, for $20 a Month  —  Lots of people say they want to ditch cable TV for the Web, but can't because they want to watch sports …
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
Broadwell U arrives: Faster laptop CPUs and GPUs from Core i7 to Celeron  —  Intel's staggered Broadwell rollout continues with 17 new laptop chips.  —  Intel promised us more chips based on the new Broadwell architecture in early 2015, and today it's delivering on that promise.
Scott Stein / CNET:
Lenovo enters the smart fitness band game with e-ink, water-resistant Vibe Band VB10  —  LAS VEGAS — Fitness band meets smartwatch: yeah, it's a well-trodden formula.  Lenovo, however, hasn't made a splash into wearables before.  The Vibe Band VB10, debuted at the 2015 International CES in Las Vegas …
Marco Arment / Marco.org:
Apple's marketing priorities are driving the pace of software releases at the expense of quality  —  Apple has lost the functional high ground  —  Apple's hardware today is amazing — it has never been better.  But the software quality has taken such a nosedive in the last few years that I'm deeply concerned for its future.
Lynn La / CNET:
LG G Flex 2: curved smartphone with 5.5-inch screen and Snapdragon 810 coming to Korea this month, AT&T and Sprint later this year  —  LG G Flex 2: Second-gen curved smartphone features 5.5-inch screen, Snapdragon 810 and ‘self-healing’ capabilities (hands-on)
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google Cast for audio lets you stream music from apps like Pandora and Rdio to compatible speakers, coming this spring  —  Google Cast will offer direct streaming from apps to Sony, LG, and Denon audio products this spring  —  What will be hot in consumer electronics and computing in 2015?
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Nest adds 15 new partners, now integrates with smartlocks, lighting, and home appliances  —  Nest's thermostat gets smarter with support for more third-party devices  —  Nest is today announcing a handful of new additions to the company's “Works with Nest” program, a designation given …
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
Garmin announces three wildly different smartwatches: Fenix 3, Epix, and Vivoactive  —  If smartwatches and fitness trackers were extraordinarily hot topics last year, they've only gotten hotter going into 2015.  A few products have tried to walk the line between both categories with a single …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Acquires Wit.ai To Help Its Developers With Speech Recognition And Voice Interfaces  —  Facebook today acquired Wit.ai, a Y Combinator startup founded 18 months ago to create an API for building voice-activated interfaces.  Wit.ai already has 6000 developers on its platform that have built hundreds of apps.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple to start selling SIM-free iPhone 6 & 6 Plus in the U.S. tomorrow  —  Apple will start selling fully unlocked, SIM-free iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models in the United States beginning tomorrow, January 6th, according to several sources.  The unlocked iPhones will be available …
Micah Singleton / The Verge:
AT&T is the first US carrier to support WebRTC  —  WebRTC will allow AT&T customers to make calls and video chat using their AT&T numbers in the browser  —  During its annual Developer Summit held the day before CES officially begins, AT&T announced it will be the first carrier in the US …
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Alibaba Competitor Wanda E-commerce Raises $161M At $3B Valuation  —  China-based Wanda E-commerce, which hopes to position itself as a rival against Alibaba, has raised one billion RMB (about $161 million) in funding from investment funds Centec Networks and Xude Rendao.
Brian Barrett / Gizmodo:
Parrot's New In-Dash System Gives Any Dumb Car Apple or Android Brains  —  While Apple CarPlay and Android Auto promise to make your car's in-dash system infinitely more bearable in the not so distant future, you're still stuck in the unfortunate position of having to choose between one or the other.
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC launches new complaints site after old site crumbled under load of net neutrality comments  —  FCC makes it easier to complain about cable, Internet, and phone providers  —  The Federal Communications Commission is still plagued by an ancient IT infrastructure despite being the government agency …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Gogo issues fake HTTPS certificates to block in-flight YouTube streaming, says no user info collected  —  Gogo issues fake HTTPS certificate to users visiting YouTube  —  Gogo has been caught issuing a fake digital certificate for YouTube, a practice that in theory could allow …
Kwame Opam / The Verge:
Panasonic will release Firefox OS TVs later this spring  —  It took a year, but Panasonic is finally releasing SmartTVs powered by Firefox OS this spring.  Panasonic announced its partnership with Mozilla at CES last year, but the TVs running the OS were conspicuously missing from the show floor.

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