Techmeme
January 22, 2015, 4:05 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple targets Watch battery life of 2.5 hours heavy use and 3.5 hours standard use; pure standby battery life likely to be 2-3 days; CPU said to be A5-caliber  —  Apple targets for Apple Watch battery life revealed, A5-caliber CPU inside  —  Although Apple has said that the Apple Watch …
Jessi Hempel / Wired:
Inside Nadella's plan to reinvent Microsoft, starting with HoloLens, a flatter org chart, and a willingness to forge new partnerships  —  Satya Nadella's Got a Plan to Make You Care About Microsoft.  The First Step?  Holograms … REDMOND MISSED MOBILE  —  The old Microsoft never gained turf in smartphone operating systems.
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
BlackBerry CEO Wants Legislators To Make Developing BlackBerry Apps Mandatory  —  At this point, BlackBerry and Windows Phone fans are probably used to having a much smaller selection of apps than their counterparts on iOS and Android smartphones.  After all, diehard devotees of BlackBerry and Windows Phone …
Nick Bilton / New York Times:
In-flight Wi-Fi is getting slower, less reliable, and more expensive as demand increases  —  The Sorry State of In-Flight Wi-Fi  —  35,000 FEET, SOMEWHERE OVER THE MIDWEST — I've finally found something on commercial flights that's worse than airplane food: the Wi-Fi.
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Kim Dotcom Launches Skype Competitor MegaChat  —  Kim Dotcom, the infamous entrepreneur behind Megaupload, has released his latest product.  Currently in beta, MegaChat is a browser-based encrypted video calling and file-sharing platform that is being positioned as a Skype competitor.
Jason Del Rey / Re/code:
Button Raises $12 Million to Make the App World as Interconnected as the Web  —  Could 2015 be the year of “deep linking?”  —  One startup trying to ride that wave is Button, a New York City-based company which is today announcing a $12 million Series A investment less than a year after its launch.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Gift Card Marketplaces Raise Grabs $56 Million From NEA And Others  —  A company offering a marketplace where consumers can buy and sell their unused gift cards, Raise.com, announced this morning it has taken in a sizable $56 million round of Series B funding, led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
Jack Clark / Bloomberg:
Amazon Agrees to Buy Israel's Annapurna Labs for AWS Cloud Unit  —  Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) agreed to acquire Israeli semiconductor company Annapurna Labs, seeking to improve performance within its Amazon Web Services cloud unit.  —  A deal has been reached but hasn't yet closed …
Michael Carney / PandoDaily:
Braintree opens private beta allowing US merchants to accept bitcoin via its v.zero SDK and Coinbase integration  —  Paying for Uber with Bitcoin?  Braintree opens up bitcoin payments to its thousands of merchants  —  Two of the biggest forces in modern payments collided today …
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Google Suggesting Firefox Users Change Their Search Engine & Home Page  —  Now that Yahoo has gained search share from Google thanks to its Firefox deal, the search giant seems to be finally hitting back with moves to get users to switch to Google.  —  I've been checking each week since …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft announces Office 2016, coming in the second half of 2015  —  At its Windows 10 event yesterday, Microsoft unveiled the touch-optimized version of Office.  Today, the company offered more details about that version, and then snuck in another announcement: the next desktop version …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Deep analysis for deep questions  —  Introducing Superagent.  A new research product from Airtable: Subagents deeply interrogate your topic and turn it into boardroom-ready reports, slides, docs, or websites.
Clay:
Turn any GTM idea into reality  —  Clay helps GTM teams combine AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to move faster and turn insights into action.
Zoho:
5 tips to simplify email verification in Zoho CRM  —  This is a guest post by Clearout.Nearly 60% of email senders clean their lists regularly, yet average bounce rates still sit at 10.68%.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Grit:
How Malwarebytes Is Protecting Millions In The Era Of AI Scams | Marcin Kleczynski
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI Closes in on $100 Billion, OpenClaw Acquired, AI's Productivity Question — With Aaron Levie
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
The Pentagon vs. Anthropic + An A.I. Agent Slandered Me + Hot Mess Express
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Loyal's Celine Halioua: From Defying Doubters To Pioneering Dog Longevity
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Access:
Notion CEO Ivan Zhao on if AI is really killing software companies
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
His Excellency Khaldoon Al Mubarak: Investing in an AI-Driven World
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:05 PM ET, January 22, 2015.

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

Phil Goldstein / FierceWireless:
Ben Woods / The Next Web:

Earlier Picks

Paul Rosania / The Twitter Blog: