Techmeme: Kim Dotcom Launches Skype Competitor MegaChat (Catherine Shu/TechCrunch)

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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 …

More: BGR, SamMobile, Gizmodo, Gigaom, VentureBeat, MacRumors, TechCrunch, The Verge, Business Insider, iPhone in Canada Blog, SlashGear, TechnoBuffalo, iDownloadBlog.com, Wearable Tech Insider, MacDailyNews and App Advice

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.

More: SiliconBeat, The Verge, Gizmodo, Washington Post, CNET and Fusion

Tweets: @stevebmicrosoft, @ericnewcomer, @stentontoledo, @sfiegerman and @sfiegerman

Sean O'Kane / The Verge:

Windows Holographic will let NASA explore what Curiosity sees on Mars

More: Ars Technica, NASA, CNET, Quartz, Tech Times, TechCrunch, Re/code, SlashGear and Gizmodo

Horace Dediu / Asymco:

Apple paid iOS app developers $10B in 2014, more than Hollywood's US box office revenues — Bigger than Hollywood — Apple paid $10 billion to developers in calendar 2014. Additional statistics for the App store are: — $500 million spent on iOS apps in first week of January 2015

More: App Advice, Telegraph, SiliconBeat, Cult of Mac, Business Insider, iPhone in Canada Blog, textually.org and Fortune

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 …

Deborah Gage / Wall Street Journal:

Persado Raises $21 Million to Replace Human Copywriters With Computers — Persado Inc. has raised another $21 million for software that aims to replace copywriters with computers, in another demonstration of the power of machines to solve problems that used to be the sole domain of humans.

More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Xconomy, Consumerist, PE Hub Blog, bizjournals and Wired

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.

More: The Next Web, Guardian, BetaNews, Gigaom, The Verge, CNET, PC World, Engadget, TechSpot, Windows Central, theWHIR.com, Geeky Gadgets, Electronista, SlashGear, TechnoBuffalo, Ubergizmo, Lifehacker, gHacks Technology News, Cult of Mac, Gizmodo, GSMArena Blog and Inquirer

Tweets: @kimdotcom and @megaprivacy

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Uber study of US drivers: average earnings are $19/hour, more than for taxi drivers; 40K joined in December; 70% drivers active after six months — Uber Study Shows Its Drivers Make More Per Hour And Work Fewer Hours Than Taxi Drivers — The people who drive for Uber generally …

More: Uber Blog, VentureBeat and Forbes. Tweets: @ryanlawler

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.

More: VentureBeat, New York Times and Digital Media Wire. Tweets: @rsarver

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

Journalist and Anonymous advocate Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison on charges stemming from Stratfor hack — Barrett Brown has been sentenced to 63 months in prison — After years of legal battles, Barrett Brown's legal saga has finally come to a close.

More: Boing Boing, Wired, Engadget, International Business Times, International Business Times and Boing Boing. See also Mediagazer

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).

More: Re/code, PE Hub Blog, VentureBeat and Gawker

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:

The case for Marissa Mayer, as key metrics suggest the turnaround at Yahoo is on track — Marissa Mayer's Plan for Yahoo Takes Hold. The Question Now Is Time. — When Marissa Mayer was offered the chief executive job at Yahoo in the summer of 2012, she had a script for returning …

Tweets: @fmanjoo, @fmanjoo, @anildash, @vindugoel, @pmarca, @wucker and @ruthcoxeter

Brian Beach / Backblaze Blog:

Backblaze: 4 TB HGST and Seagate hard drives are most reliable, 3 TB Seagate and WD drives fail often — What is the Best Hard Drive? — It was one year ago that I first blogged about the failure rates of specific models of hard drives, so now is a good time for an update.

More: InfoWorld, Ars Technica, ZDNet, Photography Bay, TechSpot, Lifehacker, CITEworld, Electronista, Cult of Mac, The Tech Report and Gigaom

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 …

More: Re/code, ZDNet, Seeking Alpha and Tech.eu

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 …

More: VentureBeat, Blogtree, Gigaom, NEWSBTC and TheDomains.com

Shara Tibken / CNET:

Surface devices running Windows RT will not be updated with a full version of Windows 10 — Microsoft's Windows RT isn't dead...yet — The software giant says it's working on an update for the versions of its Surface tablet that used an ARM-based chip. But it will only have some of the functionality of Windows 10.

More: The Verge, Gigaom, PC World, Neowin, Liliputing, Windows Central and ZDNet

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Hands-on with Windows 10 on a Surface Pro 3

More: Wired, eWeek, PC World, BetaNews, CNET and Neowin

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

Tumblr's Creatrs Network connects Tumblr's top artists with brands to help make ads — Tumblr wants its best artists to create ads people actually like — Tumblr's beautiful, GIF-filled feed is what keeps bringing visitors back, and it wants to make sure the feed stays that way even as brands begin to fill it with ads.

More: VentureBeat, The Next Web, New York Times, TechCrunch, Tumblr Staff, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and Mashable

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 …

More: CNET, WebProNews, Ubergizmo, The Next Web, Search Engine Roundtable, VentureBeat and Geeky Gadgets

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 …

More: Office Blogs, Engadget, GeekWire and The Verge

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