Techmeme
January 22, 2015, 1:40 PM

Top News

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 …
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Sources: Google is preparing to sell wireless plans running on Sprint and T-Mobile networks  —  Google's Next Telecom Move: Becoming a Wireless Carrier  —  Google is preparing to sell mobile phone plans directly to customers and manage their calls and mobile data over a cellular network …
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.
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).
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
Paul Rosania / The Twitter Blog:
Twitter rolls out “While you were away” feature to iOS users, coming soon to Android and web  —  While you were away...  Today we're introducing something new to your home timeline: a recap of some of the top Tweets you might have missed from accounts you follow.
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.
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.
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.
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 …
David Shamah / ZDNet:
Amazon looking to buy datacenter tech startup Annapurna Labs for $350m  —  Summary:Amazon is reportedly in talks to buy a stealth-mode Israeli startup that could give its datacenters a boost.  —  After almost a year of searching, Amazon has found its Israel ‘soulmate,’ which is developing …
Phil Goldstein / FierceWireless:
T-Mobile to let lower-credit customers who pay on time get access to $0-down smartphones  —  T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) is giving every customer with a monthly voice plan who has made or makes 12 consecutive on-time monthly bill payments access to zero-down financing for smartphones regardless of their credit score.
Derrick Harris / Gigaom:
Ex-Facebookers at Interana raise $20M for mass-scale event data  —  Interana, a Menlo Park, California, analytics startup that officially launched in October has closed a $20 million Series B round.  Index Ventures led the round, which also included new investors AME Cloud Ventures, Harris Barton and Cloudera's Mike Olson.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control  —  Picture this: It's Monday morning.  You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
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:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
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.
Access:
Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:40 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

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

Earlier Picks