Techmeme
March 12, 2015, 9:05 AM

Top News

Re/code:
Apple Stops Selling Jawbone Up, Nike FuelBand in Stores — Making Way for the Apple Watch  —  Apple has removed competing fitness bands from its retail stores as the company prepares to ship its own wearable, the Apple Watch.  —  Checks of major stores in San Francisco, Palo Alto …
Kevin Rose / TechCrunch:
Apple Watch Edition won't appeal to the technologist, the collector, or the gold lover, only the douchebag  —  The Gold Apple Watch Is Perfect For Douchebags  —  Editor's Note: Kevin Rose is the founder of Digg, a technology investor, and CEO of North Technologies, creator of the watch news aggregator, Watchville.
Ben Thompson / stratechery:
With its design prowess, retail stores, and customer base, Apple is best positioned to make the wearable market  —  How Apple Will Make the Wearable Market  —  Last fall, Apple CEO Tim Cook described the Apple Watch as the “next chapter” in Apple's history, placing it at the same level as the Mac, iPhone and iPod.
Serena Saitto / Bloomberg Business:
Sources: Alibaba to invest $200M in Snapchat at a valuation of $15B  —  Snapchat Is Raising Money From Alibaba at a $15 Billion Valuation  —  (Bloomberg) — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. plans to invest in Snapchat Inc., the mobile application for sending disappearing photos …
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
Lyft Has Raised $530 Million In Series E Funding Led By Rakuten, Is Now Valued At $2.5 Billion  —  Ride-hailing startup Lyft has closed $530 million in new funding led by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, TechCrunch has learned.  The new financing, which is slated to be announced tomorrow …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Google's Project Loon balloons can cover an area the size of Rhode Island with LTE; remote locations still the primary targets for commercial service  —  Google balloons, “cell towers in the sky,” can serve 4G to a whole state  —  A single Project Loon balloon can cover an area the size of Rhode Island.
More: Ubergizmo
Bloomberg Business:
In under 24 hours, 11K people signed up for Stanford's cardiovascular study using ResearchKit  —  Thousands Have Already Signed Up for Apple's ResearchKit  —  (Bloomberg) — Stanford University researchers were stunned when they awoke Tuesday to find that 11,000 people had signed …
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:
Twitter updates privacy policy, prohibits uploading intimate photos and video taken without subject's consent  —  Twitter Takes Steps To Combat Stolen Nudes And Revenge Porn  —  The company issued new rules that prohibit uploading nonconsensual nudes and says it will lock the accounts of users who have posted them.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google launches new Chromebook Pixel at a lower price with two USB Type-C ports, $999 for Core i5, $1,299 for Core i7, now for sale on Google Store  —  Meet Google's New Chromebook Pixel  —  Google's Chromebook Pixel has always been an aspirational machine meant to show off Chrome OS at its best.
Reuters:
Judges reject Uber, Lyft requests that drivers be deemed contractors, say juries must decide  —  Uber, Lyft rebuffed in bids to deem drivers independent contractors  —  (Reuters) - Ride hailing apps Uber and Lyft failed to persuade separate U.S. judges on Wednesday to rule that their drivers …
More: The Verge, VentureBeat and SlashGearTweets: @efeng
David Streitfeld / New York Times:
Kleiner Perkins Portrays Ellen Pao as Combative and Resentful in Sex Bias Trial  —  SAN FRANCISCO — The esteemed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, its star partner, John Doerr, once said, “is a family, with occasional disputes.”  —  Maybe, if by “family” …
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Wall Street Journal:
Guardian corrects, clarifies articles on Whisper app privacy, takes down commentary post  —  Guardian Backpedals on Whisper App Privacy Violations  —  The Guardian on Tuesday clarified and corrected a series of controversial articles it published late last year about Whisper, a mobile app designed to transmit messages anonymously.
Wall Street Journal:
India's cab-hailing firm Ola to raise $400M from DST Global and others at a valuation close to $3B  —  India's Cab-Hailing Firm Ola Close to Raising $400 Million  —  Startup Could be Valued at About $3 Billion
Chris Davies / SlashGear:
After 11 hours, the App Store and iTunes are back online  —  Apple's App Store and iTunes have sprung back into life, after technical issues brought the download stores offline in the early hours of this morning.  Downloads of apps, music, and video resumed at approximately 1:30pm Pactific today …

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More News

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Earlier Picks

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