Techmeme
March 24, 2015, 11:50 PM

Top News

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:
Google is working on a project that lets users receive and pay bills with debit or credit cards from Inbox app and Gmail, to debut in fourth quarter  —  Google Working on Project to Let You Receive and Pay Bills Directly Inside Gmail  —  Google's mission to organize the world's information is now targeting your physical mailbox.
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple Acquires Durable Database Company FoundationDB  —  Apple has acquired FoundationDB, a company that specializes in speedy, durable NoSQL databases, TechCrunch has learned.  —  A notice on the FoundationDB site notes that it's no longer offering downloads of its database software.
Sam Altman:
Y Combinator's Sam Altman rebuts talk of bubble with a public wager that three tech portfolios will appreciate sharply by 2020  —  Bubble talk  —  I'm tired of reading about investors and journalists claiming there's a bubble in tech.  I understand that it's fun to do and easy press, but it's boring reading.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple Watch sales training encourages employees to build trust with customers, so they can serve as fashion advisors during sale  —  Apple's sales overhaul for Apple Watch will focus on building trust, offering fashion views, upselling bands  —  The job of Apple Retail Store employees will begin changing in profound ways next month.
Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:
Ars Technica obtains the Oakland Police Department's database of 4.6M license plate scans through a public records request  —  We know where you've been: Ars acquires 4.6M license plate scans from the cops  —  One citizen demands: “Do you know why Oakland is spying on me and my wife?”
David Morgan / Reuters:
Amazon blasts FAA for slowness on drone regulation, claims its recently cleared drone is already obsolete  —  Amazon blasts U.S. FAA for slowness on drone regulation  —  (Reuters) - E-commerce power Amazon.com blasted federal regulators on Tuesday for being slow to approve commercial drone testing …
Edward-Isaac Dovere / Politico:
Google and Twitter veteran Jason Goldman heads to White House as first-ever chief digital officer  —  Barack Obama names two new top aides  —  Murray is currently Vice President Joe Biden's deputy chief of staff and communications director; Jason Goldman will take over and expand the White House's digital outreach.
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Google Fiber announces Salt Lake City expansion, making it the eighth location to get the service  —  Google Fiber expands gigabit service again, plans move to Salt Lake City  —  Five metro areas on track to get Google Fiber; three already have it.  —  Google announced today …
Google:
Morgan Stanley CFO Ruth Porat to join Google as CFO on May 26  —  Ruth Porat to Join Google as Chief Financial Officer  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif (Tuesday, March 24, 2015) — Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced that Ruth Porat, currently Chief Financial Officer at Morgan Stanley, will join its management team as CFO.
Jamie Condliffe / Gizmodo:
Xiaomi's New Mi TV 2: A 40-Inch Android-Powered Smart TV for $320  —  Xiaomi's onslaught of affordable technology continues.  The Chinese company has today launched its new 40-inch Mi TV 2: a powerful smart TV running an Android-based OS that will sell for $320.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook introduces On This Day, a Timehop-like page that shows you posts, photos, other content that happened on this day in the past, offers notifications  —  Facebook's Timehop Clone “On This Day” Shows You Your Posts From Years Ago  —  Facebook's experimented with ways to surface old Memories since 2010.
Chris Dixon / cdixon blog:
London-based distributed computing firm Improbable raises $20M from a16z, develops large-scale simulated worlds  —  Improbable: enabling the development of large-scale simulated worlds  —  Over the past decade, computing resources that were previously available only to large organizations became available to almost anyone.
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Tennessee's attorney general wants court to set aside FCC's municipal broadband ruling  —  Tennessee fights for its right to squash municipal broadband expansion  —  FCC faces first lawsuit over vote to preempt state laws that limit competition.  —  The State of Tennessee is fighting …
Agam Shah / PC World:
HP dumps Apple's Beats audio, partners with Bang & Olufsen  —  Hewlett-Packard once relied on Beats for audio technology in its PCs and tablets, but that was before Apple acquired it.  HP has now found a new audio partner in Bang & Olufsen.  —  HP will use Bang & Olufsen audio technology to its PCs, tablets and accessories.
Rachel King / ZDNet:
Intuit acquires Playbook HR for QuickBooks Online Self-Employed  —  Summary:Intuit is aiming to answer the needs of independent contractors in the “on-demand economy” with a new acquisition.  —  Intuit is honing in on independent contractors with a new acquisition meant to bolster QuickBooks Online Self-Employed software.
TechCrunch:
47 Startups That Launched At Y Combinator Winter 2015 Demo Day 2  —  Y Combinator got so big, it had to split its Demo Day in two.  During today's second wave we saw a variety of promising biotech, marketplace, enterprise, and financial tech startups.  Yesterday we chronicled 50 consumer, B2B, developer, and hardware companies.

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