Techmeme: Attorneys general in NY and Conn. investigating whether Apple, music labels violated antitrust laws in talking about competing freemium services like Spotify (New York Times)

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June 10, 2015, 7:30 AM

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New York Times:

Attorneys general in NY and Conn. investigating whether Apple, music labels violated antitrust laws in talking about competing freemium services like Spotify — 2 States Look for Collusion Between Apple Music and Major Labels — While Apple was preparing a splashy introduction for a new service …

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Spotify raises $526M from wide range of global investors, source says at a $8.53B valuation — Spotify Raises $526 Million Amid Battle With Apple — Spotify has closed a massive new round of funding from a wide range of global investors who are betting it can fend off a new threat from Apple.

More: Tech.eu, Reuters, Business Insider, VentureBeat, TeliaSonera, TechCrunch, The Verge, A personal view …, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, SiliconANGLE, Reuters, Telegraph, e27, The Tech Portal, StreetWise Journal and The Memo. Tweets: @scottmaustin. See also Mediagazer

Spotify Blog:

Spotify hits 20M paid subscribers, 75M total active users, has paid $3B in artist royalties — 20 Million Reasons to Say Thanks — What a difference a year makes! At the end of May 2014, we reached 10 million paying subscribers and 40 million active users.

More: Re/code, TechCrunch and Guardian

Washington Post:

SpaceX founder files with government to provide Internet service from space — Elon Musk's space company has asked the federal government for permission to begin testing on an ambitious project to beam Internet service from space, a significant step forward for an initiative …

More: SlashGear, SiliconANGLE and The Next Web

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Messenger hits 1B downloads on Google Play, makes Facebook the second company after Google to reach that milestone — Facebook Messenger On Android Hits 1...Billion...Downloads — Only two companies have apps with over 1 billion Google Play downloads, and the other is Google.

More: David Marcus, BetaNews, The Next Web, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, Digital Trends, SocialTimes, Fone Arena, PandoDaily, The Verge and 9to5Google. Thanks:@sarahaasullivan

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Glassdoor: Employees rank Google's Larry Page as CEO of the year; LinkedIn's Jeff Weiner loses top spot — Career website Glassdoor today released its latest report highlighting 2015's top 50 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), and once again the tech world played a big role in the list.

More: Glassdoor, GeekWire, 9to5Google, Bloomberg Business and Business Insider

Tweets: @startupljackson and @katies

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

Instagram is launching a redesigned website with bigger photos — Instagram's website is about to look much nicer. It's introducing a new web design on desktop and mobile this week that cleans up the page and makes photos much bigger than they are now. Most noticeable is the change …

More: Engadget and Fone Arena

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Apple vehicles on UK and Irish streets to ‘improve Apple Maps’ service — Technology giant promises to blur faces and car licence plates if they are captured, as it continues work on Street View-style service — Apple is taking a leaf out of Google's book by putting a fleet of vehicles …

More: 9to5Mac, Telegraph, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, The Verge, The Next Web and iPhone Hacks

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Interview with Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine on Apple Music, Connect, and the importance of a “human touch” in curating playlists — Apple Music interview: 'Algorithms can't do it alone - you need a human touch' — Jimmy Iovine and Eddy Cue train their sights on Spotify …

More: Billboard, Wall Street Journal, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, MacDailyNews, Daily Mail and BGR. Tweets: @theblueworm. See also Mediagazer

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Google Maps now lets you send places from desktop to your iPhone — Android users have been able to take advantage of the handy “send to device” feature in Google Maps since April, and now the same functionality has arrived on iOS. The latest version of Google Maps, now in the App Store …

More: iMore, BGR, AppleInsider and Engadget

Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:

Stripe Now Has An iPhone App For Monitoring Payment Activity — Stripe, a service that companies can use to accept payments, has a new way for businesses to track purchases and user activity — an iPhone app. — The new iPhone app does basically everything its existing online dashboard does …

Tweets: @mattmischuk

Mikael Ricknäs / PCWorld:

Unity 5.1 update brings VR-specific features including native Oculus Rift support — Unity lays groundwork for more VR games with latest upgrade — Virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift will never make it big without lots of content. To help developers build games for such platforms …

More: Unity Technologies Blog, Pocket Gamer.biz and VRFocus

BBC:

Baidu to launch driverless car later this year — Baidu is going head to head with Google in the race to get self-drive cars on the road — Chinese web giant Baidu will launch its first driverless car in the second half of 2015, it has announced. — It had previously said it was working …

More: The Tech Portal, indiatoday.intoday.in, Popular Mechanics, Rajasthan News1, Mashable and InvestorPlace

Reuters:

Netflix shareholders OK share increase, company to pursue split — LOS ANGELES — Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) shareholders on Tuesday approved a massive increase in the number of shares the company is authorized to issue, the first step toward a possible stock split.

More: Hollywood Reporter. See also Mediagazer

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Leaked Oculus mockups of consumer Rift on its event countdown page dismissed as “ancient” by co-founder Palmer Luckey — Oculus leaks old mockups of a consumer Rift on its event countdown page — Oculus is getting the jump on E3 this year by holding a June 11th press conference.

More: VRFocus, Re/code, Variety, ITworld.com, Gizmodo, Pocket-lint, Engadget, Polygon, International Business Times, Gamasutra, Road to VR, Business Insider, SlashGear and VentureBeat

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