Techmeme
April 17, 2013, 1:55 AM

Top News

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:
Talking heads: how a late-night hack turned into Facebook's next big thing  —  Facebook gambles on private messages as the future of mobile  —  On a Wednesday almost one year ago, Facebook product designers Joey Flynn and Brandon Walkin decided to work from home.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Facebook's Chat Heads Come to iPhones, iPad With App Update  —  You can't get Facebook Home on iPhone.  But very soon you'll be able to get one of the most buzzed-about features from Facebook's new mobile software set: “Chat Heads” are coming to iOS devices, via a Facebook app update.
Sascha Segan / PC Magazine:
Motorola Plans Stock Android Phones, Sized ‘Just Right’  —  Motorola might be building my dream phone.  Jim Wicks, Motorola's design chief, said the company's first round of products designed after Google's purchase of the company will follow a philosophy of “better is better” rather than …
Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:
Yahoo's Q1 2013 revenue of $1.14 billion doesn't excite, but its $0.35 in EPS beats expectations  —  Today Yahoo reported its first quarter financial performance, including revenue of $1.14 billion, and earnings per share of $0.35 on a GAAP basis, and $0.38 on a non-GAAP basis.
Ed Bott / ZDNet:
First real-world usage figures suggest Chromebooks are struggling  —  Summary: When the initial batch of Chromebooks hit the market nearly two years ago, some thought these low-cost devices running Google's cloud-centric Chrome OS could be a Windows killer.  NetMarketShare just started …
More: PhoneArena and Neowin
Horace Dediu / asymco:
Escaping PCs  —  The Windows PC market is contracting.  The market data has been showing unit shipment declining for some time with the latest quarter having perhaps the steepest decline for two decades.  —  What remains undocumented however is how the market looks when considering economic value.
More: InfoWorld and Macworld
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft's Windows 8 Plan B(lue): Bring back the Start button, boot to desktop  —  Summary: Microsoft may be moving toward bringing back the Start Button and allowing users to boot straight to the desktop with its coming Windows 8.1 release later this year.
Declan McCullagh / CNET:
CISPA vote means companies can't promise to protect privacy  —  Proposed amendment to CISPA said Internet companies' promises to protect customer privacy were legally enforceable.  But then Republicans voted it down.  —  Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet companies and e-mail providers …
More: ZDNet and The Next Web
Spencer Ackerman / Wired:
Data for the Boston Marathon Investigation Will Be Crowdsourced  —  The investigation of Monday's deadly twin bombings in Boston will rely to an extraordinary extent on crowdsourced surveillance, provided by Marathon spectators' cellphone photos, Vine videos, and Instagram feeds.
Steve Kovach / Business Insider:
Leaked Document Shows AppGratis Used Lure Of App Store Rankings To Attract Cash From Developers  —  AppGratis, the app-discovery app that Apple removed last week for closely mimicking the official App Store, started an online petition yesterday that encourages users to ask Apple to let it return.
More: TUAW and Forrester Blogs.  Thanks:@stevekovach
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
ACLU asks feds to probe wireless carriers over Android security updates  —  “Defective” phones from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile pose risks, ACLU says.  —  Civil liberties advocates have asked the US Federal Trade Commission to take action against the nation's four major wireless carriers …
More: The Verge, CNET and Washington Post.  Tweets: @csoghoian
Cotton Delo / AdAge:
Facebook Seeks 7-Figure Price Tag for Summer Debut of Video Ads  —  TV-Like Ads Can Be Bought for Four Broad Demographic Swaths  —  Facebook is hoping that its hotly anticipated video-ad units can be a more-than-$4-million daily business out of the gate — if its asking price is met.
Jay Alabaster / PC World:
Android founder: We aimed to make a camera OS  —  The creators of Android originally dreamed it would be used to create a world of “smart cameras” that connected to PCs, a founder said, but it was reworked for mobile handsets as the smartphone market began to explode.
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Quick View  —  Google Search for mobile has a new feature called “Quick View”.  Right now, it only shows up for Wikipedia results and it allows users to load search results almost instantly.  —  “Quick view is an experimental project and is currently enabled for pages from Wikipedia when you search in English on Google.com.
Sam Shead / ZDNet:
Red Hat pushes open source cloud with OpenStack distro  —  Summary: Red Hat has launched a community-led version of the OpenStack cloud platform to accelerate adoption of open source cloud.  —  Sam Shead  —  Linux software giant Red Hat has launched a community-led distribution of the OpenStack open source cloud platform.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Instart Logic Raises $17M From Andreessen Horowitz Greylock To Improve Web And Mobile App Performance  —  Instart Logic, a company that provides a cloud-based service for web publishers to improves site performance over both mobile and WiFi networks, has raised $17 million in Series B funding …
More: VentureBeat and Peter Levine.  Tweets: @cdixon
Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:
Time Warner Cable to Offer Live Mobile TV for Apple Devices  —  Time Warner Cable Inc., the second- largest U.S. cable operator, is adding live out-of-home programming for the first time to its TWC TV application, letting customers watch shows on Apple Inc. (AAPL) mobile devices.

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Earlier Picks

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD: