Techmeme
April 16, 2013, 11:15 PM

Top News

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.
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.
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 …
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Google's Next Group of Gadgets Will Blow You Away, Says Eric Schmidt  —  Google chairman Eric Schmidt is spending a lot of time on the road right now — he's got a new book to promote — but he has popped into Google's Motorola unit to see what the phone company is working up.  —  It's amazing stuff, he promises.
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.
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 …
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.
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.
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: Macworld and InfoWorld
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.
Microsoft:
Microsoft and Foxconn Parent Hon Hai Sign Patent Agreement For Android and Chrome Devices  —  Agreement provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio to manufacturer of more than 40 percent of the world's consumer electronics.  —  Microsoft Corp. and Hon Hai, the parent company of Foxconn …
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.
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Windows Phone Head Myerson: Android “Still Kind of a Mess”  —  In an interview at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference today, the leader of Microsoft's Windows Phone division, Terry Myerson, said that the software giant's mobile effort continued to cast it as a “challenger,” but that Google's Android market was “still kind of a mess.”
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.
Somini Sengupta / NYT Bits:
Start-Up Lets Users Track Who Tracks Them  —  Is your Web browsing history your business - or everyone else's?  —  A start-up based in Palo Alto, Calif., Disconnect, which helps you track who is tracking you online, this week released its latest tool to help safeguard your browsing history.
More: The Verge

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Earlier Picks

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: