Techmeme: Music App Songza Goes Ad-Free With A New Paid Service, “Club Songza” For $0.99 Per Week (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

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June 28, 2013, 4:15 PM

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Sean Buckley / Engadget:

Netflix Max hands-on: Jellyvision's take on your movie queue — Being a Netflix subscriber is almost like being cursed — sure, you have access to untold troves of streaming TV shows and films, but how do you choose what to watch? The burden of choice weighs heavily on the indecisive Netflix user …

More: Netflix US & Canada Blog, TechHive, PC Magazine, VentureBeat, Betabeat, Polygon, Gizmodo, SlashGear, The Next Web, CNET and NBC Bay Area

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

BlackBerry PlayBook will not be upgraded to BlackBerry 10 — Reneging on a promise it made back in January, BlackBerry has just announced that it will not, in fact, be upgrading its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to its latest mobile OS, BlackBerry 10. CEO Thorsten Heins revealed the sour news …

More: CrackBerry.com, Engadget, The Mac Observer, IntoMobile, Digital Trends, Ars Technica, Digits, Macgasm, WebProNews, SlashGear, CNET, ZDNet, Yahoo! News, VentureBeat, BGR and TechHive. Tweets: @trixxy

Sharif Sakr / Engadget:

BlackBerry ships 6.8 million smartphones but loses $84 million in Q1 2014 — Every quarter is pivotal for BlackBerry right now, but the one covered by today's earnings report (Q1 2014, in fiscal terms) is especially important. It's the first full period of Z10 availability and also the first quarter …

More: Market Wire, Reuters, The Next Web, CNNMoney.com, eWeek, Bloomberg, AllThingsD, Forbes, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, PC World, NYT Bits, SiliconANGLE, Telegraph, Computerworld, Guardian, AllThingsD, USA Today, TechCrunch, GigaOM, VentureBeat, iPhone, ZDNet, ReadWrite, CrackBerry.com, ZDNet, CNET, SlashGear, Canada Real Time, SlashGear, The Next Web, Inquirer, Electronista and WebProNews

Tweets: @zacharye, @benedictevans and @theromit

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

BlackBerry Shipped Just 2.7M BB10 Handsets In Q1 2014

More: The Register, Mashable, The Next Web, CNET and Engadget

Xbox Wire:

Xbox Announces Landmark Deal with Time Warner Cable to Bring More Live TV to Xbox 360 — In a landmark deal announcement for Xbox 360 and Time Warner Cable customers, we're excited to share a new partnership that will deliver up to 300 of the most popular live TV channels to Xbox 360 for Xbox Live Gold members.

Andrew Zajac / Bloomberg:

Google Sues IRS for $83.5 Million Tax Refund — Google Inc. (GOOG), owner of the most popular Internet search engine, sued the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for an $83.5 million refund, claiming it was improperly denied a deduction for a 2004 stock transaction with America Online Inc.

More: CNET, SiliconBeat, VentureBeat, Softpedia News and AllThingsD. Tweets: @r

Matt McGee / Marketing Land:

A Week After Instagram's Video Launch, Vine Sharing Tanks On Twitter — It's now been a full week since Instagram added video recording to its popular camera app, and it's already had a dramatic impact on its main competitor: — Vine sharing on Twitter has tanked.

More: CNET, Digital Inspiration …, Los Angeles Times, Mobile Marketing Watch, PC Magazine, TechnoBuffalo, The Verge, ReelSEO Video Marketing, Softpedia News, App Advice, BBC, Ubergizmo, WebProNews, iDownloadBlog.com, AllTwitter and www.idigitaltimes.co.uk

Tweets: @alanlepo and @craigmod

Bloomberg:

Shutterstock Creates First Silicon Alley Billionaire — Jonathan Oringer, the founder of Shutterstock Inc., became a billionaire today as shares of the world's largest stock photo and video marketplace reached a record high. — Oringer, 39, owns about 55 percent of Shutterstock …

More: Business Insider and VentureBeat. Thanks:@sarahfrier

Eric Johnson / AllThingsD:

BlueStacks Announces Second Android Gaming Console, Free Forever (With a Software Subscription) — Its first Android gaming console is still only available for preorders, but BlueStacks said today that it's planning to roll out a second device, the hardware component of which will be permanently free.

More: BGR, Engadget, VentureBeat, Electronista, TechCrunch, Joystiq, The Next Web, Mashable and Polygon

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Android 4.3 Available To Test For Adventurous Galaxy S4 Owners — Google's worst-kept secret is the upcoming Android 4.3 update for devices powered by its mobile OS (though a lot more secrets have come to light recently), and we're starting to see that update make its way to the handsets of owners who aren't afraid to experiment.

Julia Halperin / The Art Newspaper:

Amazon to launch virtual art gallery — The retail giant's new art site would resemble Amazon Wine, which launched last fall — AMAZON.com is expected to launch an online art gallery later this year. The online retailer of books, electronics and apparel aims to offer over 1,000 art objects …

More: GeekWire and Wall Street Journal

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

Facebook to review which Pages and Groups can show ads after complaints about inappropriate content — Facebook has revamped the way its advertising system works in response to concerns from major brands who were concerned about where their ads were showing up.

More: Facebook Newsroom, CNET, GigaOM, Reuters, Inside Facebook, Guardian, Marketing Land, AllFacebook, TechCrunch and Digits

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google+ Turns 2, Rolls Out Redesigned Follow Buttons And Badges, Introduces Badges For Communities — Google+ turned two today. To celebrate, Google's social network didn't just dress up Mr. Jingles, but it also launched a redesign of its Google+ plugins for websites, including its Follow …

More: Marketing Land, 9to5Google, The Next Web and WebProNews

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Music App Songza Goes Ad-Free With A New Paid Service, “Club Songza” For $0.99 Per Week — Songza, the music-streaming and recommendation service that has picked up some 4.8 million monthly active users with its free, ad-based service, is turning on a feature now that it hopes will convert …

More: VentureBeat, Macgasm and Evolver.fm

Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:

Google Is Developing Android Game Console — Google Inc. is developing a videogame console and digital wrist watch powered by its Android operating system, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Internet company seeks to spread the software's domination beyond smartphones …

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

Google is reportedly developing an Android game console, smartwatch, and new Nexus Q

More: Examiner, Gotta Be Mobile, GadgeTell, www.idigitaltimes.co.uk, IGN and Softpedia News

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Skype built into final Windows 8.1 version, Microsoft drops existing Messaging app — Microsoft is making use of its Skype acquisition for Windows 8.1, opting to bundle it into a final version of the OS. Existing preview versions of Windows 8.1 do not include the traditional built-in Messaging app.

More: eWeek, CNET, Gotta Be Mobile, Crave, PhoneArena, Softpedia News, Softpedia News, Neowin, Gotta Be Mobile and BestTechie

Ron / WinBeta:

SkyDrive Pro app for Windows 8 and Apple iOS released — For those of you who use SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint Online via your Office 365 subscription, Microsoft has released the SkyDrive Pro app for Windows 8 and iOS. This comes after Microsoft recently released the SkyDrive Pro desktop application for Windows.

Shara Tibken / CNET:

T-Mobile forks over $308M for U.S. Cellular spectrum — The deal will boost the carrier's 4G LTE footprint in areas such as St. Louis, New Orleans, and Nashville, Tenn. — T-Mobile's flagship store in midtown Manhattan. — T-Mobile customers in places like St. Louis and New Orleans are about to get a boost in coverage.

More: NYT Bits, TechHive, The Next Web, IntoMobile, GeekWire, Associated Press, Reuters and Engadget

Amy Chozick / New York Times:

Jimmy Wales Is Not an Internet Billionaire — According to Wikipedia, the Tampa International Airport is a public airport six miles west of downtown Tampa, in Hillsborough County, Florida. It's also where Jimmy Wales flies in and out of a couple times a month, in coach …

More: Business Insider

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Mozilla Opens Its Firefox Social API To Developers — With the release of the first public beta of Firefox 23, Mozilla didn't just introduce a new logo and kill the <blink> element, it also opened up its Social API for developers. This feature allows them to create new ways for users …

More: internetnews.com, blog.seanmartell.com, The H Open Source and ZDNet. Thanks:@teawithcarl

Phillip Molnar / Monterey County Herald:

Restricted web access to The Guardian is Armywide, officials say — The Army admitted Thursday to not only restricting access to The Guardian news website at the Presidio of Monterey, as reported in Thursday's Herald, but Armywide. — Presidio employees said the site had been blocked since …

More: The Dissenter, Ars Technica, SiliconBeat and SlashGear. See also Mediagazer

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