Techmeme
November 14, 2013, 1:50 PM

Top News

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:
Google wins book-scanning case: judge finds “fair use,” cites many benefits  —  Google has won a resounding victory in its eight-year copyright battle with the Authors Guild over the search giant's controversial decision to scan more than 20 million books from libraries and make them available on the internet.
The Official Google Blog:
Government requests for user information double over three years  —  In a year in which government surveillance has dominated the headlines, today we're updating our Transparency Report for the eighth time.  Since we began sharing these figures with you in 2010, requests from governments …
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Google Search for Android now does Siri-style conversational voice commands  —  The Google Search app for Android was updated today.  While Google's official post about the new version mentioned some updated cards and traffic incidents, the real news is that voice search can now hold a conversation.
Don Clark / Digits:
Under Armour to Buy MapMyFitness in Embrace of Sports Tech  —  Under Armour is buying the popular workout application company MapMyFitness for $150 million, putting the sports apparel maker in charge of one of the biggest social sports communities on mobile devices.
Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:
Tired of a fat wallet?  Coin lets you hold all your cards in a single connected card  —  Dec. 4 - 5, 2013  —  With all the hype surrounding mobile payments these days, that industry faces a monumental problem: Credit cards are already pretty easy to use.  —  Now Coin, a Y Combinator …
Seth Rosenblatt / CNET:
Mozilla: No Firefox phones in US  —  Mozilla's Mitchell Baker stresses Firefox OS's appeal to developing countries — and (pay attention, Apple and Google) the importance of price.  SAN FRANCISCO — If you're a Firefox OS fan and you live in the United States, you're going to have to wait a bit longer to get your Firefox phone.
Avram Piltch / Laptop:
Intel opening temporary showcase stores featuring free movie nights, coffee and events  —  Intel Opening Retail “Experience” Stores Starting November 23rd  —  Intel wants to give you a chance to get up close and personal with its PCs.  At a press event in New York this evening …
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Isis Mobile Wallet goes live nationwide, offers freebies  —  Wave phone, buy stuff: after a long period of trials, the joint venture teaming Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile is finally broadly available.—The wireless carriers' mobile payment initiative, Isis Mobile Wallet …
Jenna Wortham / New York Times:
Rejecting Billions, Snapchat Expects a Better Offer  —  What business makes no money, has yet to pass its third anniversary and just turned down an offer worth billions of dollars?  Snapchat, a social media service run by a pair of 20-somethings who until last month worked out of a beachfront bungalow in Venice, Calif.
TechCrunch:
Education Startup Udacity Bets It Can Fill The Need For More Data Scientists With New Online Degree Program  —  Hot on the heels of a new $37 million White House initiative designed to encourage data science work at American universities, education startup, Udacity, is responding with a data science initiative of its own.
Douglas MacMillan / Digits:
Pinterest Expands to E-Commerce Sites With Now-Trending Tool  —  Pinterest is opening up its popular scrapbooking service to outside developers - a long-awaited move that could juice sales of e-commerce sites while helping the fast-growing startup build its influence around the Web.
More: The Next Web and TechCrunchTweets: @dmac1
Matt Brian / Engadget:
Android powers four in every five smartphones thanks to growth in China  —  Gartner's third-quarter smartphone research report is out, and on the surface it paints a very flattering portrait for Google.  Mirroring Strategy Analytics' report at the end of last month, Gartner also estimates …
Ian Crouch / Culture Desk:
The Story Behind the “What Would I Say?”  Facebook App  —  Am fond of Seinfeld, and I disparage the value of baseball arguments.—That was the first phrase generated just for me this afternoon by What Would I Say?, a new app that runs users' old Facebook status updates through a text-generating bot …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
MeeGo Startup Jolla's First Phone To Go On Sale In Finland On November 27  —  MeeGo startup Jolla has just announced that its first smartphone will go on sale in Finland on November 27th.  It will be sold by Finnish carrier DNA - the first carrier Jolla signed up to its Sailfish OS project, back in November last year.
Ben Woods / The Next Web:
Roku and AOL ink deal to bring first news app to the streaming TV boxes  —  Roku, the company behind the little internet-connected streaming TV box, has signed a deal with AOL to bring the media organization's content to TVs.  —  Announced today, the deal will see business, entertainment …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Amazon Announces New I/O-Optimized Instances With SSD Storage For EC2  —  At Amazon's re:Invent developer conference in Las Vegas, the company's CTO Werner Vogels announced a new instance type for applications that need high I/O performance.  As Vogels noted, the company's customers …

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Earlier Picks

Chris Kanaracus / Computerworld:
Electronic Frontier Foundation: