Techmeme: How Amazon Studios went from grassroots idealist to Hollywood threat (Joan E. Solsman/CNET)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

November 17, 2013, 11:35 PM

Top News

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Apple Aiming at PrimeSense Acquisition, but Deal Is Not Yet Done — Several sources confirm that Apple is in talks to buy 3-D sensing company PrimeSense, following a report in the Israeli publication Calcalist. However, those sources stressed that the deal is not yet done …

More: The Verge, The Next Web, Digits, VentureBeat, Forbes, TechnoBuffalo, Cult of Mac, CNET, Softpedia News, Engadget, Electronista, iClarified, Mashable and PE Hub Blog

Tweets: @danprimack and @jyarow

Chris Davies / SlashGear:

Apple reportedly acquires PrimeSense, company behind original Kinect 3D sensor tech, for $345 million — Apple reportedly buys Kinect tech-creator PrimeSense — Apple has reportedly acquired PrimeSense, the motion-tracking company responsible for the technology in the original Xbox 360 Kinect …

More: Reuters, MacRumors, GeekTime, Business Insider, iMore, everythingiCafe, iDownloadBlog.com, WinBeta, Yankee Sabra Limey, 9to5Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog and App Advice

Tweets: @joshblake and @markgurman

Farhad Manjoo / Wall Street Journal:

Young people aren't reliable predictors of tech trends. So where does that leave Snapchat? — We all tend to assume that young people are on the technological vanguard, knowing what ‘the next big thing’ will be. But they are often wrong.

More: New York Times. Tweets: @mikeisaac, @alex, @mikeisaac, @ezraklein, @mat, @danprimack, @mikeisaac, @drew, @reddy, @fmanjoo and @drew

New York Times:

Rejected bid for Snapchat underscores difficulties Facebook has in keeping its cachet — Facebook, Still Dominant, Strives to Keep Cachet — When Evan Spiegel peered into a crystal ball to divine a future for his company, Snapchat, he did not see Facebook.

More: The Next Web, NYT Bits, TIME and Forbes

Violet Blue / ZDNet:

Forced Google Plus integration on YouTube backfires, petition hits 112,000 — Summary: The backlash against Google forcing YouTube commenters to use Google Plus is now too big to ignore. But will Google listen? OPINION. — Violet Blue — Google's war on anonymity during its involvement …

More: Hank's Tumblr, Adrian Holovaty, Andi S - Google+, Edward Morbius, Rocket Jump, howto.cnet.com, The Switch, Search Engine Watch, CNET, WebProNews and TIME

Tweets: @matthewkeyslive, @totalbiscuit, @notch, @caseynewton and @hueypriest

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple Stores to implement iBeacon location technology to improve service, boost sales — iOS 7's flashy launch earlier this year with an entirely new design and streaming music functionality overshadowed a breakthrough new feature: iBeacons, a location-based technology with profound implications for industries such as retail.

More: iMore, iPhone Hacks, App Advice, I4U News, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone in Canada Blog, Redmond Pie, CNET, iClarified and MacRumors

Tweets: @howardlindzon, @markgurman and @markgurman

Danny Sullivan / Marketing Land:

Google's Broken Promises & Who's Running The Search Engine? — For two years in a row now, Google has gone back on major promises it made about search. The about-faces are easy fodder for anyone who wants to poke fun at Google for not keeping to its word.

More: Dare Obasanjo's weblog and Erik McClure. Tweets: @felixsalmon and @owenthomas. Thanks:@sidharthdassani

PR Newswire:

PlayStation 4 Sales Surpass 1 Million Units In North America In 24 Hours — Gamers Immerse Themselves In a New Era of Gaming and Entertainment Only Available on the PS4 system—Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) today announced that the highly anticipated launch of the PlayStation®4 …

More: The Verge, Digits, IGN, Joystiq, Softpedia News, HotHardware.com News, GeekWire, destructoid and Engadget

Tweets: @yosp, @amboyes and @iconmaster

Adario Strange / Mashable:

Some PlayStation 4 Owners Reporting Defective Consoles

More: The Verge, SlashGear, Tapscape and The Next Web

Agam Shah / PC World:

Dell's Sputnik 3 touchscreen laptop has Ubuntu Linux, Intel's Haswell — Dell has started selling a thin and light touchscreen laptop called the XPS 13 Developer Edition, which will have Ubuntu Linux OS and Intel's fourth-generation Core processors, code-named Haswell.

More: Maximum PC, Liliputing, HotHardware.com News, The Register, SlashGear, Barton's Blog and Gigaom

Joan E. Solsman / CNET:

How Amazon Studios went from grassroots idealist to Hollywood threat — The small army of comedians that swarmed Portland, Ore., last April for the Bridgetown Comedy Festival were sleeping off their hangovers from the previous night's festivities, or still drunkenly stumbling through the hallways of the Hotel Fifty.

Thanks:@zackwhittaker

Anne D'Innocenzio / Associated Press:

American Eagle, Target, and other retailers follow Wal-Mart in opening labs in Silicon Valley — Retailers Take On Silicon Valley — SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Software engineers wearing jeans and flip flops test the latest smartphone apps. Walls and windows double as whiteboards where ideas are jotted down.

Tweets: @qthrul and @andreawass

James Chapman / Daily Mail:

Google and Microsoft to improve filtering of results for child porn queries — Google block on child porn: At last! Internet giant axes links to vile sex-abuse websites in stunning victory for Mail campaign — Internet search results linked to child abuse are to be blocked across the world in a stunning U-turn by Google.

More: CNET, The Next Web, AllThingsD, BBC, The Independent and Guardian

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.

Cape:

Most carriers track everything. Cape doesn't. — Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more. Switch today and get 29% off for life.

Zoho:

Do you need a Zoho Partner? Here's why working with one can benefit you. — Zoho offers over 60 applications, each one built for a unique use case. From sales and marketing to finance, HR, and customer support …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:

Open Model Wars + Claire Stapleton's Dishy Google Memoir + Substack's Slop Fight

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Great Chat:

Tech's short-term era

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Access:

Meet the most AI-pilled CEO on Earth

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

The Upstarts Podcast:

Basis's Matt Harpe: Why AI Won't Replace Accountants — It'll Make Them Richer

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros' Limbo, Netflix's Anxiety, and Hollywood's Sort-of Comeback

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:35 PM ET, November 17, 2013.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.