Techmeme: “Caretaker” Mulally as CEO Remains Inside Bet at Microsoft, but Will a Dark Horse Emerge? (Kara Swisher/AllThingsD)

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November 19, 2013, 5:20 PM

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Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

In final shareholder speech, Ballmer defends Bing and Xbox as key parts of Microsoft — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer just finished speaking at the company's annual shareholder meeting — his final one as the company's leader — and while he didn't directly address calls for the company …

More: Search Blog, The Register, Search Engine Land, GeekWire, The Verge, Digits, VentureBeat, Computerworld, BetaNews, The Next Web, BGR, The Verge, Forbes and WebProNews. Thanks:@johnhcook

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Nokia shareholders approve Microsoft deal — Nokia shareholders have approved a deal allowing Microsoft to purchase the Finnish smartphone maker's Devices and Services unit. 99.7 percent of shareholders who participated in the vote agreed with the Microsoft sale, representing around four-fifths …

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

“Caretaker” Mulally as CEO Remains Inside Bet at Microsoft, but Will a Dark Horse Emerge? — If you talk to any high-ranking person inside Microsoft these days, a pretty strong scenario is trumping all others for who will take over from outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer.

More: BGR, GeekWire, Computerworld, Gigaom, CNET and Forbes

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Sony's PlayStation 4 Costs $381 to Build — Only $18 Under Retail Price — In Teardown — When PlayStation 3 was first released by electronics giant Sony in 2006, it was sold at a loss with the hope of making money back on individual games. — That's pretty close to what Sony is doing again with the PS4 …

More: Co.Design, Examiner, Ars Technica, TechSpot, Playstation 4, Geek.com, Gotta Be Mobile, The Register, CNET, Softpedia News, Gamasutra, GamesIndustry International and VG247

Lance Whitney / CNET:

Snapchat says it's delivering over 400M snaps daily while Facebook sees 350M photo uploads daily — Snapchat surpasses Facebook in photo uploads — Snapchat users are snapping past their Facebook counterparts when it comes to uploading photos. — A Snapchat represenative told CNET …

More: Business Insider, Digits, Digital Trends, TechCrunch, TechSpot and Mashable

Tweets: @fmanjoo, @drew, @evelynrusli, @panzer and @fmanjoo

John Herrman / BuzzFeed:

The Great Snapchat Mirage

Thanks:@mattlynley

Brian X. Chen / NYT Bits:

Carriers Reject a ‘Kill Switch’ For Preventing Cellphone Theft — Lawmakers in San Francisco and New York are pushing cellphone makers to adopt a so-called kill switch that would allow users to deactivate their phone remotely, discouraging criminals from stealing phones. But the cellphone carriers are not on board.

More: PC Magazine, Gizmodo, Business Insider, AppleInsider, The Verge, Engadget, StrictlyVC, TechHive and Electronista. Tweets: @rachaelmyrow

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Music Streaming Startup Rdio Lays Off Staff To 'Improve Cost Structure And Ensure A Scalable Business" — The music streaming business can be tough, with market leaders like Spotify growing like weeds but still loss-making. Today, some bad news from competitor Rdio, the music streaming service startup …

More: Gigaom and The Verge. See also Mediagazer

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Hightail, The File-Sharing Service Formerly Called YouSendIt, Lands $34 Million In New Funding — Hightail, the file-sharing service formerly known as YouSendIt, is announcing today that it has raised $34 million in new funding. The round, which serves as Hightail's Series E, was led by hard drive maker Western Digital.

More: Fortune, AllThingsD, VentureBeat and VatorNews. Thanks:@sidharthdassani

Derek Khanna / Slate:

Obama's Secret Attempt to Ban Cellphone Unlocking, While Claiming to Support It — Last week, WikiLeaks made public a portion of a treaty that the White House has been secretly negotiating with other nations and 600 special interest lobbyists. The draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty …

More: iDownloadBlog.com, Cult of Mac, iClarified, Gizmodo, I4U News and DSLreports

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:

Samsung ships 800,000 Galaxy Gear smartwatches to retailers in two months — Samsung defies critics, sells 800,000 Galaxy Gear smartwatches in two months — Despite very negative reviews from almost everyone that cared to touch one, Samsung has sold 800,000 Galaxy Gear smartwatches in two months.

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

FiftyThree, Maker Of Creativity App Paper, Gets Into Hardware With Launch Of Its ‘Pencil’ Stylus — FiftyThree, the company behind the wildly popular iPad creativity app Paper, is making its first foray into hardware with the launch of a new stylus it's creatively named “Pencil.”

More: The Verge, MacRumors, iMore, PC Magazine, Digits, FiftyThree, App Advice, Gizmodo, Engadget, Co.Design, Cult of Mac, Laughing Squid, 9to5Mac, MacStories, Guardian and TUAW

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Google Wallet Creators Raise $7M From Eric Schmidt, Khosla To Bring Personalization And Analytics To In-Store Commerce — While Amazon has been at the forefront of providing a personalized experience in online commerce, in-store retailers are still behind in using data in compelling ways …

More: Digits, InvestorPlace and AllThingsD

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

Twitter backtracks and removes option to let users receive direct messages from any follower — Last month, Twitter quietly rolled out a new feature to give users the choice to receive private messages from any of their followers, but that option has now been removed.

More: AllThingsD, Softpedia News, ReadWrite, Engadget, Computerworld, Electronista, Yahoo! News, WebProNews, Gigaom, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone, Mashable, Cult of Mac, CNET and Inside. Tweets: @mathewi. See also Mediagazer

DoctorBeet:

LG Smart TVs logging USB filenames and viewing info to LG servers — Earlier this month I discovered that my new LG Smart TV was displaying ads on the Smart landing screen. — After some investigation, I found a rather creepy corporate video advertising their data collection practices to potential advertisers.

More: Network World, HotHardware.com News, Geek.com and Boing Boing

Tweets: @troyhunt and @tomscott

Dr. Raymond M. Soneira / DisplayMate:

Mini tablet display comparison: 7" Kindle Fire HDX and Nexus 7 impress, iPad mini disappoints — Mini Tablet Display Technology Shoot-Out — Introduction A new generation of Mini 7 to 8 inch Tablets from three of the major manufacturers has just completed with the belated launch of the Apple iPad mini with Retina Display.

More: Examiner, Computerworld, Gizmodo, MacRumors, ZDNet, CNET, TechnoBuffalo, Gotta Be Mobile and Forbes

Tweets: @displaymate and @nanosysinc

Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:

Google releases ‘sneak peek’ of Glass app development kit — Back at SXSW, Google announced the Glass Mirror API — the first step in allowing developers to build apps, or “Glassware” for its wearable computing device. Now, developers will have a whole new set of tools at their disposal: the long-awaited Glass Development Kit (GDK).

More: CNET, VentureBeat, 9to5Google, Marketing Land, TechCrunch, Wired, AllThingsD and IFTTT

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Exclusive: Tim Draper leaving DFJ — Venture capitalist Tim Draper is moving on from the Silicon Valley firm he created 28 years ago. — FORTUNE — Tim Draper is leaving Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm he founded in 1985.

Tweets: @megan

Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

Kindle Paperwhite gets Goodreads integration and kid-friendly reading goals — Not to be outdone by yesterday's software update for the Kindle Fire tablets, Amazon on Tuesday announced an available upgrade for the Kindle Paperwhite on Tuesday. The free software enhancements include …

More: Amazon.com, The Verge, The Next Web, ZDNet, SlashGear, WebProNews, CITEworld, TechCrunch and PC Magazine

Daniel Cooper / Engadget:

BlackBerry's Porsche-designed Z10 is a phone that even it can't afford — If your company produced a device that, while technically accomplished, managed to lose you $1 billion a few months later, you'd probably try and pretend that it never existed. That's not the approach that BlackBerry is taking with the Z10, however.

More: Digits, The Next Web, MarketWatch, ABC News, The Verge, TechnoBuffalo, SlashGear, Softpedia News, Digital Trends and Inquirer

Russ Frushtick / Polygon:

One of the first official iOS controllers sets a low bar for the competition — iOS 7 brought with it official support for gamepads on Apple devices, but one of the first on the market doesn't set a high standard. — One of the more subtle features of iOS 7 was the addition of official Apple drivers …

More: Touch Arcade, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Gizmodo, AppleInsider, WebProNews, Business Insider, iPhone, App Advice, iDownloadBlog.com, Cult of Mac, Gotta Be Mobile, SlashGear, iPhone Hacks and Kotaku

Tweets: @dcseifert and @iansherr

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

FreedomPop expanding free wireless plan to all Sprint smartphones, iPhones included — FreedomPop, the wireless service provider offering free and cheap no-contract plans on Sprint's network, today announced it's now allowing customers to bring their old Sprint phones to activate on its $0/month wireless plans.

More: TechHive, Gigaom, iPhone, 9to5Google, The Next Web and Electronista. Thanks:@jordankahn

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

Motorola releases Android 4.4 KitKat update for Verizon Moto X — Motorola announced today that the Android 4.4 KitKat update for the Verizon version of the Moto X would begin its rollout. This deploy comes a mere three weeks since KitKat was officially launched with the Nexus 5 …

More: The Official Motorola Blog, PC Magazine, Ars Technica, TechHive, The Register, TechCrunch, 9to5Google, Engadget, The Next Web, Droid Life, Android Police and Electronista

Tweets: @llsethj, @dcseifert and @nerdtalker

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

Tencent to launch international version of free 10TB storage service. New photo-sharing app coming soon to US — Tencent, China's largest Internet company, will release an international version of its 10TB cloud storage product next year, and within the coming weeks it'll launch …

More: Geek.com, Electronista, Engadget and memeburn. Tweets: @hamishmckenzie

Shara Tibken / CNET:

Apple makes last pitch for why it deserves $380M from Samsung — Outside U.S District Court in San Jose, Calif., the scene of the Apple v. Samsung retrial. — (Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET) SAN JOSE, Calif. — Apple on Tuesday made its last pitch to a jury before the eight men …

More: AllThingsD, Reuters, PC World and AllThingsD. Tweets: @hmintz

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