Techmeme: Future iPhones may unlock, hide messages based on a user's face (Mikey Campbell/AppleInsider)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

December 3, 2013, 7:30 PM

Top News

Ben Popper / The Verge:

UPS researching its own delivery drones to compete with Amazon's Prime Air — Flying parcel-carriers are the next logical frontier for delivery companies — Amazon made headlines Sunday night when it announced it was working on small drones that could someday deliver customers packages in half an hour or less.

More: TechCrunch, ABC News, VentureBeat, VatorNews, Examiner, GeekWire, Nextgov, Los Angeles Times, Geek.com, stratechery, Digital Trends, Gotta Be Mobile, TechnoBuffalo, Salon, Engadget, Business Insider, Quartz, Gizmodo and WebProNews

Tweets: @karlbode, @kevinroose and @samfbiddle

Marcus Wohlsen / Wired:

Amazon's warehouses are currently too far from customers to make same-day drone delivery feasible

More: BGR, Bloomberg, Network World, Forbes, AnandTech, All Points Blog, Wired.co.uk, USA Today, The Register and CBS San Francisco. Tweets: @benedictevans

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Google is building Chrome apps support for Android and iOS, beta release coming as soon as January 2014 — Google is working on bringing Chrome packaged apps from the desktop to the mobile world. The company is currently building a toolkit to help developers create Chrome apps for Android and iOS …

More: 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, 9to5Google, Android Authority, SlashGear and PhoneArena

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Chrome Beta Gets New Tools For Mobile Development With Better Viewport Emulation, Screencast-Enabled Remote Debugging

More: Chromium Blog, Gigaom, The Next Web and Engadget

Washington Post:

Officials estimate a third of people enrolled through HealthCare.gov affected by system errors — Health-care enrollment on Web plagued by bugs — The enrollment records for a significant portion of the Americans who have chosen health plans through the online federal insurance marketplace …

More: ABC News, The Week, ThinkProgress and The Wire

Tweets: @shawnanbcnews, @sarahkliff, @sarahkliff and @washingtonpost

Gautham Nagesh / Wall Street Journal:

The Agency Running HealthCare.gov Mostly Kept to Itself as Warning Signs Grew About the Website

Tweets: @stefaniei

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Spotify opens up analytics in effort to prove its worth to doubting musicians — Streaming music firm opens Spotify Artists website and claims when it reaches 40m subscribers, even ‘niche indie albums’ will earn $17k a month — Streaming music service Spotify is hoping to win …

More: Spotify for Artists, TechHive, Digits, ReadWrite, Salon, Music Ally, Ars Technica, TechSpot, SFWeekly, Inquirer, Music Week, The Independent, I4U News, Evolver.fm, TechRadar.com, hypebot, PandoDaily, Telegraph, The Verge, Electronista, SiliconBeat, Engadget, The Next Web, Digital Music News, SlashGear, Gigaom and TechCrunch

Tweets: @bwerde and @tobias_nielsen

Thanks:@stuartdredge. See also Mediagazer

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Twitter Considered Buying Topsy, Too — Here's Why It Didn't Happen — Apple just spent a bunch of money on social analytics company Topsy. And while everyone has good guesses on what Apple wants from Topsy, no one seems to know for sure. — But before Apple, Topsy had at least …

More: GeekWire, AllTwitter, Business Cloud News, Business Insider and ReadWrite. Tweets: @mikeisaac

Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:

Future iPhones may unlock, hide messages based on a user's face — Apple on Tuesday was granted a patent that uses facial recognition technology to control a computing device, like an iPhone, iPad or Mac, allowing for a more secure and productive operating environment. — Source: USPTO

More: The Register, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, everythingiCafe, CNET, BGR, Gigaom, TechnoBuffalo, MacRumors, SlashGear, VentureBeat, PhoneArena, Redmond Pie, Telegraph, iPhone in Canada Blog, Phones Review, TUAW, bizjournals and MacNN

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

Square acquires Viewfinder so sellers can create ‘personal, human experiences’ for their customers — Square has acquired Viewfinder, a company specializing in helping you “organize, share, and relive memories” with friends and loved ones. The move will see Viewfinder eventually shut …

More: Square Engineering Blog, PC Magazine, TechCrunch, VatorNews, VentureBeat, CNET, Engadget, Gigaom, WebProNews and AllThingsD

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Honda integrates iPhone w/ 2014 Civic touchscreen in first steps towards iOS in the Car — Honda is introducing two new technologies in its new 2014 Civic that will make it easier for iPhone users to interact with content in the car in its first steps towards Apple's iOS in the Car.

More: MacRumors, AppleInsider, Gigaom, CNET, MacStories, TUAW, iDownloadBlog.com and Electronista. Thanks:@jordankahn

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:

Hotfile settles copyright case, agrees to $80 million in damages — Six days before movie studios were set to begin a jury trial over alleged copyright violations by the “cyberlocker” site Hotfile, the case has settled. Hotfile has agreed to pay $80 million and to stop operating …

More: TorrentFreak, Gigaom, The Verge and Variety. See also Mediagazer

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

VSCO Cam brings its simple interface and powerful photo-editing tools to Android — Free app gives users yet another way to tweak and share their photos — After an extended beta test period, VSCO Cam for Android is now available to download from the Google Play Store.

More: BGR, Engadget, Computerworld, VSCO, Android Community, Ubergizmo, Droid Life, The Zinx, Softpedia News, The Next Web, Phandroid, SlashGear and Gizmodo

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Netflix Changes Binge Release Strategy for DreamWorks Turbo Show — When Netflix started its big push into original TV shows this year, it played up its binge-friendly strategy: Each time the streaming service debuted a new show, like “House of Cards”, it released a season's worth of episodes in one day.

More: The Next Web, News Release Archive, CNNMoney.com, Engadget, The Verge and GeekWire

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Intel Makes Another Acquisition: Hacker League, A Platform For Hackathons, Is Now A Part Of Mashery — Intel's acquisition spree continues apace, with the latest being made to augment one of its other recent acquisitions. It is buying Hacker League, a popular platform for managing hackathons …

More: PandoDaily, Digits, ZDNet, ProgrammableWeb and The Next Web. Tweets: @swiftalphaone

Matthew Green / A Few Thoughts …:

How does the NSA break SSL? — A few weeks ago I wrote a long post about the NSA's ‘BULLRUN’ project to subvert modern encryption standards. I had intended to come back to this at some point, since I didn't have time to discuss the issues in detail. But then things got in the way.

Tweets: @dennisf, @csoghoian and @glynmoody

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft's ‘Project Spark’ beta arrives on Windows 8.1, lets you create an Xbox One game — Microsoft is launching a beta version of Project Spark today, its game maker project for Windows 8.1, Xbox 360, and the new Xbox One console. Project Spark is essentially a tool to allow developers …

More: TechCrunch, Network World, Tech Trader Daily, CITEworld, TechSpot, WebProNews, WinBeta and Softpedia News

Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

Motorola apologizes for Moto X Cyber Monday snafus, extends deal — Claiming it wasn't ready for the high volume of orders on discounted Moto X handsets on Monday morning, Motorola apologized later that same evening for the hours of customer frustration. A blog post from Motorola CEO Dennis …

More: The Official Motorola Blog, AllThingsD, Computerworld, Unwired View, CNET, Droid Life, PC Magazine, TechnoBuffalo, iPhone, Pocketables, MobileBurn.com, 9to5Google, Los Angeles Times, Yahoo! News, The Verge, The Next Web, PhoneNews.com and Android Beat

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

E La Carte Scores Deal With Applebee's, Bringing 100,000 Tableside Tablets To All U.S. Locations By Year-End 2014 — Applebee's, the largest casual dining chain in the U.S., has signed a deal with restaurant tablet hardware and software provider E la Carte, which will see it introducing 100 …

More: USA Today, Examiner, Y Combinator Posthaven, TIME, Engadget and Business Insider. Tweets: @scottkirsner

Kit Chellel / Bloomberg:

Nokia Gets Ruling Blocking Sales of HTC's One Mini Phone in U.K. — A London judge said HTC Corp. (2498) couldn't sell its One Mini phone in the U.K. from Dec. 6 after it was found to have infringed patents owned by Nokia Oyj. (NOK1V) — While Judge Richard Arnold also ruled that HTC's …

More: BGR, FOSS Patents, Engadget, Pocket-lint, Electronista, pocketnow.com, Android Central, The Next Web, CNET, Phandroid, Geeky Gadgets, Inquirer, Pocketables, Android Beat, Phones Review, BGR, PhoneArena, Softpedia News, Gigaom and WMPoweruser. Tweets: @marypcbuk

Bloomberg:

Nintendo Seen Missing Target as Sony-Microsoft Dwarf Wii U — Nintendo Co. (7974)'s prospects for meeting its profit and sales forecasts for this year are diminishing after Sony Corp. (6758) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) each sold more game consoles in 24 hours than the Wii U maker did in nine months.

More: Tech Trader Daily, BGR, VG247 and MCV: Home Stream. Tweets: @bobservo

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.

Cloudflare:

Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.

Zoho:

The 90-day recognition cliff: Why praise programs fade, and what keeps them alive — Recognition programs often start with enthusiasm. Employees participate, managers share shoutouts, and teams have a new way to celebrate achievements.

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

Big Technology Podcast:

SAP CEO: AI Won't Kill Software, But It Will Change Your Job — With Christian Klein

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

David Ellison's Paramount-Warner Empire & The Fight That Comes Next

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.

Sources:

Factory CEO on why AGI is already here

Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Subscribe to Sources.

Invest Like the Best:

Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Lenny's Podcast:

The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now | Molly Graham

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Great Chat:

Doomers at Dreamforce

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:30 PM ET, December 3, 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.