Techmeme: Steve Ballmer and Microsoft's top executives reflect on his legacy (Mary Jo Foley/Fortune)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

December 11, 2013, 3:35 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Nokia's “Normandy” phone uses a forked variant of Android, a la Kindle Fire — This is Nokia's Android phone — Codename Normandy is ‘full steam ahead’ — Nokia has been building its own Android phone according to multiple sources familiar with the company's plans.

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:

Why Nokia Is Building an Android Phone and Why Microsoft Might Not Kill It — So, is Nokia really working on an Android-based phone, and would Microsoft really go ahead with such a device? — The answer to the first one is definitely yes. And, surprisingly, the answer to the second question may be yes, as well.

More: Computerworld, Internet2Go, Examiner, Gigaom, T3 News and Business Insider

Marguerite Reardon / CNET:

AT&T chief: We can't keep doing big subsidies on phones — AT&T's top executive says the era of big subsidies for devices is coming to an end, as wireless operators can no longer afford to fund a constant smartphone upgrade cycle. — Speaking at an investor conference in New York City on Tuesday …

More: TechCrunch, Los Angeles Times, 9to5Google, Gizmodo, AppleInsider, Geek.com, TUAW, PadGadget, Forbes, Gigaom, SlashGear, iPhone, Android Community, Gotta Be Mobile, App Advice, Cult of Mac, MacRumors, TechnoBuffalo, WebProNews, Union Square Ventures and DSLreports. Tweets: @mweinbergpk

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft considers free versions of Windows Phone and Windows RT to battle Android — Redmond wants to counter Mountain View — Microsoft is considering making Windows Phone and Windows RT available free of charge to device makers. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans have revealed …

More: BGR, Inquirer, GeekWire, Gigaom, SlashGear, Android Community, Electronista, Ubergizmo, CNET, Softpedia News, Computerworld, pocketnow.com, WinBeta, WMPoweruser, ZDNet, TechnoBuffalo and Business Insider

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Behind the scenes look at Apple TV app development w/ the new Bloomberg channel — Unlike its developer program and vast ecosystem of apps on iOS and Mac, there's not much we know about Apple's strategy for content on the Apple TV. There's been a lot of talk that a much rumored refreshed …

More: CNET, iMore, The Verge, Gigaom, AllThingsD, Macworld, TechnoBuffalo, iPhone in Canada Blog, Gotta Be Mobile, iLounge, SlashGear, iDownloadBlog.com and TUAW. Tweets: @markgurman. Thanks:@benjaminzamayo. See also Mediagazer

Mary Jo Foley / Fortune:

Steve Ballmer and Microsoft's top executives reflect on his legacy — For Steve Ballmer, a lasting touch on Microsoft — As the world prepares for Microsoft to announce a new chief executive, we ask the company's top executives—including the man himself—to take a look at the legacy Steve Ballmer leaves on the technology company.

More: ZDNet, BGR, Business Insider, ZDNet, AppleInsider, The Verge, WinBeta and TechRepublic

Tweets: @fortunemagazine, @maryjofoley and @thurrott

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Spotify Goes Freemium On Tablets, Launches Free Shuffle Product On Smartphones — For the first time since launching, Spotify now offers free access to the streaming music service from tablets only, on iOS and Android. Meanwhile, users on smartphones can use Spotify Shuffle …

More: Spotify Blog, PandoDaily, The Next Web, The Verge, AppleInsider, VentureBeat, AllThingsD, The Next Web, Betabeat, Guardian, The Verge, 9to5Mac, Engadget, Gotta Be Mobile and TechnoBuffalo. See also Mediagazer

The Switch:

NSA uses Google cookies to pinpoint targets for hacking — The National Security Agency is secretly piggybacking on the tools that enable Internet advertisers to track consumers, using “cookies” and location data to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance.

Ed Felten / Freedom to Tinker:

How to stop spies from piggybacking on commercial Web tracking

More: The Switch, Techdirt, Business Insider and Computerworld

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Trouble At Yahoo: Partial Webmail Outage Hits Day Two, Surprise Small Business Websites Shutdowns Anger Customers — Normally a report of a web services outage goes like this: web service goes down, reporter writes post, hits publish, web service comes right back up.

More: Yahoo Mail, Los Angeles Times, Techzim, KUSA-TV, Softpedia News, VCPOST and Consumerist

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Kick the Can — Yahoo Mail Is a Consumer Disaster, But Company's Response Is Even Worse

More: Computerworld and Business Insider

Katherine Rosman / Wall Street Journal:

Twitter plants “Mirror” tablets at VIP events for celebrities to tweet selfies — Twitter Mirror: Celebrities' New Publicity Machine — Cellphones, Paparazzi Won't Do; Twitter Pushes Star Entertainers, Athletes to Take More Photos … It's no simple job to manufacture authentic, spontaneous celebrity photos.

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

AT&T's gigabit service is $70 if you let it spy on your searches — AT&T said Wednesday that it has started service in four Austin neighborhoods with an offer to bring its GigaPower fiber-to-the-home service for $70 a month — but with a pretty big catch. — If you want to pay the lower rate …

More: The Verge, AT&T, Ars Technica, VentureBeat, Engadget, The Switch, DSLreports, CNET, Daily Dot, TelecompetitorTelecompetitor and Consumerist. Tweets: @evelynrusli. Thanks:@om

Michele Sinner / Reuters:

Cisco loses court challenge to Microsoft's takeover of Skype — (Reuters) - Microsoft fended off a challenge to its $8.5 billion takeover of messaging service Skype when Europe's second-highest court ruled against claims by rival Cisco that the 2011 deal would harm competition.

More: GeekWire, The Verge, AllThingsD, Lastest ITProPortal news, Gigaom, WinBeta, Bloomberg and ZDNet

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google Sheets Gets Offline Editing, Speed Boost And Filter Views — Google today is launching a major update to Sheets, its Google Drive spreadsheet app that's part of Google Drive productivity suite. With this new version, Sheets joins the rest of Google's productivity apps in letting users create …

More: AllThingsD, The Official Google Blog, The Next Web, Engadget, CNET and Ubergizmo

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

Square acquires Evenly to better enable its users to collect payments from friends — Square has announced another addition to its growing list of acquisitions. In a blog post, the mobile payment processing company revealed that it has acquired Evenly, a service designed around helping …

More: The Corner, AllThingsD, VentureBeat, eWeek, Gigaom, TechCrunch, Mashable and WebProNews

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Web Video Startup Ooyala Raises $43 Million — We saw a smattering of ad tech IPOs this year, and there are a bunch of companies that are supposedly lined up for next year. — Here's one you likely won't see going public in 2014 — at least not in the beginning of the year: Ooyala, the Web video startup.

More: VentureBeat, Variety, PE Hub Blog and Mashable. See also Mediagazer

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Dell unveils education-focused Chromebook 11, arriving in January for under $300 — As promised, Dell has taken the wraps off its first Chrome OS device, the Chromebook 11. The 11.6-inch, 2.9-pound laptop is built with the classroom in mind, and it should ship in tandem with a Wyse PocketCloud app …

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:

“Revenge porn” operator arrested, charged with ID theft — Websites that post nude pictures of adults without their permission, commonly known as “revenge porn” sites, have recently drawn public scorn and a few lawsuits. — Now, the owner of one revenge porn website is facing prison.

More: California Attorney …, Examiner, CNET, Business Insider, The Switch, Forbes, Boing Boing and BBC

Richard Lai / Engadget:

ASUS CEO: The PadFone is coming to America — ASUS has big ambitions with its PadFones, a unique phone-to-tablet convertible concept that was first introduced back at Computex 2011. While these devices are barely nibbling on the global mobile market (let alone entering the US) …

More: The Verge, Android Central, CNET, Gigaom, 9to5Google, The Droid Guy, Android and Me, Android Police, Digital Trends, pocketnow.com, Unwired View, Inquirer, Gearburn, TechHive, TechnoBuffalo and Electronista

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Rdio Launches In 20 New Countries, As 57% Of New Users Come From Outside U.S. — Streaming music provider Rdio has just launched its services in 20 new countries, making for a total reach of 51 different international markets. That's more than rival Spotify, for those counting …

More: Rdio Blog, The Next Web, Engadget, BetaNews, VentureBeat, Softpedia News, Electronista, iDownloadBlog.com, Gigaom and Engadget. See also Mediagazer

Stephen Totilo / Kotaku:

YouTube Channels Crippled By Copyright Claims — Numerous video game-related YouTube personalities have spent the last day digging through piles of copyright claims suddenly filling their inboxes, claims that they say are messing with their ability to produce and profit from videos they post online.

More: Tubefilter, Tubefilter, Polygon, VentureBeat, Plagiarism Today, Plagiarism Today and Marketing Pilgrim. Tweets: @andrewgirdwood. See also Mediagazer

Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:

Palantir's Latest Round Valuing It At $9B Swells To $107.8M In New Funding — Palantir, the big data company that started off with clients like the FBI and CIA before building up a large private-sector roster of customers, just added more funding to its coffers.

More: Beyond Search

Mayumi Negishi / Wall Street Journal:

Japan Tops World In Mobile Apps Revenue — Data Tracker Says Japan Spends 10% More Than U.S. on Apps … TOKYO—Japan overtook the U.S. to become the world's No. 1 country in app store revenue, thanks to an explosion in growth of smartphone and tablet games.

More: App Annie Blog, The Verge, Ubergizmo, Gigaom, SlashGear and The Next Web

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Snapchat Raises $50 Million In Series C From A Single, Undisclosed Investor — Amid rumors of a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook and a potential $200 million funding round, turns out that ephemeral messaging sensation Snapchat has actually raised $50 million in Series C funding.

More: Fortune, Business Insider, The Technology Chronicles and Forbes. Tweets: @danprimack. Thanks:@ryanlawler

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Google launches Chrome apps and the Chrome App Launcher for all Mac users — Google today announced Chrome apps are now available on OS X, in addition to Windows and Chrome OS. Mac users will also now get the Chrome App Launcher in their Dock when they download their first Chrome app.

More: Google Chrome Blog, MacRumors, The Verge and Electronista. Tweets: @antderosa

Jordan Golson / MacRumors:

Southwest Airlines Offering In-Flight iMessaging for $2 Per Day — Southwest Airlines is offering passengers the ability to send and receive iMessages from their iOS devices in-flight for $2 per day. In-flight Wi-Fi access for all applications is available for $8 per device per day.

More: Nuts About Southwest, CNET, Gizmodo, Wall Street Journal, Gotta Be Mobile and App Advice

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Glassdoor: Twitter dethrones Facebook as the best tech company to work for, ending three-year streak — Career website Glassdoor today released its sixth annual Employees' Choice Awards, a list of the 50 best places to work for in the coming year. Twitter was elected the number one tech company …

More: Fortune, AllFacebook, AllThingsD, AppleInsider, CNET, ReadWrite, Softpedia News, 9to5Mac, MacNN, PhoneArena, SiliconANGLE and TUAW

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:

Introducing Microsoft-Decision-1, our model for fast decision-making — Our new model delivers top performance in latency and quality on structured decision tasks to outperform other models.

Will Reed:

The best sales leaders aren't job hunting. Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach. — Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.

Zoho:

Zoho Books now supports CT600 & Final Accounts Filing as an add-on in the FREE plan — Managing end-of-year filing for limited companies in the UK is often expensive and multi-layered.

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

Lenny's Podcast:

Why every company now needs to think and operate like a lab team | Josh Woodward (Google Labs, Gemini, AI Studio)

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.

Big Technology Podcast:

Meta & Microsoft's Claude Slowdown, His Agent Leaked His Banking Info, Don't Bully Your AI

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.

Sources:

Qualcomm's CEO on the coming AI phone supercycle

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.

The Upstarts Podcast:

Bringing Back Mammoths And Building Noah's Ark 2.0 | Colossal's Ben Lamm

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.

Great Chat:

The launch industrial complex

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.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Larry Ellison's Media Ambitions & Kevin Roose on AI's Biggest Gamble

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:35 PM ET, December 11, 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.