Techmeme
December 12, 2013, 10:40 AM

Top News

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:
Instagram announces Instagram Direct, a photo and text messaging feature  —  At an event in New York City today, Instagram announced a new messaging feature that lets users send text and photo messages to each other privately.  “Communication is not about photography, necessarily,” said CEO Kevin Systrom.
Miyoung Kim / Reuters:
Apple scores legal victory over Samsung in South Korea  —  (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Thursday lost its bid to ban sales of Apple Inc's older iPhone and iPad in South Korea, as a court dismissed a lawsuit claiming the U.S. firm had infringed three of Samsung's mobile patents.
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
iPhone 5S makes rapid start in China and hits 10% of iPhones in use, data shows  —  CounterPoint Research report comes before China Mobile deal, while iOS 7 adoption running faster than last year, statistics show  —  Apple's iPhone 5S has been a dramatic hit in China, comprising 12% of sales …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
What might a new Windows Start Menu look like?  —  If Microsoft does end up reintroducing a Start Menu to a future release of Windows, as sources are hinting, does it necessarily mean that menu will be identical to what exists now?  And if it's not, does that defeat the purpose? win7startmenu Your best friend or worst nightmare?
More: Softpedia News and BGR.  Tweets: @maryjofoley
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
AmazonFresh Launches In San Francisco  —  As we previously reported, Amazon has launched its grocery-delivery service in San Francisco today.  —  The service was previously available in Seattle and Los Angeles, but has now extended to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Aoife White / Bloomberg:
Samsung Said to Near EU Antitrust Settlement on Patents  —  Samsung Electronics Co. (005930)'s offer to settle a European Union antitrust investigation over key patents requires only minor changes to win approval from regulators, according to two people familiar with the case.
More: SlashGear.  Tweets: @fosspatents
Tamar Lewin / New York Times:
Study of a million users of MOOCs says they are a failure, only four percent completed courses  —  After Setbacks, Online Courses Are Rethought  —  Two years after a Stanford professor drew 160,000 students from around the globe to a free online course on artificial intelligence …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Brings Together 25 Partners For The Cloud OS Network To Drive More Windows Azure Use  —  Microsoft has been adding firepower to its Windows Azure cloud platform to compete against the likes of Google, Amazon and Dropbox and Box to attract enterprise users to create, host and distribute data around the world.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Twitter's Latest Partnership, With Truecaller In India, Links Phone Number Look-Ups With Tweeting  —  Twitter has been inking deals with third parties outside of the U.S. to drive more international usage, both in emerging and mature markets.  Today comes news of yet another deal that it hopes …
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Adds ABC, Bloomberg, Crackle, and KORTV Channels to Apple TV  —  Apple today added yet another set of channels to its Apple TV set-top box, including a “Watch ABC” channel to allow subscribers to certain cable services to watch content from their local ABC affiliate through Apple TV.

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More News

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Earlier Picks

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