Techmeme
December 18, 2013, 12:15 AM

Top News

Guardian:
Tech firms push back against White House efforts to divert NSA meeting  —  Dominic Rushe in New York and Paul Lewis in Washington  —  The top leaders from the world's biggest technology companies pressed their case for reform of the National Security Agency's controversial surveillance operations …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
LG announces Chromebase, a Chrome OS all-in-one computer  —  Google's Chrome OS is typically found in inexpensive Chromebook laptops, and occasionally a Chromebox desktop as well.  At next month's Consumer Electronics Show, however, LG will put it into a desktop computer monitor.
Amit Singhal / The Official Google Blog:
2013 in Search: Heroes, tragedies and the Harlem Shake  —  Every day, around the world, we search.  We want to find out more about our heroes, explore far-away destinations, or settle a dinner table dispute between friends.  And sometimes we just search to find out how many calories are in an avocado.
Derrick Harris / Gigaom:
Amazon's streaming data service, Kinesis, is now available  —  Kinesis, the streaming data service that Amazon Web Services announced in November, is now publicly available.  The service is comparable in theory to popular open source technologies such as Apache Storm, only Kinesis brings …
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple Requiring All App Submissions To Be Optimized For iOS 7 By Feb 1st  —  Apple is requiring developers to optimize all app submissions for iOS 7 by February 1st, 2014, according to a new posting on its developer portal.  That includes new apps and updates to existing apps.
Jamie Hinks / ITProPortal:
Universal laptop charger standard coming in 2014  —  A new universal laptop charger standard that promises to cut down on e-waste has been published in the hope that it firms will choose to adopt it.  —  The International Electrotechnical Commission [IEC] Technical Specification 62700 …
Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:
TiVo co-founders about to release new TV streaming box called QPlay  —  TiVo co-founders Michael Ramsay and Jim Barton are about to release a new TV companion device that aims to combine video discovery and curation with smart TV functionality.  Dave Zatz recently spotted an FCC filing …
Andy / TorrentFreak:
Torrent Site Uploader Ordered to Pay $652,000 For Sharing One Movie  —  In 2011, popular private BitTorrent tracker Swebits announced it would close down, just a week after one of its users was arrested.  —  The then 25-year-old was a moderator and uploader and between April 2008 …
More: Plagiarism TodayTweets: @xor and @brokep
Facebook:
Testing a New Way to Watch Promoted Videos in News Feed  —  Since September, we've been testing a way to make videos more engaging on Facebook, and as a result we've seen views, likes, shares and comments increase more than 10 percent.  —  We're beginning to test a similar video viewing format for advertisers.
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Microsoft Director Says CEO Choice Will Not Be Made Until Early 2014  —  Microsoft director John Thompson, who leads CEO search  —  John Thompson, the Microsoft director who is leading the search for a CEO to replace outgoing leader Steve Ballmer, said today in a blog post that the board will not make its choice until early next year.
Michael Hiltzik / Los Angeles Times:
Uber upholds capitalism, (possibly) learns downside of price gouging  —  Travis Kalanick, chief executive of Uber Technologies: Let the people walk!  (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg / December 16, 2013)  —  The ride-sharing firm Uber takes great pride in hewing rigorously to libertarian, let-the-market-decide business principles.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Acquires PeerCDN As It Builds Out Its Content Strategy  —  Content delivery network provider PeerCDN has been acquired by Yahoo, the company has informed TechCrunch, in a deal the terms of which were not disclosed.  The startup revealed its project earlier this year …
Seung Min Kim / Politico:
White House chooses former Microsoft Office VP Kurt DelBene to lead HealthCare.gov overhaul  —  White House to tap Microsoft exec to fix Obamacare site  —  The White House is tapping the private sector for its next point man to fix the troubled Obamacare website.
Jon Russell / The Next Web:
Samsung opens its HomeSync streaming box to HTC, Sony and LG devices  —  Not wanting to be left out of the content syncing race to reshape entertainment in the living room, Samsung has announced that its HomeSync service is being made available to other, non-Samsung Android devices.
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Roku 3 finally snags an official YouTube app, support for additional models is on the way  —  The lack of a YouTube app has been a massive hole in the content lineup of Roku's otherwise well-rounded media streamers, but no more.  YouTube just announced that Roku 3 players in the US, Canada …
Rip Empson / TechCrunch:
WyzAnt Lands $21.5M From Accel To Take Its Tutoring Marketplace Global And Mobile  —  Building an online marketplace for local services is a tricky proposition, especially at scale.  It takes time to recruit a stable of service providers, to offer deep coverage within local markets and maintain …
Dara Kerr / CNET:
Meg Whitman's salary bumped from a buck to $1.5 million  —  Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman appears to be getting a big reward for working to make the company more efficient.  —  The company's board has decided to up her salary from a mere $1 to $1.5 million, according to a HP filing …
Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:
Continuing Its Public Content Push, Facebook Acquires SportStream  —  Twitter may still be synonymous with real-time, in-the-moment discussion.  But that's hardly stopping Facebook from moving in on the territory.  —  Natch, Facebook announced on Tuesday it had acquired SportStream …

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:15 AM ET, December 18, 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.

More News

Chris Davies / SlashGear:
Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

Earlier Picks

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Jon Russell / The Next Web:
Michael Steeber / 9to5Mac: