Techmeme: T-Mobile's GoSmart Hopes to Boost Data Use by Offering Unlimited Free Mobile Access to Facebook (Ina Fried/AllThingsD)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

December 23, 2013, 9:10 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple acquired mapping firm BroadMap's talent, location-infused Evernote competitor Catch — Apple has been on a roll this year in terms of acquisitions. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the Cupertino firm acquired 15 companies this year, but only ten have been revealed.

More: AllThingsD, Engadget, Mercury News, Spatially Adjusted, MacRumors, TechCrunch, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Verge, VentureBeat, AppleInsider, Gigaom, SlashGear, The Mac Observer, iPhone Hacks, iDownloadBlog.com, App Advice, ValueWalk, Electronista, TechnoBuffalo, everythingiCafe, iClarified, iMore, CNET, BGR, MobileSyrup.com, iLounge and MacDailyNews

Tweets: @markgurman and @markgurman

Thanks:@apollozac

Bloomberg:

Apple-Backed Rockstar Said to Hold Discussions to Sell Patents — A consortium created by Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corp. and other technology companies to acquire $4.5 billion of patents from Nortel Networks Corp. in 2011 is holding discussions to sell a portion of those patents, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

More: CNET, AppleInsider, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, The Mac Observer, iPhone in Canada Blog, iPhone Hacks and iClarified. Tweets: @jeffjohnroberts

BBC:

Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing — Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing has been given a posthumous royal pardon. — It overturns his 1952 conviction for homosexuality for which he was punished by being chemically castrated. — The conviction meant he lost …

More: Guardian, Gigaom, The Independent, The Register, Associated Press, BuzzFeed, Telegraph, Mirror.co.uk, Scotsman, men and The Verge

Tweets: @michaelklurfeld, @doirekeenan, @jamesrbuk and @stephenfry

Will Connors / Digits:

With New Outsourcing Deal, BlackBerry Cancels Two Phones — A small item from BlackBerry's earnings-related filing Friday got lost in the news of its hardware partnership with Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group-sales of its new phones have been so bad that BlackBerry was forced to cancel the rollout of two not-yet-released phones.

More: The Verge, BerryReview, CNET, BGR, MobileSyrup.com, CrackBerry.com and SlashGear

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Jack Dorsey Joins Disney's Board Of Directors — The Walt Disney Company just announced that Jack Dorsey (co-founder and CEO Square, as well co-founder and chairman at Twitter, as if you didn't know) has joined its board if directors. — “Jack Dorsey is a talented entrepreneur …

More: Business Wire, VentureBeat, VatorNews, AllThingsD, Quartz, Business Insider, CNET, Digits, The Verge, The Technology Chronicles, 5by5 Master Audio Feed, Engadget, Gigaom and The Next Web. Tweets: @jack. See also Mediagazer

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Samsung shows just how awkward life can be in its latest Galaxy Gear ad — In Samsung's world, the quickest way to a woman's heart is through your Galaxy Gear smart watch. — The tech industry has become well known for its odd, tone-deaf advertisements, and Samsung's latest is no exception.

More: YouTube, Quartz, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, 9to5Google, The Independent, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, GeekWire, PC Magazine, The Register, pocketnow.com, Gizmodo, CNET, TechnoBuffalo, BetaNews and Business Insider

Tweets: @dannysullivan and @backlon

Graham Morrison / TechRadar:

Interview with Chris DiBona, the Director of Open Source at Google — How open source changed Google - and how Google changed open source — INTERVIEW We chat to Google's head of open source software … Google has just celebrated its 15th birthday, and much of its success is thanks to Linux and open source software.

Tweets: @dalmaer, @capotribu and @maduratnayake

Kwame Opam / The Verge:

HP reportedly may launch cheap, big smartphones by the end of this year — Reporting on HP's desire to return to the smartphone market, sources tell The Information that the company plans to release new six- and seven-inch phablets by the end of the year. The devices will be aimed …

More: The Information, SlashGear and Phandroid

New York Times:

In Tech Buying, U.S. Still Stuck in Last Century — WASHINGTON — Four years after President Obama vowed to “dramatically reform the way we do business on contracts,” the spectacular failure of the HealthCare.gov website has renewed calls for changes in how the government hires and manages private technology companies.

More: The Switch, Gigaom Research, Forbes and Business Insider

Tweets: @steveforbesceo, @chrisfralic, @shearm, @chrishughes, @starkness and @zachcoelius

Barb Darrow / Gigaom:

Seagate snaps up hard disk testing expert for $374M — Amid all the hoopla about flash storage, it pays to step back and remember that hard disks are still storing a heckuva lot of our stuff, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Remember flash fanboys, even slow tape storage lives on.

More: MarketWatch, Tech Trader Daily, The Register, Wall Street Journal, insideHPC and Reuters

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:

T-Mobile's GoSmart Hopes to Boost Data Use by Offering Unlimited Free Mobile Access to Facebook — Overseas, Facebook has worked with a number of carriers to bring free access to the social network for those who don't otherwise have data plans for their phones.

More: Yahoo! Finance, DSLreports, CNET, iMore, Engadget, Softpedia News, AllFacebook, The Verge, IntoMobile, TechnoBuffalo, Gigaom, eWeek, PC Magazine, Gigaom Research and Electronista

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:

The case against Kim Dotcom, finally revealed — Nearly two years after Kim Dotcom's New Zealand mansion was raided by police, US authorities have made their case as to why the man behind Megaupload shouldn't simply go bankrupt like previous copyright violators before have—he should go to jail, they argue.

More: Gigaom. Tweets: @arstechnica and @jeffjohnroberts

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.

Cape:

Most carriers track everything. Cape doesn't. — Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more. Switch today and get 29% off for life.

Zoho:

Introducing qualified electronic signatures via SIGN8 for the EU — Every document carries a different level of risk, and the type of electronic signature you choose should reflect that.

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

Training Data:

Rich Sutton and Khurram Javed: Why AI Models Stop Learning, and How to Start It Again

Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.

Subscribe to Training Data.

Invest Like the Best:

Ben Thompson on Big Tech, China, and the AI Boom Running Out of Money

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:

OpenAI's Head of Design: This is the best time in history to be a designer | Ian Silber

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:

Best of Big Technology: How Ozempic Changes Our Bodies, Minds, and Economy — With Johann Hari

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.

Hard Fork:

Zuckerberg's Anti-Doom Fantasy + Finally an A.I. Detector That Works + A.I. Math

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:10 PM ET, December 23, 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.