Techmeme
January 8, 2014, 7:05 PM

Top News

Sean Hollister / The Verge:
T-Mobile will now pay $350 for you to leave AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon  —  Just as predicted, T-Mobile's latest hyped-up new plan to change the cellular industry is this: the company will pay your early termination fee if you agree to switch.  While T-Mobile CEO John Legere hasn't yet announced it onstage …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
T-Mobile CEO: “This industry blows,” biggest carriers offer “horsesh**”  —  T-Mobile US CEO John Legere has had an eventful week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  He was thrown out of AT&T's CES party Monday night after the company detected his presence.
Kara Swisher / Re/code:
Microsoft CEO Selection Unlikely to Come in January, as Candidate List Contracts and Expands  —  The selection of a CEO to take over Microsoft is not expected to come before February, according to multiple sources, due to a range of issues, including the packed schedule of the software giant's chairman Bill Gates this month.
Spencer E. Ante / Wall Street Journal:
IBM Struggles to Turn Watson Computer Into Big Business  —  Revenue Is Far From Company's Ambitious Targets … Three years after International Business Machines Corp. began trying to turn its “Jeopardy"-winning computer into a big business, revenue from Watson is far from the company's ambitious targets.
John Herrman / BuzzFeed:
In interview with David Pogue, Nick D'Aloisio touts positive Yahoo News Digest reviews likely written by Yahoo employees  —  The Curious Case Of Yahoo's App Reviews  —  Summly founder Nick D'Aloisio, in an interview with Yahoo's David Pogue, touted his new app's positive reviews.  But who's writing them?
Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon's Current Employees Raise the Bar for New Hires  —  Scores of Workers are Deputized to Vet Job Candidates, Ensure Cultural Fit  —  In fulfilling online orders, Amazon.com Inc. is all about expediency.  The fewer people involved the better.  —  But when it comes to filling higher-level jobs …
More: Business Insider.  Tweets: @wsjgraphics
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Nokia's Android phone UI revealed in leaked photos  —  Nokia has been building its own Android phone, codenamed Normandy, and the first examples of its user interface are now starting to emerge.  Evleaks has posted an image of Nokia's custom Android implementation, with three examples of how the smartphone maker has tweaked the UI.
Brian Stelter / CNNMoney.com:
New York Times redesign points to future of online publishing  —  The last time The New York Times embarked on a wholesale redesign of its Web site, in 2006, the iPhone wasn't on the market.  Tablets like the iPad were still years away.  —  So the new design that The Times is unveiling Wednesday …
Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Uber CEO: Surge Pricing Is Here to Stay … Some year in the near future, Travis Kalanick could transform the car-service app Uber into a multipurpose logistics conglomerate, delivering an array of physical products around cities in addition to people.  —  For now, though, he's still fighting in the trenches.
Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:
Confide: an app for execs who want sensitive messages to vanish Snapchat-style  —  Many people associate “disappear” apps like Snapchat with young people who want to send each other bong or boob shots.  But kids are hardly the only ones who want to relay sensitive or silly messages without leaving a permanent trace on the internet.
Emily Parkhurst / bizjournals:
Seattle's fiber-network deal with Gigabit Squared is dead  —  Mayor Ed Murray has declared the city's deal with startup broadband company Gigabit Squared dead.  In fact, the city's deal with the company may have been doomed before Murray was even elected.  —  “We understand the Gigabit problems …
More: Gigaom, GeekWire, Ars Technica and Engadget.  Tweets: @blowdart
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Mystery Shopping Service Mobee Acquires Kickscout, The Startup From RunKeeper Co-founder Michael Sheeley  —  Boston-based Mobee, the mystery shopping app built by former Googlers aimed at leveraging mobile to collect real-world data from inside stores and other businesses …
Ben Fritz / Wall Street Journal:
Digital movie sales up 47% in 2013 as studios allow digital purchases before rental, physical  —  Sales of Online Movies Jumps; DVDs Continue to Decline  —  Delaying Availability of DVDs, Rentals Nudged Consumers … After years of trying to convince consumers to buy movies online …
Don Reisinger / CNET:
Barnes & Noble appoints Michael Huseby to CEO post  —  Barnes & Noble has appointed a new CEO to lead the bookseller's retail and digital businesses.  —  Michael Huseby is now CEO at Barnes & Noble, the company announced on Wednesday.  In his new role, Huseby will lead Barnes & Noble's retail, college, and Nook Media operations.
Chad Bray / DealBook:
Chinese E-Commerce Giant Alibaba to Ban Bitcoins on Its Sites  —  LONDON — The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group said on Wednesday that its online marketplace Taobao would not accept the popular virtual currency Bitcoin as a form of payment or allow the sale of Bitcoins on its website.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
3 smarter updates for your staffing pipeline  —  Staffing recruiters manage multiple client requirements, large candidate databases, and tight submission deadlines.  Finding suitable candidates is only the first step.
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.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
How a 19-year-old intern built the growth engine behind this $2B AI company | Hector Serrano
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:
Big Tech's Ugly Week, Getting Rich At Anthropic, AI Costs Plunge
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.
Machine Gods:
OpenAI's Latest Discoveries Spark a Backlash + Help! My Kid Hates AI
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
The Upstarts Podcast:
The Accidental YC Founder Solving AI's GPU Crisis | SF Compute's Evan Conrad
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.
Cheeky Pint:
Why Sam Altman is against a single superintelligence
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Great Chat:
The case for AI optimism
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:05 PM ET, January 8, 2014.

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

Earlier Picks

Digits:
Andrew Longstreth / Reuters:
Allen Martin / CBS San Francisco:
TechCrunch: