Techmeme: Jimmy Wales joins UK-based charitable MVNO The People's Operator as chairman, plans international expansion (Arik Hesseldahl/Re/code)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

January 20, 2014, 6:35 PM

Top News

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Nest CEO Tony Fadell vows to make any privacy policy changes transparent and opt-in — Following last week's Google acquisition, Nest chief executive Tony Fadell has vowed to make any alterations to its privacy policy opt-in, and to be transparent about such changes to all of its users.

More: Ars Technica, BGR, GeekWire, Valleywag, SiliconANGLE, TechnoBuffalo, 9to5Google, Gotta Be Mobile, TechCrunch, VatorNews, The Verge, Engadget, App Advice, WebProNews, Softpedia News and Electronista

Tweets: @boris and @caseynewton

Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:

Stealth marketing: Microsoft paying YouTubers for Xbox One mentions — Machinima campaign offered undisclosed money to videos promoting new console The line between traditional, paid advertising and organic editorial content on the Internet can sometimes be hazy.

More: Pastebin, iGame Responsibly, Forbes, BGR, PC World, VG247, destructoid, Kotaku, Joystiq, The Escapist, Polygon, CinemaBlend.com and WinBeta

Tom Warren / The Verge:

HP brings back Windows 7 ‘by popular demand’ — HP really wants people to buy a Windows 7 PC instead of a Windows 8 machine. The PC maker has been emailing customers over the weekend noting that “Windows 7 is back.” A new promotion, designed to entice people to select Windows 7 over Windows 8 …

More: Computerworld, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, The Mac Observer, Gizmodo, ZDNet, Softpedia News, Inquirer, SlashGear, VentureBeat, Digital Trends, GeekWire, TechnoBuffalo, BGR, Gigaom and Global Nerdy. Tweets: @mitsuhiko

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Apple insists on anti-cloning provision as part of any patent settlement with Samsung — When the CEOs of Apple and Samsung, accompanied by several in-house lawyers, meet for their (court-requested) settlement negotiations on or before February 19, there will probably be flexibility …

More: AppleInsider, PhoneArena, iPhone in Canada Blog and Electronista

Dan Levine / Reuters:

Intellectual Ventures' first ever trial is set to begin against Google's Motorola this week — Google set to face Intellectual Ventures in landmark patent trial — (Reuters) - Intellectual Ventures is set to square off this week against Google Inc's Motorola Mobility unit in the first trial …

More: Gigaom, GeekWire, SiliconBeat and Softpedia News. Tweets: @fosspatents

David Meyer / Gigaom:

Fon pulls in $14M as it partners with Qualcomm and Facebook — The crowdsourced Wi-Fi network Fon is about to find its way into a whole lot more routers, as Qualcomm and others have plowed $14 million into the Spanish company. Qualcomm in particular will bake Fon functionality into its Atheros wireless chipsets.

More: Martin Varsavsky, TechCrunch, Re/code, VentureBeat, ZDNet and dailywireless.org

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

Jimmy Wales joins UK-based charitable MVNO The People's Operator as chairman, plans international expansion — Jimmy Wales' Plan to Save The World With Mobile Phones — Jimmy Wales, the founder and public face of Wikipedia would like to give $1 billion to charity, but he doesn't have $1 billion to give.

More: CNET, VatorNews, The Next Web, Wired.co.uk, Inquirer, The Verge, Telegraph, Guardian and Gigaom

Todd Spangler / Variety:

As Netflix Rises, HBO and Showtime Subscribers Shrink as Percentage of U.S. Households — NPD finds that U.S. households subscribing to premium cable channels dropped 6 percentage points over 18-month period, while Netflix and other SVOD services grew 4 points — Is Netflix putting a dent in premium cable subscriptions?

More: Gigaom, Betabeat, Engadget, The Verge, WebProNews and Electronista

Michael Mace / Mobile Opportunity:

After Nest acquisition, Google looks more like a conglomerate than a unified product company — Google the Conglomerate: After Nest, No Industry is Safe — I've spent many hours trying to puzzle out Google's product plans. What's the logic behind Google Drive, how does Motorola fit in a software company, and on and on (link).

More: Monday Note. Tweets: @cdixon and @cdixon

Luke Edwards / Pocket-lint:

Samsung Galaxy S5 new UI leaks again looking like an attractive Google Now — Samsung's refreshed UI looks almost certain now. Yet more photos have leaked online at the same time as the Galaxy S5 rumour mill gets up to speed. — We're expecting to see the new Samsung UI unveiled …

More: Engadget, BGR, Phandroid, AndroidOS.in, Business Insider, 9to5Google, Inquirer, Android and Me, IntoMobile, The Verge, Android Beat and The Next Web. Tweets: @evleaks

Kim Zetter / Wired:

Target Got Hacked Hard in 2005. Here's Why They Let It Happen Again — A gang of shadowy hackers tears through the systems of big-box retailers, making off with millions of credit and debit card numbers in a matter of weeks and generating headlines around the country. — Target and Neiman Marcus in 2013?

Tweets: @pmarca and @pmarca

Laura He / MarketWatch:

Weibo user count declined 9% to 281M in 2013 amidst mobile messaging growth, speech crackdown — China's Twitter is bleeding users — While Facebook FB struggles with declining traffic among U.S. teens, China's most popular social-media channel — a group of Twitter-like microblog services …

More: Digital Spy, NTD TV, Sky News, Daily Dot and TheStreet.com

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:

Zoho Books introduces the Landlords edition in the UK — Managing rental properties in the UK has long involved a messy mix of spread-out receipts, manual spreadsheets, and end-of-year tax scrambles.

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

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros' Limbo, Netflix's Anxiety, and Hollywood's Sort-of Comeback

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.

Big Technology Podcast:

How China Caught U.S. AI — With Grace Shao

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.

Training Data:

Building the Automated AGI Lab: Core Automation's Jerry Tworek and Rohan Anil

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.

Uncapped with Jack Altman:

Tony Xu from DoorDash

Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.

Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.

Invest Like the Best:

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

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 6:35 PM ET, January 20, 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.