Techmeme
January 21, 2014, 2:45 PM

Top News

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:
Verizon agrees to buy Intel's failed internet TV project  —  After publicly announcing and failing to follow through with a big plan to launch a set-top box, Intel is selling the project to Verizon.  The telecoms company will purchase assets of Intel Media, a division set up to develop “over the top” TV services.
Walt Mossberg / Re/code:
Beats Music creates satisfying playlists by relying more on human curation than artist and genre matching algorithms  —  Beats Music Streams With a Human Touch  —  For years and years, people have predicted that subscription streaming music services would eventually overtake paid download services in the hearts of average consumers.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:
It doesn't always end in tears: Inside Wealthfront's second orderly CEO switch  —  Adam Nash is replacing Andy Rachleff as CEO of Wealthfront — the company's third CEO in its young life.  Rachleff was the “grown up” who originally replaced founder Dan Carroll, as the company moved out of its early Web 2.0-ish “kaChing” phase.
More: Re/codeTweets: @sarahcuda and @johnolilly
Ben Thompson / stratechery:
While Dropbox leads in consumer adoption, Box's early focus on enterprise sales a key strength  —  Battle of the Box  —  The problem with the old thin client model was the assumption that processing power was scarce.  In fact, Moore's Law and the rise of ARM has made the exact opposite the case - processing is abundant.
Jessica Livingston / Y Combinator Posthaven:
Announcing the Female Founders Conference  —  I'm delighted to announce that Kat Manalac, Kirsty Nathoo, Carolynn Levy and I are hosting Y Combinator's first Female Founders Conference on Saturday, March 1.  We're going to gather together female founders at all stages to share stories, give advice, and make connections.
More: TechCrunchTweets: @paulg
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Analysts' estimates for iPhones sold last quarter range from 50M to 60M, or 55.3M on average  —  How many iPhones did Apple sell last quarter?  —  The analysts' estimates range from 50 million to nearly 60 million.  Average: 55.3 million.  —  FORTUNE — There's a lot chatter …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Amazon Drops S3 Prices By Up To 22%, EBS By Up To 50%, Launches New EC2 Instance Types  —  Barely a month passes without Amazon Web Services (AWS) dropping the price of something in its feature line-up, and this week, it's S3's and EBS's time to get a bit cheaper.
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Google encourages employees to attend SF hearing on shuttle regulations, issues talking points  —  Google's “High Handed” Bus Memo  —  Like the last time people tried busing as a solution to a socioeconomic problem, the tech busing in San Francisco has become a hot-button topic.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
With Traction But Out Of Cash, 4chan Founder Kills Off Canvas/DrawQuest  —  “There's a lot of glorification of startups and being a founder.  People brush the failures under the rug, but that's the worst thing you can do.  You kind of have to face it head on” says moot aka Christopher Poole.
Matt Cutts / Gadgets, Google, and SEO:
The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO  —  Okay, I'm calling it: if you're using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop.  Why?  Because over time it's become a more and more spammy practice, and if you're doing a lot of guest blogging then you're hanging out with really bad company.
Matt Brian / Engadget:
Leaked software suggests Sony's next flagship phone will record 4K video  —  With shots of a new Sony smartphone surfacing ahead of a possible reveal at next month's Mobile World Congress, we guessed it wouldn't be long until we laid eyes on the software powering it.
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Verizon posts Q4 profit of $7.9B, adds 1.7M net connections  —  Verizon swung to a fourth-quarter profit as it continued to add wireless customers at a healthy clip.  —  The New York company on Tuesday posted a net income of $7.9 billion, or $1.77 a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $1.9 billion, or $1.48 a share.
AppleInsider:
Apple expands educational iBooks to new markets in Asia, Latin America & Europe  —  Apple on Tuesday announced that iBooks Texbooks and iTunes U Course Manager, two education-oriented products from the company, are expanding into new markets around the world, including Asia, Latin America, and Europe.

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Earlier Picks

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents: