Techmeme
January 21, 2014, 3:10 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.
Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:
Why Verizon is buying Intel Media: it's all about taking on Comcast  —  Verizon made it official on the day of its Q4 2013 earnings call: The company is indeed buying the assets of Intel Media, the Intel subsidiary that has been developing an internet TV service called OnCue.
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:
Marc Andreessen / DealBook:
Why Bitcoin Matters  —  Editor's note: Marc Andreessen's venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has invested just under $50 million in Bitcoin-related start-ups.  The firm is actively searching for more Bitcoin-based investment opportunities.  He does not personally own more than a de minimis amount of Bitcoin.
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: TechCrunch.  Tweets: @paulg
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/code.  Tweets: @joshmedia, @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.
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.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
GitHub President Becomes CEO, CEO Becomes President In Executive Role Swap  —  So now is the time for top execs at middle stage technology companies to trade titles with each other, apparently: GitHub has just announced that co-founder Tom Preston-Werner will be taking over the role of President …
Jim Edwards / Business Insider:
CONFIRMED: Man Interrogated By FBI For Wearing Prescription Google Glass At The Movies  —  A man who went to the movies with his wife in Columbus, Ohio, was subjected to a terrifying hour-long interrogation by the FBI because employees at the AMC theater saw him wearing Google Glass.
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.
Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:
Yahoo's Next Problem: Tumblr's Traffic Isn't Growing  —  The past year has been an up-and-down affair for Yahoo , with the company and its CEO, Marissa Mayer, scoring numerous PR coups while failing to make headway in its core business of selling digital advertising.
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.
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.
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
Facebook Starts Showing Fewer Text Status Updates From Pages, More From Friends  —  Facebook has just announced a slight tweak to the Newsfeed algorithm.  The newest version of the Newsfeed will show fewer text-based status updates from Pages, but will serve more text-based status updates from users.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
We can build it.  Can we judge it?  —  As agentic AI shortens the path from idea to shipped code, journey evaluation becomes a critical design skill.
Will Reed:
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