Techmeme
February 10, 2014, 9:55 AM

Top News

Zal Bilimoria / Re/code:
Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over  —  Back in 2011, I was having an all-consuming love affair with tablets.  At the time, I was the first-ever head of mobile at Netflix.  I saw tablets in my sleep, running apps that would control homes, entertain billions and dutifully chug away at work.
Arnold Kim / MacRumors:
‘Flappy Bird’ Removed from App Store by Developer  —  As promised, Dong Nguyen, the developer of Flappy Bird, has removed the popular game from the App Store.  Flappy Bird has been the number one downloaded free app on Apple's App Store for almost a month.  The game was generating $50,000/day in revenue from in-app ads.
Paul Thurrott / SuperSite for Windows:
Windows 8.1 Update 1 accommodates too many needs, proves design by committee never works  —  What the Heck is Happening to Windows?  —  Is it better to burn out than fade away?  —  When critics described Windows 8.1 as a step backwards, I disagreed: Responding to customer complaints is never wrong …
Tweets: @carnage4life
Violet Blue / ZDNet:
Change your passwords: Comcast hushes, minimizes serious hack  —  Summary: Opinion: Comcast took a page from Snapchat's playbook to hush and downplay NullCrew FTS' successful hack on dozens of Comcast's servers — from an unpatched, easy-to-fix vulnerability dated December 2013 — which most likely exposed customer data.
More: DSLreports and Multichannel.comTweets: @virusbtn
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
HTC breaks even in final months of 2013, but forecasts a losing start to new year  —  HTC's Q4 2013 financial numbers are out today and the company has suffered yet another decline in sales.  Whereas the last quarter of 2012 returned NT$60 billion, the past year reached only NT$42.9 billion.
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Neither Microsoft, Nokia, nor anyone else should fork Android.  It's unforkable.  —  As happens from time to time, the suggestion has been made that Microsoft cancel Windows Phone, and instead fork Android.  It's not the first time this suggestion has been made.  It's probably not the last, either.
Julia La Roche / Business Insider:
Carl Icahn Gives Up On Apple Buyback Plan  —  Billioniare investor Carl Icahn says that there's no reason to persist with Apple buyback proposal, according to new letter.  —  Icahn has amassed a huge stake in Apple.  —  He's also been suppotive of a stock buyback.
Vernon Silver / Businessweek:
Unlocked iPhones Are Hard Currency in Brazil, Italy, Other Countries  —  I've been paying my bills with iPhones.  Not with apps or on bank sites—I've been using the Apple (AAPL) hardware as currency.  —  It started by accident in December, during a business trip to New York.
More: iPhone, BGR and iMore
Tweets: @benbajarin and @monkbent
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Windows Phone 8.1 Notification Center revealed in leaked screenshots  —  Microsoft is currently preparing its first major update to Windows Phone 8.  A highly requested Notification Center feature will be included with Windows Phone 8.1, allowing users to customize and control their app notifications.
Nick Bilton / NYT Bits:
Entering the Era of Private and Semi-Anonymous Apps  —  Today's Web-enabled gadgets should come with a digital Miranda warning.  “Anything you say or do online, from a status update to a selfie, can and will be used as evidence against you on the Internet.”
More: TechCrunchTweets: @om

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:
Do you need a Zoho Partner?  Here's why working with one can benefit you.  —  Zoho offers over 60 applications, each one built for a unique use case.  From sales and marketing to finance, HR, and customer support …
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.

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
Open Model Wars + Claire Stapleton's Dishy Google Memoir + Substack's Slop Fight
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.
Great Chat:
Tech's short-term era
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.
Access:
Meet the most AI-pilled CEO on Earth
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Basis's Matt Harpe: Why AI Won't Replace Accountants — It'll Make Them Richer
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.
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.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:55 AM ET, February 10, 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

New York Times:
Michael Carney / PandoDaily: