Techmeme: Apple's iPhone led 2013 US consumer smartphone sales with 45% share

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February 21, 2014, 2:30 PM

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Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Sources say Amazon readying an Android-based Web TV box competing with Apple TV and Roku, for March rollout — Amazon Gets Its TV Box Ready, Again — Amazon is gearing up to take on Apple and Roku, again. — Industry sources say Amazon is getting ready to launch a Web TV box …

Paul Graham / Y Combinator Posthaven:

Sam Altman for President — I'm delighted to announce that Sam Altman has agreed to become president of Y Combinator starting next batch. I'll continue to do office hours with startups, but Sam is going to lead YC. — Why the change? Because YC needs to grow, and I'm not the best person to grow it.

More: Business Insider and VentureBeat. Tweets: @bhorowitz

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Sam Altman Taking Over As President Of Y Combinator, Replacing Paul Graham At The Helm — Sam Altman Taking Over As President Of Y Combinator, Replacing Paul Graham At The Helm — After nine years at the helm of Y Combinator, Paul Graham is stepping away from his leadership role at the famed Silicon Valley startup incubator.

Tweets: @sama

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

Facebook's WhatsApp Deal Could Jumpstart Internet.org Plans — What's cooler than $19 billion? How about changing the world? … Mark Zuckerberg took a step closer to realizing a dream to bring the Internet to everyone on the planet with Facebook's $19 billion acquisition of mobile messaging service WhatsApp on Wednesday.

More: NYT Bits, New Yorker, WebProNews, Poynter and Valleywag. Tweets: @jonrussell

Evelyn M. Rusli / Wall Street Journal:

WhatsApp: the Bomb That Shook Silicon Valley

More: The Next Web, Business Insider and Fortune

Tweets: @wsjd, @elie_h, @monkbent, @jonrussell and @borthwick

Wall Street Journal:

Koum and Zuckerberg differ sharply in their approaches to advertising and privacy

More: BuzzFeed. Tweets: @dmac1

TechCrunch:

TestFlight Owner Burstly Acquired By Apple — Burstly, the makers of an in-app ad management platform called SkyRocket and the parent company of popular mobile app testing platform TestFlight, has been acquired, we're hearing. Though we're working to get more information on this now …

More: Re/code, 9to5Mac, MacRumors and The Next Web

Bloomberg:

Verizon completes $130B buyout of Vodafone's stake in Verizon Wireless — Verizon Sale Cuts Vodafone Value by Half to $100 Billion — Vodafone Group Plc (VOD) completes the biggest sale of the past decade today, leaving the wireless carrier about half the size it was …

More: Gigaom, PC World, Businessweek, CNET, ZDNet, Engadget, The Verge, VentureBeat, App Advice, Wall Street Journal, ValueWalk and The Droid Guy

Laura Hazard Owen / Gigaom:

Amazon increases price of Prime in U.K. and Germany as it rolls in Lovefilm streaming video — Amazon is rolling together its Prime and Lovefilm Instant services in the U.K. and Germany. Starting February 26, U.K. and German Prime members will be able to stream movies and TV shows as part …

More: Thomson IR, ReadWrite, PC Magazine and Business Insider. See also Mediagazer

Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon in talks with brand retailers like Neiman Marcus and Abercrombie to feature their listings as it contemplates Prime rate hike

More: Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Pocket-lint and Digits

Tweets: @wsj, @wsjd, @stevesi and @stevesi

Thanks:@gregbensinger

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Secret Adds Subscribe/Unsubscribe Options, Post Flagging, Unlinking And More — Hot anonymous social network Secret has just pushed an update for its app that addresses a number of issues and improves performance. The new version allows users to subscribe or unsubscribe to any Secret post by swiping left …

More: Medium and The Verge

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Google Acquires Spider.io To Help Spot And Stop Online Ad Fraud — London-based Spider.io has been acquired by Google, the company's DoubleClick advertising blog announced today (via Re/Code). Spider.io is a startup that specialized in weeding out fraudulent clicks around online ads.

Brad Stone / Businessweek:

Invasion of the Taxi Snatchers: Uber Leads an Industry's Disruption — Ray Markovich started driving a taxi in Chicago three years ago after shuttering his struggling wireless phone store. Driving a cab wasn't particularly gratifying or lucrative—he had to pay $400 a week just to lease his 2011 white Ford Escape.

More: StrictlyVC, SiliconBeat and The Switch

Tweets: @erickecage, @jamesappell, @valleyhack, @bw and @nytimesbits

Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:

Apple's iPhone led 2013 US consumer smartphone sales with 45% share - NPD — With more than 120 million smartphones sold in the U.S. in 2013, Apple's iPhone accounted for nearly half of those, taking a 45 percent share in its home market last year, new data released by the NPD Group on Thursday reveals.

More: Examiner, Fortune, Investor's Business Daily, App Advice, MacNN, Patently Apple, PC Magazine and Morning News USA

Matt Brian / Engadget:

New Google WiFi app could automatically log you into Starbucks and other private hotspots — Google is working on a new WiFi app that could take a lot of the drudgery out of accessing wireless hotspots. According to our sources, the search giant has built Android and iOS versions of an app …

More: InvestorPlace, Light Reading, Skift, Android Community, Softpedia News, Droid Life, TechnoBuffalo, Phandroid, BGR, Electronista, App Advice, iPhone Hacks, iDownloadBlog.com …, everythingiCafe and 9to5Google

Kevin Fitchard / Gigaom:

Sprint launches Wi-Fi calling, turning the Galaxy Mega, S4 Mini into IP phones — In the next few weeks, Sprint customers with a Samsung Galaxy Mega or a Galaxy S4 Mini will get an over-the-air software update that will turn their devices into IP phones - at least when they're connected to Wi-Fi networks.

More: The Verge, Engadget and IntoMobile

Don Clark / Digits:

Samsung to collaborate with UCSF in validating the effectiveness of medical sensors — Samsung Forges Medical Tie-Up in San Francisco — Samsung Electronics already has a smartwatch, and is positioned to play a broader role in the wearable device movement.

More: 9to5Google

Wall Street Journal:

Korea's dominant text messaging service Kakao preparing for IPO at $2B valuation — Kakao Close to Signing Morgan Stanley, Samsung Securities as IPO Advisers — Offering Possibly Poised to Value Text-Messaging Company at More Than $2 Billion — Kakao Corp. is close to signing Morgan Stanley …

More: TechCrunch and VentureBeat. Tweets: @wsjd

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Nokia's Here Maps app is coming to all Windows 8.1 devices — If Bing Maps hasn't been getting the job done on your Microsoft Surface, you'll be glad to hear there's another option on the way: Nokia's Here Maps. The company says it will “soon” launch its mapping software for all Windows 8.1 devices.

More: GeekWire, The Next Web, PC World, Gizmodo, Computerworld, Engadget, CNET, Gigaom and Softpedia News

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Users blast LinkedIn for falsely implying that friends and colleagues have accounts — Nowadays, plenty of companies will — with permission — scan your contacts to find people you know already using their app or service. But LinkedIn may be taking things a step too far …

More: Robin Fisher and Open Gardens

Ashlee Vance / Businessweek:

Willow Garage, rare privately funded Silicon Valley robotics research lab, shuts down — Willow Garage's Last Days — In 2006, Scott Hassan, a prolific software engineer, started a research lab dedicated to robotics called Willow Garage. Since then, he's funded the lab with about $20 million …

More: SiliconBeat and Gigaom

Timothy J. Seppala / Engadget:

Microsoft is hand-picking users to test Xbox One's next software update — Ahead of Xbox One's second spring update Microsoft is inviting a handful of gamers to test the patch's mutiplayer features. As Major Nelson tells it, the invite process starts today and if picked, you'll be first in line to try future updates as well.

More: Xbox Wire, PC Magazine, CNET, SlashGear, destructoid, The Verge, Windows Phone Central, BGR, Joystiq, TechHive and DualShockers

Ryan Tate / Wired:

Warner makes deal with Shazam to access its data to identify music hits — Warner Music Mines Shazam for Underground Hits — Warner Music Group is getting smart about looking for breakout artists. — Today, the old-school record label revealed it has entered a rather clever partnership with Shazam …

More: New York Times, PC Magazine, hypebot, 9to5Google, Billboard, Geeky Gadgets, Rolling Stone, USA Today and The Next Web

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

4G data: The USA is second-slowest while Australia is fastest — OpenSignal has released a report today looking at the state of LTE coverage and speeds around the world, revealing that, contrary to what you might expect, not all LTE networks perform comparably.

More: Examiner, ZDNet, OpenSignal, Guardian, TheFonecast.com, Gizmodo Australia, Sydney Morning Herald, AndroidHeadlines.com, Android Community, Quartz, TmoNews, Gizmodo and FierceWireless

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