Techmeme: Firefox 29 beta arrives with new Sync tool, customization mode, and Mozilla's user interface overhaul Australis (Emil Protalinski/The Next Web)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

March 21, 2014, 9:15 AM

Top News

Reed Hastings / Netflix US & Canada Blog:

Internet Tolls And The Case For Strong Net Neutrality — The Internet is improving lives everywhere - democratizing access to ideas, services and goods. To ensure the Internet remains humanity's most important platform for progress, net neutrality must be defended and strengthened.

More: The Switch, Ars Technica, Softpedia News, Forbes, Comcast Voices, BuzzFeed, CNET, BetaNews, Electronista, The Verge, Gigaom, TIME, VentureBeat, Rapid TV News, ZDNet, TheHill, Deadline.com, Consumerist, Bloomberg, Mashable, Tech Trader Daily, Engadget and SlashGear

Tweets: @richbtig, @samgustin, @bijan, @notpatrick, @jayadelson, @benfritz, @haroldfeld, @mhelft, @oti and @scxzor

See also Mediagazer

John Frank / Microsoft on the Issues:

Microsoft says Hotmail case met standard for a court order, adds new safeguards to policy — Strengthening our policies for investigations — Deputy General Counsel & Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft — We believe that Outlook and Hotmail email are and should be private.

More: Re/code, Help Net Security, The Verge, Wired.co.uk, SlashGear and Engadget

Tweets: @bbcrorycj and @liberationtech

Thanks:@fxshaw

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Marissa Mayer meets with Satya Nadella, still wants out of Microsoft/Yahoo search pact — Field of Search Dreams: If Marissa Mayer Builds It, Will Microsoft Let Yahoo Leave? — Just after he was named CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella got a visit from Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

More: TechCrunch. Tweets: @dannysullivan and @aaronwall

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Medium Launches Simple iPhone App That's Just For Reading — Blogging platform Medium has released a simple app for the iPhone that allows users to read articles from the site. They're presented as a feed that's recommended for you automatically, though articles that have been recommended …

More: Medium, 9to5Mac, Gigaom, AppleInsider, iDownloadBlog.com, Engadget, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Verge, VentureBreak and The Next Web

Sophie Knight / Reuters:

Mt. Gox says it found 200,000 bitcoins in ‘forgotten’ wallet — (Reuters) - Mt. Gox said on Friday it found 200,000 “forgotten” bitcoins on March 7, a week after the Tokyo-based digital currency exchange filed for bankruptcy protection saying it had lost about $500 million worth of bitcoin, nearly all its holdings.

More: BGR, BBC, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, CNET, Engadget, The Register, Geeky Gadgets, CoinDesk, Gizmodo, Wall Street Journal, Electronista, SeekingAlpha.com, The Next Web, TechCrunch and Tech in Asia

Tweets: @peteschroeder, @bendoernberg and @kishakishi

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Bitcoin software gets fix for weakness that helped bring down Mt. Gox — The software driving Bitcoin transactions on the Internet has been updated to fix a weakness that contributed to the downfall of Mt. Gox, once one of the biggest exchanges for the digital currency.

More: GitHub, Gizmodo, InfoWorld, Bitcoin Foundation, Geeky Gadgets, SocialTimes, Bright Side Of News*, Slyck, CoinDesk and Threatpost

Daily Dot:

Hacked emails show what Microsoft charges the FBI for user data — Microsoft often charges the FBI's most secretive division hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to legally view customer information, according to documents allegedly hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army.

More: The Verge, The Hacker News, The Daily Caller, Gizmodo and SlashGear

Tweets: @runasand, @kegill and @felixsalmon

Tony Romm / Politico:

Barack Obama to meet again with tech CEOs about NSA — President Barack Obama will huddle with “tech CEOs” on Friday to “continue his dialogue with them on the issues of privacy, technology, and intelligence,” according to a White House official. — The Obama administration declined …

More: CNET and TheHill. Tweets: @stefanjbecket and @tonyromm

Will Connors / Wall Street Journal:

BlackBerry Suffers Blow as White House Tests Samsung, LG Phones — The White House is testing smartphones from Samsung Electronics Corp. and LG Electronics Inc. for internal use, a person familiar with the matter said, threatening one of the last and most high-profile strongholds of BlackBerry Ltd.

More: Inquirer, The Verge, N4BB, SeekingAlpha.com, Droid Life, Electronista, Android Central, SamMobile, Mashable, Phones Review, Digital Trends and Phandroid

Hayden Dingman / PC World:

Microsoft's DirectX 12 to boost gaming on PCs, mobile devices — San Francisco—Meet the next generation of gaming graphics. DirectX 12 is faster, lighter-weight, and more predictable said Anuj Gosalia, Development Manager for Graphics at Microsoft, at the Game Developers Conference on Thursday …

JP Mangalindan / Fortune:

Pebble sold 400,000 smartwatches last year, on track to double revenues in 2014 — CEO Eric Migicovsky walks Fortune through the smartwatch maker's successful first year. — FORTUNE - If Pebble is the smartwatch category's David, surely Google is its Goliath.

More: BGR, Wearable Tech Insider, Softpedia News, Geeky Gadgets, TechnoBuffalo, MobileSyrup.com, Android Central, PhoneArena, Android Community and The Verge

Tweets: @javi and @felixsalmon

Thanks:@jpmanga

Roger Cheng / CNET:

Sprint lays off 330 techs, shutters 55 stores as part of broader cuts — Sprint recently cut a significant chunk of its staff dedicated to repairing and refurbishing phones and shut down its slower-performing stores, part of a broader effort to reduce the company's costs in the face of continued financial struggles.

More: Electronista, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Android Central, Engadget and Re/code

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Paypal's in-app ‘Pay at Table’ and ‘Order Ahead’ now available in UK and Australia — PayPal Expands Its In-App Pay At Table And Order Ahead Services In UK — It's still very early days for mobile payments, with the vast majority of consumers still not convinced …

More: Electronista, The Next Web and Hospitality. Tweets: @ingridlunden

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Firefox 29 beta arrives with new Sync tool, customization mode, and Mozilla's user interface overhaul Australis — Following the release of Firefox 28 just two days ago, Mozilla today updated its Firefox Beta channel to version 29 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.

More: ZDNet, The Mozilla Blog, Softpedia News, CNET, eWeek and Liliputing. Thanks:@epro

Cotton Delo / AdAge:

Pinterest Seeks 7-Figure Spend Commitments from Advertisers — Company Has Raised $564M And Has No Revenue Yet — Example of a test promoted pin on Pinterest — How Advertising Performs in a Social Media World — Pinterest hasn't brought its ads to market yet, but it's swinging …

More: Business Insider, Business 2 Community and Marketing Land. Tweets: @4thanon. See also Mediagazer

Vindu Goel / New York Times:

Twitter's new video hosting platform lets mobile users play clips with a single tap — Twitter Rolls Out Easier, Faster Video Playback — Over the past year, Twitter has worked closely with television networks and other professional video creators to upload and promote thousands …

More: ReadWrite, Marketing Land, ReelSEO Video Marketing, The Next Web and Marketing Pilgrim. See also Mediagazer

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

Layar now wants to augment your reality with its Google Glass app — Augmented reality and wearable technology go hand-in-hand, so it's with not too much surprise that we've just learnt that Layar's augmented reality app is now available to download for Google Glass.

More: Layar, Geeky Gadgets and Computerworld

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Gmail now always uses an HTTPS connection and encrypts all messages moving internally on Google's servers — Google today announced it has made security improvements to Gmail to further protect users' emails from snooping. Gmail now always uses an encrypted HTTPS connection when you check or send email …

Amol Sharma / Wall Street Journal:

Sony to offer original programming on PlayStation Network, its first show “Powers” for US only — Sony to Add Original TV Shows for PlayStation — Move Is Part of Effort to Broaden Console's Appeal Beyond Videogames — Sony Corp. is venturing into original TV programming …

More: Deadline.com, Engadget, CNNMoney.com, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Gameplanet Australia, UPI, CNET and BGR

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

NSA Director Says Agency Wants to Release Transparency Reports of Its Own — NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett called former contractor Edward Snowden's release of documents about his agency's surveillance programs “inappropriate” and “arrogant” in a video interview from Fort Meade, Md. …

More: Ars Technica, Wired, Wired.co.uk, Forbes, VentureBeat, The Register and BBC

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.

Zoho:

Ask an Expert: How to effectively recover stuck TDS refunds with reduced TDS reconciliation time — The 26AS/Form 168 gets updated quarterly and often gets checked only during the time of ITR filing.

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.

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Training Data:

Google's AI Infrastructure Chief, Amin Vahdat, on the Physics & Economics of Frontier AI

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.

Invest Like the Best:

Andrew Huberman - The Frontier of Neurotechnology

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

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Big Technology Podcast:

Who Wins The AI Assistant Wars? + Why Didn't Google Build Muse?

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.

Sources:

Reflection's founders on building a DeepSeek of the West

Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Subscribe to Sources.

Grit:

How Vercel Is Rethinking Go-to-Market With AI | COO Jeanne Grosser

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Lenny's Podcast:

OpenAI's Head of ChatGPT: We're entering a new era of AI (again) | Tibo Sottiaux

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:15 AM ET, March 21, 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.