Techmeme: Samsung rolls out smart home service in Korea and US to let you control appliances with an app (Kaylene Hong/The Next Web)

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April 2, 2014, 11:25 AM

Top News

Yuichiro Kanematsu / Nikkei:

Report: Apple in talks to buy 55% stake in Renesas SP display chip design unit for $479M — Apple looking to buy Japanese chipmaker — SILICON VALLEY — Apple is in talks with Japan's Renesas Electronics to take over a unit that designs chips for smartphone displays …

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:

Amazon announces Fire TV, an android-powered streaming set-top box — We've been waiting for it for quite sometime, but now Amazon is finally ready to make its play for the living room. Fire TV is not a barebones device like the Chromecast, it's a powerful platform with ties to the broader Amazon ecosystem.

More: VentureBeat, ReadWrite, GeekWire, The Next Web, The Verge, TechCrunch, BGR, Gizmodo, Business Insider and CNET

The Verge:

Amazon talks TV: live from the ‘video business’ event

More: TechCrunch, CNET, Mashable, Gigaom, Business Insider, CNET and Engadget

Lisa Eadicicco / Business Insider:

Apple Is Suing Samsung For $2 Billion Over These 5 iPhone Features — Apple is back in U.S. court with Samsung this week, suing the Korean software maker for $2 billion. — The last time the two companies met in the U.S. was in 2012. Apple won a $1 billion judgment Samsung is currently appealing.

More: Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, BGR, Bloomberg, Redmond Pie and Computerworld

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

Apple lays out its new case against Samsung, says 50 patents could have been at stake

More: MacRumors, Computerworld, The Register, FOSS Patents, New York Times, Bloomberg, TechEye, Electronista, TechnoBuffalo, The Mac Observer, 9to5Mac, CNET, Reuters, Associated Press, Pocketnow, CNET and SlashGear

Tweets: @daiwaka, @tim and @tim

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Samsung: Apple's Patent Claims Are “Gross Exaggeration”

More: The Verge, Re/code, BGR, 9to5Mac, DailyTech, InvestorPlace, bizjournals, Electronista, Digital Trends, Business Insider, Phandroid, Mercury News and AppleInsider. Tweets: @tim

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:

Spotify's new design is cleaner, darker and puts the focus on content — If you're using Spotify on the web, desktop or iOS you should notice a pretty massive change starting today. (The new look should be coming to Android “near future.") The company is launching its most dramatic overhaul since its launch in 2008.

More: The Next Web, TechCrunch, PC Magazine, BetaNews, Guardian, Spotify Press, TechHive, Electronista, Geek News Central, The Verge, iPhone, Geeky Gadgets, CNET, iDownloadBlog.com, MacRumors, Gizmodo, NEWS.com.au, App Advice, Inquirer and Pocketnow. Tweets: @zseward. See also Mediagazer

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Box wants to let businesses control cloud encryption keys “this year” — Box CEO Aaron Levie told Ars last September that the cloud storage company is trying to build a service that would let customers store data in Box data centers but would keep encryption keys in-house.

More: ZDNet

Tom Hals / Reuters:

Judge orders Mt Gox CEO to U.S. for questions on failed bitcoin exchange — (Reuters) - The chief executive of Japan's Mt. Gox, once the world's leading bitcoin exchange, was ordered to the United States to answer questions related to its U.S. bankruptcy case, filed after the company lost $400 million of customers' digital currency.

More: The Technology Chronicles, InfoWorld, TechSpot, CryptoCoinsNews, CoinDesk, Softpedia News, Bloomberg and The Register

Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon Will Now Allow Returns Using Lockers — Amazon.com has quietly rolled out a new service to let customers return unwanted merchandise using large metal lockers it has installed for deliveries in garages, convenience and grocery stores in major metropolitan areas.

More: GeekWire, Geeky Gadgets, Geek.com, Gizmodo, SlashGear and Engadget

Charles Arthur / Guardian:

Wearables: one-third of consumers abandoning devices — Hundreds of Galaxy Gear smartwatches are listed on eBay barely six months after launch. Why isn't the wearable tech market taking off? — The advert was blunt: a second-hand Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch for sale, priced at “£100 ONO”.

More: Fox News, 9to5Mac, Venture Chronicles, Gigaom Research and BGR. Tweets: @kevinpauldowney

Kevin Poulsen / Wired:

Google Takes Wi-Fi Snooping Scandal to the Supreme Court — The biggest U.S. internet wiretapping program outside the NSA may be headed to the Supreme Court. — Google is asking the high court to rule on the legality of the company's past sniffing of unencrypted Wi-Fi traffic …

More: DSLreports, Marketing Land, Fox News, PandoDaily, The Switch, The Verge, Ars Technica, bizjournals, TechEye and Android Central

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

Nest's smart Thermostat is now available to buy in the UK, priced from £179 — Nest, the company looking to reinvent dull-but-worthy household items such as the smoke detector, has announced that its Nest Thermostat is now finally available to buy in the UK.

More: Nest, The Verge, iMore, BGR, Inquirer, Geeky Gadgets, SlashGear, Engadget, Electronista, BBC, New York Times, Cult of Mac, TechCrunch, Android Central, Telegraph, App Advice and TechWeekEurope UK

Will Connors / Wall Street Journal:

BlackBerry Ends Licensing Agreement With T-Mobile — Blackberry Says Strategies Are Not Complementary — TORONTO— BlackBerry Ltd. said late Tuesday that it is ending its licensing agreement with T-Mobile Inc. when it expires later this month, a surprise move that comes two months …

Simon Khalaf / The Flurry Blog:

Average US consumer spends 2 hours and 42 minutes per day on mobile devices, 86% of time spent in apps, 14% on web — Apps Solidify Leadership Six Years into the Mobile Revolution — Last year, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the mobile revolution, Flurry issed its five-year report on the mobile industry.

More: Mobile Marketing Watch, Forbes, Business Insider, Tech.pinions, SocialTimes, AdExchanger, textually.org, Guardian, Ubergizmo, TechSpot and Poynter

Agam Shah / PC World:

Newton is the first MIPS-based mini-computer for wearables — A Chinese company has released a computer about the size of an SD card that can run a full version of Android and should make it easier to build wearable devices. — Called the Newton, the computer was developed …

More: Imagination Blog, Engadget, Forbes, LinuxGizmos and DailyTech

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

Samsung rolls out smart home service in Korea and US to let you control appliances with an app — Samsung took the wraps off its Smart Home service at CES in January this year, and today it is rolling out the service in Korea and the US. More countries will be added throughout the year.

More: Samsung Tomorrow, SlashGear, Phandroid, Android Central, I4U News, Smartwatch Fans and SamMobile

Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:

Apple patent describes bayonet mounts for interchangeable lenses on iPhone-like devices — Apple may use bayonet mounts for interchangeable iPhone camera lenses — Apple is investigating the use of bayonet lens mounts — one of the most common lens attachment mechanisms used in modern photography …

More: LAPTOP Magazine, SoyaCincau, Pocketnow, Business Insider and iPhone in Canada Blog

Stephen Shankland / CNET:

Exclusive: Mozilla CEO Eich says gay-marriage firestorm could hurt Firefox (Q&A) — Brendan Eich's 2008 donation to an anti-gay-marriage cause now dogs his new CEO job. In his first interview about it, he resists calls to resign or recant, but argues inclusiveness makes Mozilla's world-spanning community possible.

More: VatorNews, VentureBeat, Business Insider, Re/code, The Verge and SiliconBeat

Tweets: @mikeisaac, @mattbraga, @karaswisher, @mikeisaac, @stshank, @binarybits and @caseynewton

Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:

Ex-Microsoft employee pleads guilty to trade secret theft — Prosecutors will recommend three-month prison sentence for insider who allegedly shared info with French blogger — Former Microsoft employee Alex Kibkalo, who two weeks ago was charged with stealing — then leaking …

More: seattlepi.com, Bloomberg, Redmond Reporter, Wall Street Journal, The Register and WinBeta

Brooke Crothers / CNET:

Intel to launch $100M China fund for smart devices — The company is launching a $100 million fund to make sure its chips get into wearables, Internet devices, phones, and hybrids. — Intel Quark chip for wearables. Intel is announcing new products based on Quark and other chips.

More: Intel Newsroom, Data Center Knowledge, The Next Web, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and ZDNet

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Sookasa Raises $5M Series A Round To Help Companies Safely Use Public Cloud Services — Sookasa wants to help companies use popular cloud services like Dropbox and Gmail while at the same time transparently encrypting sensitive data to ensure that companies don't run afoul with regulations like HIPAA and FERPA.

More: VentureBeat, Gigaom, PE Hub Blog and StrictlyVC

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