Techmeme: Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana, Action Center, customizable lockscreens (Emil Protalinski/The Next Web)

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April 2, 2014, 3:10 PM

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Joe Belfiore / Windows Phone Blog:

Cortana (yes!) and Many, Many Other Great Features coming in Windows Phone 8.1 — Whew, what a day! What a week! I've just gotten off the stage at Build in front of 5,000 of our beloved developers talking about the future of the Windows platform. And now I'm here to tell YOU about the stuff we've …

More: HERE Three Sixty, Marketing Land, Internet2Go, TechCrunch, Re/code, Search Engine Land, Microsoft Corporation, Nokia Conversations, WMPoweruser, The Official Microsoft Blog, Softpedia News and Gigaom

Tweets: @panzer, @thurrott, @tim_stevens, @thurrott and @tim_stevens

Thanks:@brandonleblanc

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

Microsoft making Windows free on devices with screens under nine inches — Microsoft today said it will make Windows free of charge for phones and tablets with screens smaller than nine inches, a move designed to help boost the company's market share. The announcement comes alongside plans …

More: BGR, The Next Web, ReadWrite, Softpedia News and Gizmodo. Tweets: @davewiner

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8.1 with personal assistant Cortana, Action Center, customizable lockscreens — At its Build 2014 conference today, Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 8.1. Among the new features is a personal digital assistant named Cortana, a new Action Center …

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft announces universal Windows apps, which work across PCs, phones, tablets and Xbox One — At its Build 2014 conference today, Microsoft announced universal Windows apps, which work across PCs, phones, tablets and even the Xbox One. In other words, the Windows runtime in Windows 8.1 Update 1 …

More: TechCrunch, Computerworld, InfoWorld, Inquirer, Wall Street Journal, LAPTOP Magazine, The Verge, BetaNews, Engadget, Ars Technica, PC World, Gizmodo, Gizmodo, BGR, The Verge, Softpedia News, Gotta Be Mobile and SlashGear. Tweets: @tomwarren

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

Nokia introduces the Lumia 930, 630, & 635, designed for Windows Phone 8.1 — SAN FRANCISCO — Nokia has just announced its latest phones, the Lumia 930, 630, and 635. — The 930 is designed to take advantage of all the new aspects of Windows, wrapped up inside the new Windows Phone 8.1 operating system …

More: Nokia Conversations, The Next Web, Engadget, The Verge, BGR, Engadget, Gizmodo, IntoMobile and Windows Phone Central

Tom Warren / The Verge:

The story of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri killer

More: Tech Trader Daily, New York Times, The Next Web, LAPTOP Magazine, ReadWrite and Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @tomwarren

Brandon LeBlanc / Windows Experience Blog:

Windows 8.1 Update - important refinements to the Windows experience — As Joe mentioned here, today we're announcing two important updates to the Windows platform: Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update. With these updates, we continue to refine and improve Windows based on feedback …

More: LAPTOP Magazine, ZDNet and SuperSite for Windows

Dana Wollman / Engadget:

Windows 8.1 update aims to win over mouse-and-keyboard users, arrives April 8th as an automatic download — The whole point of Windows 8 was to make Microsoft's aging OS easier to use on touchscreen devices. Mission accomplished, we'd say (more or less). But now the folks in Redmond …

More: ReadWrite, Gizmodo, ZDNet, Ars Technica, PC World, TechCrunch, LAPTOP Magazine, The Next Web, BGR, The Next Web, TechCrunch, Gotta Be Mobile, Softpedia News and Electronista

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Microsoft Demos Its Touch-Focused Office Suite For Windows — This morning at its Build developer conference in San Francisco, Microsoft showed off the coming touch-friendly build of its Office suite coming for the Windows platform. The software, Microsoft assured us, is not done.

More: Ars Technica, The Verge, Engadget and Softpedia News

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Microsoft Will Soon Bring Back The Start Menu In Windows 8.1 — Microsoft's Terry Myerson today announced that Microsoft is “all-in” with the desktop. Indeed, while he wasn't quite ready to announce Windows 9, he did show off how Windows 8.1 will soon get a new version of the beloved Start menu back.

More: The Verge, Inquirer, GeekWire, Gizmodo, BGR, Engadget, The Next Web and PC World

Amazon.com:

Amazon Fire TV ships today with Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, YouTube, WatchESPN, and more — Introducing Amazon Fire TV: The Easiest Way to Watch Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, and More on Your Big-Screen TV — Powerful performance with 3x the processing power …

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:

Amazon launches Fire TV, an Android-powered streaming and gaming set-top box for $99 — 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 Android-driven platform …

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Amazon Fire TV hands-on: Prime comes to your living room

More: Engadget, Lastest ITProPortal news, Dan Rayburn and iPhone in Canada Blog. Tweets: @reckless

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Amazon's Fire TV billed as low-cost game console for titles like Minecraft and Asphalt 8, separate controller available for $40

More: The Verge, Forbes, Engadget, Gigaom Research and Amazon.com

Tweets: @jasonschreier and @stephentotilo

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 …

More: SiliconANGLE, Gigaom, ZDNet, Geek.com, SlashGear, Gotta Be Mobile, Inquirer and I4U News

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Lyft Raises $250 Million From Coatue, Alibaba, And Third Point To Expand Internationally — Lyft has officially closed a huge, $250 million round of funding that it will use to aggressively expand its on-demand ride-sharing service in the U.S. and internationally.

More: Lyft Blog, VatorNews, Gigaom, Wall Street Journal, The Verge, Los Angeles Times, Re/code, GeekWire, PandoDaily, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Fortune, Mashable, Forbes and Bloomberg

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

Google launches Andromeda, a software defined network underlying its cloud — For everyone saying that software-defined networking is a pipe dream, Google is about to prove you wrong. The search engine giant and cloud provider said it has made its Andromeda software-defined network platform available …

More: 9to5Google, ZDNet and Google Cloud Platform Blog

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

Reversible USB 3.1 Type-C connector shown in renderings, will be finalized in July — This is the reversible USB cable that will end your frustrations — The most abundant connector standard in technology, the Universal Serial Bus, is getting ready for its most revolutionary change yet …

More: CNET, Ars Technica, The Next Web, Computerworld, LAPTOP Magazine, Digital Trends, 9to5Google, iMore, Gotta Be Mobile, TechCrunch and Softpedia News. Thanks:@srikardr

Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:

Ubuntu to shut down Dropbox competitor Ubuntu One as storage wars heat up — Canonical, owner of the popular Linux operating system Ubuntu, today announced that it is shutting down its file-storing service Ubuntu One. — Aside from being a distraction, Canonical says the service is being shut down because …

More: Canonical Blog, BetaNews, Gigaom, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Ars Technica, Softpedia News and Liliputing. Thanks:@harrisonweber

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, BetaNews, Guardian, Spotify Press, PC Magazine, The Verge, Geeky Gadgets, Electronista, CNET, iDownloadBlog.com, MacRumors, Gizmodo, NEWS.com.au, Geek News Central, App Advice and iPhone. 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: ReadWrite and ZDNet

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: VentureBeat, TechSpot, GeekWire, I4U News, Geek.com and Geeky Gadgets

Andrew Brust / ZDNet:

Pivotal Big Data Suite released — Summary: Pivotal reveals its strategy for unifying different data technologies: license them all together. — Pivotal, the Big Data spinoff from EMC and VMWare, has announced today its “Pivotal Big Data Suite,” which it refers to as the industry's first Big Data Mega Bundle.

More: New York Times, SiliconANGLE, The Register, Forbes, InfoWorld and Datacenter Dynamics

Humeyra Pamuk / Reuters:

Turkey's Twitter ban violates free speech: constitutional court — (Reuters) - Turkey's block on access to Twitter violated freedom of expression and individual rights, the constitutional court said on Wednesday, the most significant legal challenge yet to a ban which caused public uproar and international condemnation.

More: The Verge

Jennifer Van Grove / CNET:

Apple praised, Amazon shamed in Greenpeace report on clean energy — In a report that looks at the energy footprint of top IT companies, the nonprofit calls out Amazon for being among the last to embrace clean energy sources like wind and solar. — Facebook's data center in Sweden.

More: Business Insider, GeekWire, Gigaom and Reuters

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: SiliconANGLE, Fox News, BGR and 9to5Mac. Tweets: @kevinpauldowney

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