Techmeme: Yahoo Unveils Two Half-Hour Series to Compete for TV Ad Dollars (Tim Peterson/AdAge)

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April 28, 2014, 9:30 PM

Top News

Chris Urmson / The Official Google Blog:

Google's self-driving cars get smarter at handling city driving conditions, log 700K miles — The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving — Jaywalking pedestrians. Cars lurching out of hidden driveways. Double-parked delivery trucks blocking your lane and your view.

Eric Jaffe / The Atlantic Cities:

The First Look at How Google's Self-Driving Car Handles City Streets — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—The first rule of riding in Google's self-driving car, says Dmitri Dolgov, is not to compliment Google's self-driving car. We've been cruising the streets of Mountain View for about ten minutes.

More: Brad Ideas

Chris Wanstrath / GitHub:

GitHub CEO apologizes for lack of transparency, details findings of independent investigator — Follow up to the investigation results — Last Monday I published the least open and least transparent blog post GitHub has ever written. — We failed to admit and own up to our mistakes, and for that I'm sorry.

More: TechCrunch, CNET News, Re/code, VentureBeat, Gigaom, ReadWrite and The Verge

Tweets: @aworkinglibrary, @ellenchisa, @caseynewton, @nrrrdcore, @ejacqui, @jbrodkin, @nrrrdcore, @tobiasahlin, @kellan and @alindeman

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Refreshed MacBook Airs with latest Haswell chips likely launching tomorrow — New MacBook Airs likely launching tomorrow — Update: Here are the specs... Apple is preparing to launch a refreshed line of MacBook Air laptops as soon as tomorrow, according to multiple sources.

More: 9to5Mac, PC Magazine, Ubergizmo, DailyTech, iPhone Hacks, Apple Bitch, Gotta Be Mobile, iMore, MacRumors, TechCrunch, Redmond Pie, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechSpot, SlashGear and Digital Trends

Xbox Wire:

Xbox Originals launching in June on Xbox 360, Xbox One, and other Microsoft devices — Xbox Originals: Coming Soon to a Screen Near You — Starting this June, you'll have more reasons to love your Xbox: Xbox Originals - premium dramas, comedies, documentaries, animation, unscripted shows, and live events.

Dawn Chmielewski / Re/code:

Microsoft Xbox Struggles in Big Hollywood Foray

More: BGR and The Verge. Tweets: @pkafka

Richard Lai / Engadget:

Plastic HTC ‘M8 Ace’ aims at Galaxy S5 with same specs, lower price — HTC may have poked fun at its competitors' plastic flagship devices in the past, but it looks like the Taiwanese company will soon be offering one as well. And no, we're not talking about the Butterfly line here.

More: BGR, Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo, Gigaom, Android Central, Digital Trends, 9to5Google, DailyTech, Phandroid, Unwired View, Pocketnow, Android and Me, IntoMobile, The Droid Guy and AndroidHeadlines.com

Jenna Wortham / New York Times:

Despite Big Ambitions, New York's Tech Scene Is Still Starting Up — Predicting that your city will be the next Silicon Valley is simple. But actually making it the next Silicon Valley is something else entirely — as New York is slowly finding out. — A few years ago …

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @anildash, @katiefehren and @benpopper

Mike Beasley / 9to5Mac:

Apple patches another major security hole in its website that allowed access to all developer personal information — Imagine our surprise when an email from a complete stranger showed up in our tips box containing the personal contact information—including cell phone numbers …

More: iMore, Redmond Pie, iPhone in Canada Blog and SlashGear. Tweets: @llsethj. Thanks:@ajorama

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Nokia ‘Superman’ expected later this year is a 4.7" phone with a 5 megapixel front camera — Nokia ‘Superman’ will be the best Windows Phone for selfies — One of the first Windows Phone 8.1 devices due for release after Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's phone business …

More: Ubergizmo, BGR, DailyTech, MobileSyrup.com, WinBeta, Digital Trends, TechnoBuffalo, GadgeTell, Electronista, Pocketnow, Lastest ITProPortal news and Unwired View

Tim Peterson / AdAge:

Yahoo Unveils Two Half-Hour Series to Compete for TV Ad Dollars — Portal Announces New Shows, TV-to-Online Ad Retargeting — How Advertising Performs in a Social Media World — Yahoo wants TV ad dollars, whether they be spent on original programming or augmenting TV spots.

More: Yahoo, Computerworld, Mashable and Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal:

Yahoo to Stream a Daily Concert From Live Nation

More: The Verge, CNET News, VentureBeat, New York Times, ABC News, Bloomberg, Gizmodo, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, GeekWire and SlashGear. See also Mediagazer

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft Research Special Projects group tipped to take on Google X — Summary: Microsoft is building a Special Projects team expected to be headed by former DARPA innovation boss Norman Whitaker, which will focus on ‘disruptive next-generation technologies.’

More: Computerworld, Windows Phone Central, Geek.com, TechSpot, Wall Street Journal and Pocketnow. Thanks:@zackwhittaker

Ina Fried / Re/code:

AT&T to Take On Gogo With In-Flight LTE Service — AT&T on Monday said it plans to get into the in-flight Internet access business by building a new air-to-ground technology based on its LTE wireless service. — “Everyone wants access to high-speed, reliable mobile Internet wherever they are …

More: AT&T, CNET News, Business Insider, New York Times, The Verge, Gigaom, BGR, Gizmodo, Forbes, TechSpot and Ars Technica

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Skype makes group video calling free on Windows, Mac, and Xbox One; coming to all platforms ‘in the future’ — Skype today announced it is making group video calling (GVC) available free of charge on Windows desktop, OS X, and the Xbox One. At the same time, the company is also promising …

Deborah Gage / Wall Street Journal:

InsideSales.com Raises $100M to Predict Sales; Valuation Close to $1 Billion — InsideSales.com Inc. has raised $100 million at a valuation of nearly $1 billion, Venture Capital Dispatch has learned, in what one investor called one of the most competitive deals he'd ever been involved in.

More: TechCrunch, Gigaom, VentureBeat, StrictlyVC and PE Hub Blog

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

NBCUniversal research chief Alan Wurtzell says Twitter chatter does not increase TV viewership — NBC Pokes a Hole in Twitter's TV Story — You know how Twitter is supposed to be TV's friend? — Things look a little less congenial today. — That's after a pointed article in the Financial Times …

More: Financial Times and VentureBeat. Tweets: @kevinmarks. See also Mediagazer

Greg Stohr / Bloomberg:

Microsoft Wins Antitrust Case as Top Court Rejects Novell — The U.S. Supreme Court ended a lawsuit that accused Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) of illegally protecting its Windows computer operating system from competition 20 years ago by undercutting a rival word-processing program.

More: ABC News, WinBeta, Reuters and VentureBeat. Tweets: @monkbent

Mark Scott / New York Times:

Annual Profit Falls 52 Percent for Angry Birds Maker Rovio — LONDON - All is not well in the land of Angry Birds. — On Monday, Rovio, the Finnish gaming company behind the once-popular franchise, announced a more than 50 percent drop in its 2013 net profit, to $37 million, compared with the previous year.

More: rovio.com, Guardian, Gamasutra, TechSpot, TechCrunch, SlashGear, Re/code, iPhone in Canada Blog, CNET News, VentureBeat and CVG US All

Jim Finkle / Reuters:

U.S., UK advise avoiding Internet Explorer until bug fixed — (Reuters) - The U.S. and UK governments on Monday advised computer users to consider using alternatives to Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer browser until the company fixes a security flaw that hackers used to launch attacks.

More: US-CERT, FireEye Blog, VentureBeat, CNNMoney.com, The Laws of Vulnerabilities, PandoDaily, TechCrunch, Businessweek, Gotta Be Mobile and Telegraph

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

New Relic brings in $100M more ahead of IPO — Software analytics company New Relic has raised $100 million in new funding, the company said today. That helps put off a debut on public markets. — The money will go toward more product enhancements and more expansion internationally, the company said.

More: New Relic, VatorNews, Re/code, VBProfiles, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch and theWHIR.com

Alexander Howard / E Pluribus Unum:

U.S. House passes historic open government bill, sending it on to the White House — This afternoon, the United States House of Representatives passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2013 (The DATA Act), voting to send S.994, the bill that enjoyed unanimous support …

More: Sunlight Foundation Blog, federaltimes.com and Accounting Today. Thanks:@digiphile

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Facebook Messenger 5.0 adds video sharing, faster photo and sticker access, more — Facebook today updated Messenger to version 5.0 bringing a list of feature improvements to the iPhone messaging app. The new version boasts a streamlined design for accessing and sharing photos …

More: TechCrunch, CNET News, PandoDaily, AllFacebook, Engadget, MobileSyrup.com, Ubergizmo, The Next Web and IntoMobile

Derrick Harris / Gigaom:

Consolidation looms in business intelligence, as TIBCO buys Jaspersoft for $185M — Enterprise software vendor TIBCO has acquired Jaspersoft, an open source business intelligence company, for approximately $185 million. It's not an earth-shaking deal, but it could be a sign of things to come …

More: ZDNet, VentureBeat, bizjournals, Wall Street Journal and Seeking Alpha

Kwame Opam / The Verge:

After Comcast, Netflix signs traffic deal with Verizon — Netflix just confirmed that it will pay Verizon for direct access through the carrier's network, allowing for improved streaming video for customers. According to a statement, “We have reached an interconnect arrangement with Verizon …

More: Ars Technica, SiliconBeat, Engadget, Gigaom, The Technology Chronicles, Gizmodo, Re/code, Electronista and Mashable. Tweets: @waltbtig. See also Mediagazer

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