Techmeme: Flappy Bird to Return to the App Store in August, Will Be Multiplayer and ‘Less Addictive’ (Juli Clover/MacRumors)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

May 14, 2014, 7:50 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

iPhone 6 with larger, sharper 1704 x 960 resolution screen in testing — Apple is preparing to release a new iPhone with a larger screen later this year, and while multiple reports have indicated that the screen will be larger, the exact dimensions of the screen and its resolution have so far been guesswork.

Kim Zetter / Wired:

Greenwald expands on NSA reporting with new book ‘No Place to Hide’ and 50+ new documents — Glenn Greenwald's Pulse-Pounding Tale of Breaking the Snowden Leaks — In June 2013, Edward Snowden was sitting in his room at the Mira hotel in Hong Kong, watching the world react …

More: FRONTLINE, dissenter.firedoglake.com, Los Angeles Times, ABC, The Verge and Daily Dot. Tweets: @ggreenwald

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

NSA Docs Detail Efforts To Collect Data From Microsoft's Skype, SkyDrive, And Outlook.com — Last July, Glenn Greenwald published a set of claims regarding a number of Microsoft services that were, especially at the time, unsettling: That Microsoft had helped the NSA “circumvent its encryption” …

More: Neowin

Michael Cieply / New York Times:

Sony Pictures buys film rights to Glenn Greenwald's book on Snowden and the NSA revelations

More: VatorNews, Ars Technica, SlashGear, WebProNews and CNET News. See also Mediagazer

Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:

Photos of an NSA “upgrade” factory show Cisco router getting implant

Stephen Shankland / CNET:

Mozilla reluctantly bows to industry pressure, adopts DRM tech required to watch Netflix video — Mozilla holds its nose and supports DRM video in Firefox — The open-source browser gets a proprietary Adobe software so people can watch video from sites like Netflix over the Web.

More: Mozilla Hacks, The Mozilla Blog, The Register, Engadget and TechCrunch. Tweets: @dangillmor. See also Mediagazer

Cory Doctorow / Guardian:

Firefox's adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart — I understand the pressure to support commercial video - but the browser makers can do more to defend free and open software — Future versions of the open-source Firefox browser will include closed-source digital rights management …

More: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Techdirt, PandoDaily, VentureBeat, Free Software Foundation and gHacks Technology News

Tweets: @lmorchard and @brendaneich

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook For iOS Tries Popping Up Cards Of Related Content To Browse After You Post — Facebook is taking a swing at suggesting contextual content to keep you surfing after you share. A new test on iOS surfaces related content cards including photos of restaurants you say you're at …

More: Marketing Land, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, Redmond Pie, Cult of Mac, Gigaom, Mashable, Inside Facebook, everythingiCafe, iMore and App Advice

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Comcast plans data caps for all customers in 5 years, could be 500GB — A Comcast executive said he expects the company will roll out “usage-based billing”—what most people call “data caps”—to all of its customers within five years. — Speaking with investors today (transcript) …

More: DSLreports, TechCrunch, The Register, FierceCable, DSLreports, SlashGear, GamePolitics blogs and multichannel.com. Tweets: @laurenweinstein

Adam Pash:

Switching from iPhone to Android loses incoming iMessages, senders still get delivery receipt — iMessage purgatory — I recently switched from an iPhone to Android, and discovered shortly thereafter that my phone number was still associated with iMessage, meaning that any time someone …

More: 9to5Mac, The Droid Guy, VentureBeat, Business Insider, ReadWrite, TUAW, iPhone Hacks, SlashGear, Redmond Pie, MacRumors, Ubergizmo, Gigaom, PandoDaily, iLounge, iPhone in Canada Blog, App Advice and MacNN

Tweets: @brendan_gill, @dhh, @benbajarin, @adampash and @jasonh

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

Flappy Bird to Return to the App Store in August, Will Be Multiplayer and ‘Less Addictive’ — Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen today announced plans to return Flappy Bird to the App Store in August in a new interview with CNBC's Kelly Evans. According to Nguyen, the new version of Flappy Bird …

More: The Verge, TechCrunch, NEWS.com.au, The Next Web, CNET News, iMore, Engadget, Kotaku, VG247, Phandroid, The Droid Guy, IntoMobile, BuzzFeed, Touch Arcade, Business Insider and Android and Me. Tweets: @kelly_evans

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Surface Pro 3 might join Microsoft's Surface mini unveiling next week — Microsoft is holding a Surface press event in New York City next week, but the company may have accidentally revealed one of the announcements. In a support article published yesterday, Microsoft says a fresh update for Windows 8.1 …

Ben Popper / The Verge:

Depending on its needs, Verizon flip-flops on how its infrastructure should be regulated — Game of phones: how Verizon is playing the FCC and its customers — Tomorrow, the FCC starts deciding the future of the internet. It's an emotional, controversial, drawn-out battle that has been building …

Tweets: @byersalex, @acedtect and @jank0

Miguel Helft / Fortune:

Square expects to start turning a profit in about a year, has secured $225M line of credit — Square's status? It's complicated — Exclusive: Internal documents show that the innovative payments company expects losses through mid-2015. But then it predicts a turnaround.

More: Business Insider, Mashable and PSFK

Tweets: @danprimack, @kylezink, @evelynrusli, @sequoia_capital, @mattlynley, @djtgallagher, @evelynrusli and @evelynrusli

FaryaabS / SamMobile:

Hands-on with a test build of the Tizen operating system for the original Galaxy Gear — Exclusive: Samsung Galaxy Gear Tizen Preview — Earlier this year, there was speculation about Samsung launching new version of its Galaxy Gear along with the Samsung Galaxy S5 at the UNPACKED 2014 Episode 1 event in Barcelona, Spain.

More: Gigaom, Geek.com, Ubergizmo, The Droid Guy, xda-developers, Android Police and Connectedly

Don Clark / Wall Street Journal:

Autodesk Moves to Make Its Own 3-D Printer — Autodesk is known for programs that help people make things. Now the San Francisco company plans to make something itself-a 3-D printer and software to go with it, hoping to spur a hot market to move even faster.

More: In The Fold, The Next Web, New York Times, Gigaom, Engadget, CNET News, BBC, ZDNet, SlashGear and Electronista

Henry K. Lee / San Francisco Chronicle:

Nextdoor CEO and former Epinions chief Nirav Tolia charged with felony hit-and-run after crash on US 101 that left a woman injured — Police-friendly tech CEO charged with hit-and-run — The CEO of Nextdoor, a social network designed to help neighbors connect with each other and police …

More: Mercury News, StrictlyVC, KTVU-TV, nbcbayarea.com and Gawker

Tweets: @sfgate and @ellenhuet

Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:

Google's not sure how to bring its self-driving-car to market, talks regularly to auto makers — Google Talking to Auto Makers About Self-Driving Car — Google is talking to auto makers about how to bring its self-driving-car technology to market, executives said Tuesday.

More: CNN, VentureBeat and New York Times

Rich McCormick / The Verge:

Samsung offers ‘deep apology’ and compensation to workers who've contracted incurable diseases — Recent documentary uncovered 56 cases of leukemia — South Korean electronics giant Samsung has officially apologized over the illnesses and deaths of some of its factory workers.

More: english.yonhapnews.co.kr, VatorNews, Engadget, 9to5Google, Associated Press, BGR, Bloomberg, AppleInsider, The Register, CNET News, Electronista and ITProPortal

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Microsoft to offer Xbox Live Gold refunds once requirement is dropped for entertainment apps — If you have an Xbox Live Gold subscription only to access media apps such as Netflix and Hulu, Microsoft's recent decision to remove the digital requirement may have left you feeling short-changed.

More: eWeek, GamesIndustry International, Cramgaming.com, Ars Technica, Electronista, Computerworld, Windows Phone Central, Neowin, WebProNews, SlashGear, Eurogamer.net, WinBeta, Softpedia News and VideoGamer.com

Barb Darrow / Gigaom:

Acxiom snaps up LiveRamp and its data onboarding smarts for $310M — Acxiom is not some shiny Silicon Valley startup. In fact, it's over 40 years old. The company, based in Little Rock, Arkansas, also happens to be a pioneer in collecting data — and converting that data into big bucks …

More: Wall Street Journal, AdAge, ZDNet, AdExchanger and ECPM BLOG

Andreessen Horowitz:

SaaS company valuations should be based on customer acquisition cost and lifetime value, not revenue and EPS — Understanding SaaS: Why the Pundits Have It Wrong — Tune into any cable network stock market channel and the airwaves resonate with one consistent theme: SaaS companies are simply too expensive.

More: Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @shiraovide, @stevesi, @monkbent, @cdixon and @rsarver

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:

U.S. revealed secret legal basis for NSA program to Sprint, documents show — Under threat of a court challenge, the Obama administration in 2010 revealed to Sprint the secret legal basis of a then-classified program that collected billions of Americans' phone records for counterterrorism purposes …

More: IC ON THE RECORD, emptywheel and Techdirt

Tweets: @matt_cagle, @patrickctoomey and @kgosztola

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Image Is Everything: Snapchat Tops WhatsApp As Biggest U.S. Messaging App By Volume — Snapchat may be getting a rap on the knuckles right now from regulators over how it handles user privacy, but the ephemeral messaging app is still a hot commodity. According to a report out today …

More: Sandvine, Re/code, DSLreports, Tubefilter, BGR, TorrentFreak, Gigaom and Glass. See also Mediagazer

John Koetsier / VentureBeat:

Adobe's marketing cloud goes real-time, adds app store, boosts search ads 25% — How can big data and smart analytics ignite growth for your company? Find out at DataBeat, May 19-20 in San Francisco, from top data scientists, analysts, investors, and entrepreneurs. There are less than 50 tickets left!

More: Marketing Land, ValueWalk, MediaPost, Forbes and internetretailer.com

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.

Cape:

Most carriers track everything. Cape doesn't. — Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more. Switch today and get 29% off for life.

Zoho:

Do you need a Zoho Partner? Here's why working with one can benefit you. — Zoho offers over 60 applications, each one built for a unique use case. From sales and marketing to finance, HR, and customer support …

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:

This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)

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.

The Talk Show With John Gruber:

'What's in Louie's Wallet', With Louie Mantia

The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.

Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.

Big Technology Podcast:

Leopold Blows Up, OpenAI Drastically Cuts Prices, Microsoft's Best Day

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.

Hard Fork:

Open Model Wars + Claire Stapleton's Dishy Google Memoir + Substack's Slop Fight

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Great Chat:

Tech's short-term era

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:50 PM ET, May 14, 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.