Techmeme: DirecTV deal valued at $48.5B, or $67.1B with debt; AT&T frames purchase as a way to extend internet access to rural areas (Steve Kovach/Business Insider)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

May 18, 2014, 9:05 PM

Top News

AT&T:

AT&T agrees to acquire DirecTV in stock-and-cash deal for $95 per share — AT&T to Acquire DIRECTV — Creates Content Distribution Leader Across Mobile, Video & Broadband Platforms — The premier pay TV brand with the best content relationships now poised to deliver video to multiple screens …

Nathan Mattise / Ars Technica:

AT&T and DirecTV vow to follow FCC's 2010 net neutrality guidelines for three years after deal closes — With Comcast-Time Warner merger looming, AT&T will acquire DirectTV — For now, new partners promise to follow FCC's Open Internet protections no matter what.

More: Gizmodo, Washington Post and iMore

Tweets: @pkafka, @pkafka, @pkafka, @gnagesh, @gnagesh and @samgustin

Jon Passantino / BuzzFeed:

AT&T Buys DirecTV For $67 Billion In Second Major Deal To Reshape TV Industry — The deal, announced Sunday night after roughly a month of negotiations, follows Comcast's impending acquisition of Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion. Both deals will face intense regulatory scrutiny. — AP

More: PC Magazine, Bloomberg and Ubergizmo. See also Mediagazer

Reuters:

AT&T won't pay break-up fee if regulators reject deal-source

Tweets: @danprimack, @danprimack, @danprimack and @sherman4949

Steve Kovach / Business Insider:

DirecTV deal valued at $48.5B, or $67.1B with debt; AT&T frames purchase as a way to extend internet access to rural areas

Tweets: @zpower, @zpower and @zpower

Todd Spangler / Variety:

YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion: Sources — Deal would be biggest ever for YouTube — Google's YouTube has reached a deal to buy Twitch, a popular videogame-streaming company, for more than $1 billion, according to sources familiar with the pact.

More: Business Insider, The Verge, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Gigaom, Engadget, CNET News, iMore, 9to5Google, USA Today, Nerdist, Ubergizmo, Neowin, VG247, Kotaku, ReelSEO Video Marketing, Glass, Joystiq, Mashable, Polygon and TheDomains.com

Tweets: @rolfewinkler, @jenabellalol, @erickschonfeld, @benfritz, @drew, @hunterwalk, @teroterotero, @drew, @ow, @felixsalmon, @drew, @drew, @drew, @theromit, @amir, @beijingdou, @amir, @hunterwalk, @hunterwalk and @caseynewton

See also Mediagazer

Wall Street Journal:

Google's acquisition talks with Twitch still at an early stage — Google in Talks About Possible Acquisition of Twitch — Google's Talks With Live Video-Streaming Service at Early Stage — Google Inc. is in talks about a possible acquisition of Twitch, a fast-growing live video-streaming service …

More: Daily Dot. Tweets: @marshallk and @ow

Dante D'Orazio / The Verge:

Facebook is reportedly building a new Snapchat competitor — Facebook is taking Snapchat very seriously after its failed attempt to purchase the video and picture messaging app for $3 billion last year. Mark Zuckerberg is personally supervising an internal effort to build a competing …

Fred Wilson / AVC:

Unified login and deep linking within top “app constellations” mean the rich get richer in mobile — App Constellations — I touched on the concept of App Constellations in my post on Friday about Swarm. I've been thinking about this concept for the past week …

Tweets: @tek_fin

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

How 3-D Printed Guns Evolved Into Serious Weapons in Just One Year — A burgeoning subculture of 3-D printed gun enthusiasts dreams of the day when a lethal firearm can be downloaded or copied by anyone, anywhere, as easily as a pirated episode of Game of Thrones.

Tweets: @kathilynnaustin and @a_greenberg

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Patent reform hangs by a thread as Senate Democrats bottle up key bill — For a second there, it looked as if Congress was about to fix the country's dysfunctional patent system. The House passed a bipartisan bill in December, supported by the White House and a coalition of retail and tech giants …

More: NationalJournal.com, Yahoo! Finance and Ars Technica. Tweets: @digiphile

Daniel Roberts / Fortune:

Will.i.am owns an equity stake in Beats, played a key role in its success — Behind the scenes, a frontman awaits a payday — Lost in the coverage of Apple's reported $3.2 billion bid for Beats is the fact that Dr. Dre isn't the only rapper who will make money in a sale.

More: New York Times and App Advice. See also Mediagazer

Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:

Moto E review: a solid smartphone for $129, with storage size and camera the biggest drawbacks — Review: Motorola's $129 Moto E is good and cheap (but mostly good) — Motorola's $129 Moto E isn't the cheapest phone there is, but it might be the nicest cheap phone there is.

More: Softpedia News, NDTV Gadgets, Forbes, TheStreet.com, PC Magazine, Wall Street Journal, LAPTOP Mag, Business Insider, Phones Review and USA Today. Thanks:@andrewwrites

Mat Honan / Wired:

Don't Diss Cheap Smartphones. They're About to Change Everything

More: Forbes, TechSpot and The Verge

Tweets: @mikeolson, @owenscott22, @garrytan, @jonrussell, @sandervdwaal, @james_gross, @mparekh and @starfire2258

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Post-Merger, AT&T Takes Cricket Brand Nationwide With New Devices, Rate Plans and Network Technology — Two months after finalizing its purchase of low-cost brand Cricket, AT&T is relaunching the service as a combination of that brand and AT&T's own prepaid service, Aio Wireless.

More: Cricket Wireless, Engadget, Android Central, CNET News, The Verge, The Droid Guy and CNET News

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

In Letter to Obama, Cisco CEO Complains About NSA Allegations — Warning of an erosion of confidence in the products of the U.S. technology industry, John Chambers, the CEO of networking giant Cisco Systems, has asked President Obama to intervene to curtail the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency.

More: Tech News Plus. Tweets: @jtemple

Sponsor Posts

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!

F5:

Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit — Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23. Register now to save your spot.

Zoho:

10 essential project management reports every team should use — Let's be honest about how projects usually go sideways. A task gets blocked and nobody notices. A dependency changes and nobody updates the plan.

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

Training Data:

Simulating Humans at Scale: Simile's Joon Sung Park

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:

Kareem Amin - The Unusual Approach to Company Building

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

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Grit:

Why 80% of the Fortune 100 Chose Qualtrics | Ryan Smith

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

Subscribe to Grit.

Lenny's Podcast:

The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (founder of Zynga)

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.

Big Technology Podcast:

SpaceX's IPO Triumph, Anthropic's Fable Fumble, OpenAI's Price War

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.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI

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 9:05 PM ET, May 18, 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.