Techmeme
May 21, 2014, 2:30 PM

Top News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
eBay Advises Users To Change Passwords Following Cyberattack, “Large Number” Of Users Affected  —  Following an odd blog post which appeared overnight and then was quickly taken down which alerted eBay users to reset their passwords, eBay has now published its official statement informing …
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Adds Shazam-Style Audio Recognition To Help You Automatically Tag Posts With TV Shows And Songs  —  Facebook has a new weapon in the battle against Twitter to host lucrative conversations about media.  A Shazam-esque opt-in feature coming to the iOS and Android status composer …
Joshua Brustein / Businessweek:
Spotify reaches 10M paid subscribers, launches in Brazil next week, still isn't profitable  —  Streams of Tears: Why Spotify Can't Make Money  —  Daniel Ek has devoted most of his waking moments over the past few years to evangelizing about the glories of streaming music.  He's well suited to the task.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple confirms WWDC 2014 keynote to be held Monday, June 2nd at 10 AM PT; new hardware likely  —  This morning, Apple revealed the schedule for next month's Worldwide Developers Conference.  To start things off, an Apple keynote will be held from 10AM to 12PM on Monday, June 2nd at Moscone West.
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
HBO shows are now streaming on Amazon Instant Video  —  ‘True Blood,’ ‘Six Feet Under,’ and more  —  As promised, a number of HBO shows are now available to stream through Amazon Prime Instant Video.  Starting today, you'll be able to stream the complete run of older shows like The Sopranos …
Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:
Wealth Management Startup FutureAdvisor Raises $15.5 Million  —  Looking to bring top-flight wealth management services to the middle class, FutureAdvisor has raised $15.5 million in fresh capital.  —  The round was led by new investor Canvas with participation from the company's previous investors including Sequoia Capital.
Lauren Johnson / Adweek:
Google Beats Apple in List of World's Most Valuable Brands  —  Google, Apple, IBM and Microsoft are the companies that rank the highest in terms of brand value, according to a new study commissioned by WPP and conducted by Millward Brown.  McDonald's is the only non-tech brand within the top five …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Pro-Privacy Blackphone Pulls $30M Into Silent Circle  —  Encrypted comms firm Silent Circle has just announced a new funding round which it says has been fueled by demand in the privacy-focused smartphone, Blackphone, the security hardened Android handset it's building with Spanish startup Geeksphone.
Major Nelson / Xbox Wire:
External Storage, Real Names and More Coming with Xbox One System Update in June  —  With the next system update coming in June, we're thrilled to announce two of your most-requested features will be here soon: external storage support and real names for identifying your friends.
Clive Thompson / Wired:
How D-Wave began selling its quantum computer amid skepticism it was really a classical computer  —  The Age of Quantum Computing Has (Almost) Arrived  —  Google owns a  —  lot of computers—perhaps a million servers stitched together into the fastest, most powerful artificial intelligence on the planet.
Tweets: @arala
Megan Geuss / Ars Technica:
California approves rules for testing self-driving cars in California  —  On Tuesday, the California DMV officially approved rules to allow the testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads.  The rules will take effect September 16, 2014.  —  The move had been a long time coming …
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Local Services Marketplace Thumbtack Raises $30 Million  —  Thumbtack, a marketplace that connects local professionals with clients, has raised a $30 million Series C round from Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management, TechCrunch has learned.  —  The startup has an original approach when it comes to local services.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Ex-Beats, Spotify Execs Debut Soundtrack Your Brand To Stream Spotify In Public Venues  —  Spotify today dominates the market for music streaming services for consumers.  Now a new startup, started by Spotify's ex-head of business development Andreas Liffgarden and co-founder of Beats Music Ola Sars …
More: GeekWire, Inquirer and Webrazzi.  Tweets: @ingridlunden
Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:
Patent reform dies in Senate as Leahy pulls plug on key bill  —  A closely watched patent reform bill failed on Wednesday as Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that he lacked the bipartisan support to push the bill forward.
Liz Gannes / Re/code:
Airbnb Agrees to Give New York Anonymized User Data  —  Airbnb, which has already taken down 2,000 accommodation listings in New York from “bad actors,” agreed to warn all new and old hosts in the state that they may be breaking hotel laws.  —  It was part of an agreement in which the office …
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
With $38M In Funding, Mimosa Networks Comes Out Of Stealth To Make Wireless Broadband Affordable  —  There's a growing digital divide between consumers who live in highly dense areas where it's relatively cheap and easy to deploy fiber, versus more rural areas that lack the underlying infrastructure to support higher speeds.
Jonathan Vanian / Gigaom:
Internet performance and management company Dyn acquires Renesys  —  Dyn, the internet performance and management company Wednesday said it has bought Renesys, which provides networking information to internet service providers (ISPs).  With the acquisition, Dyn plans to launch …

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