Techmeme
May 21, 2014, 6:45 PM

Top News

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 …
Kevin Poulsen / Wired:
While working for the NSA, Snowden led a “Crypto Party” to teach 20 neighbors about encryption  —  Snowden's First Move Against the NSA Was a Party in Hawaii  —  It was December 11, 2012, and in a small art space behind a furniture store in Honolulu, NSA contractor Edward Snowden …
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 …
Associated Press:
Recall announced for all 440k Nest smoke detectors due to previously-disclosed safety issue with wave-to-dismiss feature  —  Nest recalling 440,000 smoke alarms for safety risk  —  NEW YORK — Nest Labs is recalling 440,000 smoke alarms to fix a feature that could prevent the alarm from sounding immediately.
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.
Loek Essers / Computerworld:
Google plans international acquisitions worth up to $30B, it tells SEC  —  Google passed on a potential acquisition of a non-U.S. company worth up to $5 billion, it said  —  Google plans to spend $20 billion to $30 billion of its of its accumulated international profits to fund potential acquisitions …
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
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.
Nathan Donato-Weinstein / bizjournals:
WhatsApp to grow footprint eightfold with new office in downtown Mountain View  —  WhatsApp, Facebook Inc.'s $19 billion baby, just signed a major long-term lease in downtown Mountain View that will expand its footprint 700 percent — hinting at the five-year-old instant messaging company's ambitions.
More: GizmodoTweets: @cwarzel
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.
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.
Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:
BlackBerry launches Project Ion to join the internet of things  —  BlackBerry is launching a series of projects called Project Ion for the internet of things with the idea of using its experience in building secure, connected devices to connect sensors, cars and anything else in a secure fashion to a cloud back end.
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 …
David E. Sanger / New York Times:
Govt officials say NSA routinely spies on other countries to advance US economic interests  —  Fine Line Seen in U.S. Spying on Companies  —  WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has never said what it was seeking when it invaded the computers of Petrobras, Brazil's huge national oil company …
Seth Rosenblatt / CNET News:
New lawsuit accuses Google of AdSense fraud  —  The lawsuit seeks class action status and could expose more of the internal workings of how Google manages AdSense if allowed to proceed.  —  Google  —  A lawsuit filed Tuesday against Google accuses the tech titan of engaging in widespread fraud …
Jillian D'Onfro / Business Insider:
Yelp will start letting users upload 3-12 second videos in early June  —  Yelp Is Adding A New Video Feature To Its Reviews  —  Yelp is adding a new video feature to its app that will let users upload short clips in the same way that they would upload photos.
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.
Clive Thompson / Wired:
How D-Wave began selling its quantum computer amid suspicion that it relied on classical computing  —  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.

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