Techmeme: Facebook's Slingshot Challenges Snapchat With ‘Reply To Unlock’ (Josh Constine/TechCrunch)

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June 17, 2014, 8:25 PM

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Brad Stone / Businessweek:

Amazon's Lab126 has been working on a 3D smartphone since 2009 — Inside the Secretive R&D Lab Behind the Amazon Phone — Disclosure: Brad Stone is author of The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. The book is published by Little, Brown & Co., a division of the Hachette Book Group …

More: Business Insider, Quartz, Digital Trends, TechnoBuffalo, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, CNNMoney.com, Liliputing, 9to5Google, SlashGear, ZDNet, The Verge and Pocketnow. Tweets: @nytimesbits

Thomas Gryta / Wall Street Journal:

AT&T to Exclusively Carry Amazon Smartphone — Amazon Expected to Unveil its Phone on Wednesday in Seattle — AT&T Inc. will be the exclusive carrier for Amazon.com Inc. 's new smartphone, which is expected to be unveiled on Wednesday, according to people familiar with the plans.

More: Gigaom, TechCrunch, BGR, VatorNews, The Technology Chronicles, Forbes, USA Today, Pocketnow, The Verge, TIME, Phandroid, Mobile Magazine, StrictlyVC, I4U News, Electronista, GeekWire, Droid Life, Marketing Land, AndroidOS.in and Reuters

Tweets: @johnlegere, @johnlegere, @dannysullivan and @zpower

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service — Starting internal tests of subscription service but faces accusation of ‘catastrophic error of judgement’ — YouTube has confirmed that it will begin blocking videos from independent labels that have not signed …

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook's Slingshot Challenges Snapchat With ‘Reply To Unlock’ — Facebook wants to break the “1% Rule” of Internet culture that says a tiny fraction of users create the content for everyone else. So after a momentary leak last week, today Facebook officially launches Slingshot for iOS …

More: Facebook, The Register, Fortune, ABC News, The Next Web, MacRumors, VatorNews, blogs.ft.com, Computerworld, Softpedia News, Joey Flynn, Julie Zhuo, TechHive, iPhone Hacks, Engadget and Marketing Pilgrim

Tweets: @drew, @levie, @tim, @mikeisaac, @mikeisaac, @parislemon, @panzer and @joshconstine

Thanks:@kylebrussell

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Facebook Slingshot is much more than a Snapchat clone — A new kind of network that feels more like a feed than a messenger — At first, Facebook's new ephemeral messaging app, Slingshot, feels like yet another Snapchat clone. The free app, available now for iPhone and Android …

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Apple Is Happy to Sell You the Hachette Books Amazon Won't Stock — Amazon doesn't want to sell books from Hachette Book Group. — More for us, says Apple, which is taking advantage of the fight between the world's biggest bookstore and one of the world's biggest publishers.

More: GeekWire, Gizmodo, AppleInsider, MacRumors, MacNN, iPhone in Canada Blog, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, MacDailyNews and App Advice

Bloomberg:

Oracle close to buying hospitality-industry software provider Micros Systems for more than $5B — Oracle Said to Near Deal to Buy Micros Systems — Oracle Corp. (ORCL) is nearing a deal to buy hospitality-industry software provider Micros Systems Inc. (MCRS) for more than $5 billion, people familiar with the matter said.

More: Mercury News, The Register, VentureBeat, eWeek, SiliconBeat, bizjournals, Computerworld, Business Insider, TheStreet.com, Forbes, Reuters and DailyFinance.com

Brian Fung / Washington Post:

Democrats unveil legislation forcing the FCC to ban Internet fast lanes — Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. gesturing during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) — Democratic lawmakers will unveil a piece …

More: Computerworld, Patrick Leahy, Digital Trends, CNET, DSLreports, Techdirt, Re/code, The Register, Gigaom, VentureBeat, BGR, The Hill, InfoWorld and The Verge. Tweets: @darth

See also Mediagazer

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

eBay Launches “eBay Valet,” An iPhone App That Does The Selling For You — eBay today is expanding its lesser-known eBay Sell For Me service to mobile with the launch of a new app called eBay Valet, which promises to let eBay do the selling for you. That is, it takes every step of the selling process …

More: eBay Inc, VatorNews, Engadget, iMore, TechSpot, Business Insider, The Next Web, TUAW, WebProNews and iPhone Hacks

Sakari Suoninen / Reuters:

Nokia ‘paid millions to software blackmailers six years ago’ — (Reuters) - Finnish telecoms equipment company Nokia paid several million euros to criminals who threatened to reveal the source code for part of an operating system used in its smartphones some six years ago, Finnish TV station MTV said on Tuesday.

More: MTV.fi, The Verge, Engadget, ZDNet, Forbes, Pocketnow, Ubergizmo, WinBeta, TechnoBuffalo and Electronista

Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:

Adobe delivers strong Q2 with 2.3 million Creative Cloud subscriptions — Summary: The creative software maker managed to beat estimates with growth fueled by accelerated cloud-subscription adoption. — Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen — Adobe reported its fiscal second quarter earnings Tuesday after the bell.

More: Tech Trader Daily, TechCrunch, The Next Web, AdExchanger, Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal

Ely L. / Yelp Official Blog:

Hold the Phone! Now You Can Message Business Owners Directly Through Yelp — With more than 57 million local reviews contributed across 27 countries, there's already a boatload of info people can gather through Yelp on any local business they're thinking about trying.

More: VentureBeat, Phandroid, Marketing Land and WebProNews

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Following A Drop In Completed Jobs, Errands Marketplace TaskRabbit Shakes Up Its Business Model — Errands marketplace TaskRabbit is shaking things up today with a change to its business model. The company says it's shifting away from the auction model where contractors bid for tasks posted by end users …

More: The Verge, TaskRabbit Blog, The Next Web and SiliconBeat

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft cuts Surface Pro 2 prices by up to $200 ahead of June 20 Surface 3 availability — Microsoft trims Surface Pro 2 prices ahead of Surface Pro 3 availability — Summary: Microsoft is trimming between $100 and $200 off the price of its second-generation, Intel-based Surface Pro 2 tablets …

More: PC World, Windows Phone Central, Engadget, Computerworld, Neowin, InformationWeek, The Tech Report, Pocketnow, VR-Zone and Geeky Gadgets

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

Amazon strikes back, launching speedy solid-state block storage one day after Google — If you're looking for more proof that Google's public cloud is a competitive threat to market leader Amazon Web Services, consider this. — Just a day after Google announced that it would back up its …

More: Amazon Web Services (AWS), eWeek, Computerworld, The Register, Gigaom and TechCrunch

Joel Rosenblatt / Bloomberg:

Apple Settles E-Books Pricing Case With States, Consumers — Apple Inc. (AAPL) reached a settlement with U.S. states and consumers seeking damages over the company's fixing of electronic book prices, avoiding a trial in which it faced as much as $840 million in claims.

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:

Apple admits it will lose e-books conspiracy case, but it still wants to win

Richard Lawler / Engadget:

Nike finally introduces a Fuelband app for Android — Despite rumors of the Nike Fuelband's demise (and a cozy relationship with Apple), the sportswear maker has finally expanded it compatibility by releasing a sync app for Android. Just like the iOS companion app, it communicates …

More: NikeInc.com, Wall Street Journal, LAPTOP Magazine, The Verge, CNET, TechCrunch, Softpedia News, Electronista, Droid Life, SlashGear, 9to5Google, Pocketnow and Gigaom

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

TiVo co-founders bring their QPlay video app to Chromecast, sideline own hardware — Maybe building a dedicated video streaming box that doesn't even have a Netflix app wasn't such a good idea, after all: QPlay, the video startup founded by TiVo co-founders Mike Ramsay and Jim Barton …

More: Engadget, SlashGear, TechCrunch, PC Magazine and Multichannel News

Sara M. Watson / The Atlantic Online:

Why customized ads are so creepy, even when they miss their target — Why customized ads are so creepy, even when they miss their target — “What is it about my data that suggests I might be a good fit for an anorexia study?” That's the question my friend Jean asked me after she saw …

More: Stowe Boyd

J.M. Berger / The Atlantic Online:

How ISIS, the militant group that recently seized Iraq's second-largest city, games Twitter — How ISIS Games Twitter — The advance of an army used to be marked by war drums. Now it's marked by volleys of tweets. — The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Sunni militant group …

More: CNN, TechPresident and SocialTimes. Tweets: @intelwire

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Snapchat Launches Collaborative Timelines Based On Events — Last year, Snapchat took its first big iterative step with the launch of Stories, which let users string together all of their snaps from the latest 24 hours into a single, fluid narrative. The company has since gone on to add text …

More: Snapchat, USA Today, AppleInsider, iMore, The Verge, VentureBeat, 9to5Mac, TIME, Business Insider and The Next Web

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