Techmeme: Spotify expands its Web API so developers can now let you build playlists in their own apps (Paul Sawers/The Next Web)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

June 17, 2014, 5:45 PM

Top News

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: VatorNews, The Technology Chronicles, VentureBeat, Gigaom, TechCrunch, The Verge, Re/code, BGR, Business Insider, USA Today, Droid Life, Geeky Gadgets, Ubergizmo, The Verge, SlashGear, TIME, StrictlyVC, I4U News, Marketing Land, AndroidOS.in and Reuters

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

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, Gizmodo, BGR, TechCrunch, ZDNet, 9to5Google, The Verge, Pocketnow, Re/code, CNNMoney.com, Liliputing, SlashGear and ITworld.com. Tweets: @nytimesbits

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, MacRumors, The Next Web, VatorNews, blogs.ft.com, Computerworld, TechHive, iMore, Julie Zhuo, Marketing Pilgrim, Engadget and Joey Flynn

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

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 …

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: VentureBeat, eWeek, Computerworld, Tech Trader Daily, TheStreet.com, Business Insider, Reuters, DailyFinance.com and Forbes

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, CNET, DSLreports, Re/code, The Register, Inquirer, VentureBeat, InfoWorld, TechCrunch, Gigaom, Business Insider, NPR, The Hill, BGR and The Verge. Tweets: @darth

See also Mediagazer

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: Gizmodo, AppleInsider, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac, App Advice and MacDailyNews

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

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, Business Insider, iMore, The Next Web, TUAW, iPhone Hacks and WebProNews

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: The Verge, Forbes, Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo, MobileBurn.com, Pocketnow and WinBeta

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, SiliconBeat and The Next Web

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. Tweets: @marginalutility

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, The Verge, CNET, LAPTOP Magazine, Gigaom, TechCrunch, 9to5Google, Softpedia News, The Next Web, Electronista, Droid Life, SlashGear and Pocketnow

Marcus Wohlsen / Wired:

A Rare Peek Inside Amazon's Massive Wish-Fulfilling Machine — The first thing I saw when I walked into Amazon's Phoenix warehouse was a man riding on a giant tricycle. Behind him, yellow plastic tubs the size of office recycling bins whizzed by on a conveyor belt.

More: BGR

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, AppleInsider, iMore, The Verge, VentureBeat, PandoDaily, The Next Web, Business Insider, 9to5Mac and TIME

Dylan Tweney / VentureBeat:

Pencil, the $60 iPad stylus, will get pressure-sensitivity with iOS 8 — Above: A new feature for the digital “Pencil” — angling it so you can shade in larger areas. — Pencil, a high-end iPad stylus that looks like a carpenter's pencil, will add pressure-sensing capabilities this fall.

More: FiftyThree News, The Next Web, Engadget, Macworld, Gizmodo, Laughing Squid, TechCrunch, iPhone in Canada Blog, App Advice, AppleInsider, The Verge, iMore, The Mac Observer, SlashGear and 9to5Mac

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Oyster brings its ‘Netflix for ebooks’ subscription service to Android, Kindle Fire and Nook HD — Oyster, often referred to as “the Netflix of ebooks,” is now available for Android devices, Kindle Fire tablets and the Nook HD. It joins the company's existing iOS app …

More: Oyster HQ Blog, TechCrunch, CNET, ZDNet, Gotta Be Mobile, GeekWire, Liliputing, App Advice, The Verge and Mashable

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:

App Spotlight: MessageWhiz SMS for Zoho CRM — App Spotlight brings you hand-picked solutions that enhance your Zoho apps and tools. Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps, integrations …

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

Big Technology Podcast:

Big Tech's Insane Hidden AI Spending, Ranking Anthropic vs. OpenAI, AI For Travel Debate

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:

OpenAI's Two-Week Pause + Jill Lepore on the Threat of the "Artificial State" + Train of Thought

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.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

The $12.5 Billion Lakers, the NFL's TV Fight, and Sports Media's Big Split

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

Training Data:

Rich Sutton and Khurram Javed: Why AI Models Stop Learning, and How to Start It Again

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:

Ben Thompson on Big Tech, China, and the AI Boom Running Out of Money

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

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

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 5:45 PM ET, June 17, 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.