Techmeme: Roku raises $25 million amid growing competition from Amazon and Google (Tom Cheredar/VentureBeat)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

October 22, 2014, 6:05 PM

Top News

Mat Honan / Wired:

Twitter's new SDK Fabric represents an audacious plan to live inside every app — Twitter's Audacious Plan to Infiltrate All Your Apps — Twitter is releasing a new software development kit today at its developer's conference. It's called Fabric. It does lots of very pretty things …

More: Marketing Land, Gigaom, ReadWrite, Gizmodo, Computerworld, Forbes, ZDNet, The Next Web and Mashable

Tweets: @stevesi, @digiphile, @carnage4life, @mattlynley, @mat and @mikeisaac

Thanks:@mat

Jeff Seibert / The Twitter Blog:

Twitter introduces Fabric, an SDK for mobile developers — Introducing Fabric — Today at Flight, we announced Fabric, a modular mobile platform that makes it easy for developers to build great apps. — The Fabric platform is made of three modular kits that address some of the most common …

More: VatorNews, CNET, VentureBeat, Re/code, Forbes, Mashable, MobileSyrup.com, WebProNews, ReadWrite and SlashGear

Tweets: @joshconstine, @fabric and @mikeisaac

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Twitter's Digits enables users of third-party apps to sign up using just their phone number — Inside Twitter's ambitious plan to kill the password — As he traveled the world last year as part of a user research project, Michael Ducker noticed a problem.

More: TechCrunch, Washington Post, VentureBeat, ReadWrite, Macworld, Marketing Land, Guardian, iMore, Business Insider, TechCrunch, Engadget and Phandroid

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Google aims to reinvent email with Inbox, a marriage of Gmail and Google Now, currently invite-only — Inbox is a total reinvention of email from Google — The new Gmail app from the Gmail team isn't technically just an email app, at least if you ask them.

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Hands On With Google Inbox: Useful Email Triage Tools For A Mobile Workflow

More: The Verge, 9to5Mac, GeekWire and SlashGear

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

iPad Air 2 is faster than 2011 MacBook Air, forges ahead of new iPhones on performance — The iPad Air 2 (And a Few Cursory Words Regarding the iPad Mini 3) — The relationship between the iPad and the iPhone, performance-wise, has been hard to predict.

More: Ars Technica, Tested, Business Insider, MacDailyNews and BGR

Tweets: @narenbalaji, @om and @asymco

Walt Mossberg / Re/code:

iPad Air 2: best iPad ever, but only a modest evolutionary improvement over the Air

More: iFixit, AppleInsider, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, App Advice, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, TechHive, iPhone in Canada Blog, iDownloadBlog.com, Asymco, The Loop, iPhone Hacks, Marketing Land, Fortune, USA Today, MacNN and Dwight Silverman's TechBlog. Tweets: @waltmossberg

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

iPad Air 2 review: great hardware, but lacks multiuser, multitasking support, tablet-specific features

More: Tech.pinions, TUAW, TIME, MacDailyNews and iMore

Mark Spoonauer / Laptop Mag:

iPad Air 2 benchmarks: excels in Geekbench compared to Samsung Galaxy Tab, Nvidia Shield, Sony Xperia Z2, strong on 3DMark but not best

More: Gotta Be Mobile, BGR, Inquirer and ITProPortal. Thanks:@mspoonauer

David Pogue / Yahoo Tech:

The iPad Air 2: Thin, Gorgeous, Powerful — and That's Enough

Marton Dunai / Reuters:

Hungary plans new tax on Internet traffic, public calls for rally — (Reuters) - Hungary plans to impose a new tax on Internet data transfers, a draft 2015 tax bill submitted to parliament late on Tuesday showed, in a move that could hit Internet and telecoms providers and their customers hard.

More: The Register, Wall Street Journal, Hungary Today, Geek.com, The Verge, Taxation, RT, Portfolio.hu Online …, Gigaom, Broadband TV News, Inquirer and DSLreports

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

New Microsoft Garage site invites public to test a wide range of app ideas — Microsoft today launched a new section on its website: The Microsoft Garage is designed to give the public early access to various projects the company is testing right now. The team is kicking off with a total …

More: The Fire Hose, The Verge, ReadWrite, The Next Web, CNET, Windows Phone Central, AndroidGuys, PC World, Gigaom, 9to5Google, GeekWire, Gotta Be Mobile and ZDNet. Thanks:@epro

Alex Kipman / The Official Microsoft Blog:

Microsoft allows Kinect Apps in Windows Store for the first time, launches Kinect SDK 2.0 — Microsoft releases Kinect SDK 2.0 and new adapter kit — Today, we have some exciting news to share about the next chapter for Kinect. Our Windows SDK 2.0 is now available for the Kinect v2 sensors …

More: GeekWire, PC Magazine, PC World, Ubergizmo, Eurogamer.net, VentureBeat, Windows Phone Central, The Verge, ZDNet, The Next Web, SuperSite for Windows and High-Def Digest

Tweets: @kinectwindows and @brekelj

Maeve Duggan / Pew Internet:

Pew survey: 40% of US internet users have experienced online harassment, 18% in severe form — Online Harassment — Summary of Findings — Harassment—from garden-variety name calling to more threatening behavior— is a common part of online life that colors the experiences of many web users.

More: New York Times, USA Today, CNET, Wall Street Journal, PC Magazine, Joystiq, CIO.com, Associated Press, Poynter, Washington Post, Tech Times and The Verge. Tweets: @pewinternet

Molly Wood / New York Times:

Apple Pay: Seamless in Stores, but Quirky Online — AFTER I used Apple Pay for a day of shopping in stores, a few things became clear: The new payment system is convenient, problem-free and even fun. — The same can't be said for using Apple Pay to shop via apps on my phone or tablet.

More: CNNMoney.com, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, Engadget, CNET, Gizmodo, iMore, Mashable, ReadWrite, Electronista, BGR and Gotta Be Mobile

Kelly Hodgkins / MacRumors:

Apple Pay Shown to Work Internationally Using U.S.-Based Credit Cards

More: Re/code, ABC News, PC World, AppleInsider, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, iMore, Fox News, BGR, CNET, iPhone in Canada Blog and TechSpot

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Groupon takes on Yelp with Pages: business listings with offers, news, reviews and more — Groupon Goes After Yelp And Google With Millions Of Individual Business Pages — Groupon today took one more step ahead in its bid to be a simple daily deals site, and more of a general go-to place …

More: Re/code, Groupon, Inc., Wall Street Journal, The Next Web, Marketing Pilgrim, GeekWire, Chicago Tribune and WebProNews

Andrew Ross Sorkin / New York Times:

IBM's increasing EPS in recent years only due to buybacks, no real revenue growth since 2008 — The Truth Hidden by IBM's Buybacks — For many years, the International Business Machines Corporation's earnings glided smoothly upward. Every quarter, IBM would report higher earnings per share.

Tweets: @froomkin, @rogerlmartin, @infoarbitrage, @edwardnh, @andrewrsorkin and @nilofer

Tom Cheredar / VentureBeat:

Roku raises $25 million amid growing competition from Amazon and Google — Updated at 1:45 p.m. PST with a statement from Roku. — Set-top box company Roku has secured a fresh $25 million round of funding, according to a SEC form D filing released today.

More: Gigaom. Thanks:@tched

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

Homeboy is a $149 rechargeable low-power Wi-Fi security camera with a three month battery, on sale today — Homeboy is what happens when tiny security cameras hook up with magnets — The new $149 camera sticks to walls to watch your home — After having his home burglarized for a third time …

More: Gigaom, TechSpot and PC World. Thanks:@jordan_tara

Chris Kanaracus / PC World:

EMC buys controlling interest in VCE, its joint venture with Cisco — EMC has confirmed it will purchase the bulk of Cisco's stake in VCE, the companies' joint venture in converged infrastructure products. — News of the deal surfaced late Tuesday. The move means that VCE will become an EMC business …

More: VCE, eWeek, Network World, EnterpriseTech, Reuters and SiliconBeat

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft and IBM commit to providing their enterprise software to Azure, IBM clouds — Summary: Microsoft and IBM have forged a new alliance bringing more of IBM's enterprise software and services to Azure, and Microsoft's enterprise software to IBM's cloud platforms.

More: News Center, PC World, InfoWorld, GeekWire, The New Stack, WinBeta, bizjournals, The Register, VentureBeat and WindowsITPro

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

MicroBlink's PhotoMath app solves math problems scanned in through your phone's camera — MicroBlink Launches PhotoMath To Solve Math Equations With A Phone — Imagine you are a 14-year-old kid again. You need to do this really difficult math exercise for tomorrow, but have no idea how to do it.

More: Engadget, SiliconANGLE, PC Magazine, GeekTime, Gizmodo, TIME, Technabob, Cult of Mac, Boing Boing, TechSpot, The Daily Dot, Phandroid and Lifehacker

Jonathan Vanian / Gigaom:

Google exec: Chromecast V2 is coming; users have cast 650 million times — Google's Mario Queiroz said that 650 million people have now hit the cast button. An API for developers will let them build custom apps for Backdrop. — Three months ago, Google claimed that Chromecast users …

More: BGR, The Daily Dot, TechnoBuffalo, Phandroid, 9to5Google, ITProPortal, Ubergizmo and WebProNews

Jon Russell / TechCrunch:

Xiaomi Is Moving International Users' Data Out Of China Ahead Of Further Global Expansions — The past year has been an eventful one for Chinese phone-maker Xiaomi. The company's devices are now sold in seven countries in Asia, that's a big step up from Xiaomi's inception …

More: Tech in Asia and Technology Personalized

Denni Hu / Bloomberg:

Yelp Q3 beats estimates with $102.5M revenue; shares down 16% on Q4 sales forecast — Yelp Falls as Fourth-Quarter Forecast Miss Estimates — Yelp Inc. (YELP) shares dropped as much as 16 percent in extended trading after the local-reviews company forecast fourth-quarter sales that fell short of analysts' estimates.

More: Associated Press, Reuters, Forbes, Tech Trader Daily, Business Insider, RTTNews and Yelp Investor Relations

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

Barnes & Noble launches a 10.1-inch version of its Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook tablet for $299.99 — Almost two months to the day since Barnes & Noble launched its Samsung-developed 7-inch Galaxy Tab 4 Nook tablet, a new larger-screen incarnation has now been unveiled.

More: Business Wire, VentureBeat, Android Police, Associated Press, IntoMobile, Electronista, Android Police, 9to5Google, SlashGear, TechnoBuffalo, Digital Trends, Laptop Mag, The Verge and CNET

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.

Cloudflare:

Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.

Zoho:

Stop re-entering Shopify order details in Zoho CRM — This is a guest blog from Xapplets (Zeeyes AI Inc).Here's a scene that plays out in many growing Shopify stores every day: a customer places an order …

IDrive:

IDrive Autonomy: low-cost L2+ driver assistance with AI — L2+ driver assistance with a scalable AI stack built for automotive companies and laying the foundation for the autonomous future.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

GPT-6 & OpenAI's Comeback, Hugging Face Attack Debate, Ballmer's Scandalous Legacy

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:

The A.I. Mob That Attacked Hugging Face + METR's Ajeya Cotra

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:

Data Centers, Elon Musk, and the New Politics of Tech, with David Weigel

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.

Sources:

Sam Altman on OpenAI's next model and the AI backlash

Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Subscribe to Sources.

Uncapped with Jack Altman:

Brian Singerman from GPx

Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.

Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.

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 6:05 PM ET, October 22, 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.