Techmeme: Sidecar Follows The Competition, Starts Charging A $1 “RideSafe” Fee (Greg Kumparak/TechCrunch)

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December 10, 2014, 9:35 PM

Top News

Apple:

Apple and IBM launch first wave of ten IBM MobileFirst iOS apps for enterprises — Apple and IBM Deliver First Wave of IBM MobileFirst for iOS Apps — Big Data Analytics and Security Capabilities Arrive on iPhone & iPad — Apple® and IBM today deliver the first wave of IBM MobileFirst …

Jere Suikkila / HERE Three Sixty:

Nokia's HERE maps app now available for free on Google Play; iOS version coming in early 2015 — HERE for Android now available for free on Google Play — More than a million of you have already taken HERE for Android beta for a spin, with the most active downloaders coming from Germany and the USA.

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Instagram surpasses Twitter with 300M monthly users, plans to launch verified badges soon — Instagram Hits 300 Million Monthly Users To Surpass Twitter, Keeps It Real With Verified Badges — It's no fad. Just nine months after hitting 200 million users, Instagram now says 300 million people use …

Facebook:

Facebook bringing Trending Topics to mobile, organizes topic stories in sections for news coverage, posts from people nearby, and more — Updates to Trending — People gather on Facebook to talk about what's happening in the world. In January, we introduced Trending to help people discover timely …

Rachel King / ZDNet:

Box's S-1 update shows $57M revenue in Q3 2014, up from $33.6M Q3 2013; losses $45.4M, down from $51.4M same quarter last year — Box's S-1 update: Revenue climbed toward Q3 2014, losses less severe — Summary:Since the S-1 landed in early 2014, the enterprise cloud company has deflected analysis …

More: Re/code, VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal, bizjournals, Gigaom, Bloomberg and ZDNet

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

eBay CEO Likely to Leave Board and Join PayPal's When Companies Split — EBay CEO John Donahoe will likely depart eBay's board of directors when the company spins off payment subsidiary PayPal next year, according to two people who have discussed the topic with him.

More: Tech Trader Daily

Jillian D'Onfro / Business Insider:

eBay considering plan to cut up to 3k employees, or 10% of its total workforce, in its core marketplace division early next year

More: Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, CNET, GeekWire, TIME and Seeking Alpha. Tweets: @mikeisaac

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Wakie, the free ‘social alarm clock’ that replaces your alarm clock with a phone call from a stranger, is now available on iOS — Wakie, The Social Alarm Clock That Lets You Wake Up Strangers, Finally Arrives On iOS — “Hey there, I'm just calling to wake you up,” I said a little awkwardly.

More: MTV, Pocket-lint, iDigitalTimes.com, Latin Post, The Next Web and App Advice

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Google introduces support for Watch Faces on Android Wear with developer APIs and a new Play Store section offering dozens of designs at launch — Android Wear Gets Official Third-Party Watchface Support — Google is making good on a promise it made previously to the Android Wear community today …

Bertel King, Jr / Android Police:

Google publishes new “Live Channels for Android TV” app on Play Store, but it doesn't work yet — Google Publishes ‘Live Channels For Android TV’ App Into The Play Store, But So Far Not Much Is On — While it's possible to create a TV platform that doesn't deal with live channels …

More: Android Authority, The Next Web, 9to5Google, The Verge, Gizmodo, SlashGear and TechCrunch

Holly Ormseth / Facebook Media:

Facebook releases new tools for publishers to offer greater automation and better targeting, improves Insights, fixes referrer data bug for iOS — New Tools and Insights for Publishers — Over the past few months, we've listened to publishers around the world to better understand …

More: Re/code, Marketing Land, AllFacebook, The Next Web and Mashable. Tweets: @kelseyproud. See also Mediagazer

Bastian Lehmann / Postmates:

Postmates officially launches API to let developers integrate local delivery into service, announces 1M deliveries to date — Powering On-Demand Logistics — OVERVIEW — Today we're excited to announce the launch of our Postmates API, featuring an initial group of six partners.

More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch and The Next Web. Thanks:@mattnagelmv

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft begins integrating Bing search into Office — Summary:Microsoft's ‘Bingification’ of applications officially has begun with its integration of Bing search into Word Online. — Microsoft is beginning to integrate its Bing search technology into Office, starting with Word Online, company officials announced on December 10.

More: Search Blog, PC World, SuperSite for Windows, Windows Phone Central, GeekWire, BetaNews and VentureBeat. Tweets: @maryjofoley

Nicole Lee / Engadget:

Google introduces Cardboard SDKs for Android and Unity, dedicates a page for Cardboard apps in the Play Store, refines building specifications — Google's road to virtual reality begins with Cardboard — When I first saw Google's Cardboard VR contraption earlier this year, I laughed.

More: Google Developers Blog, ReadWrite, TechCrunch, Ubergizmo, Android Police, PhoneDog.com and 9to5Google

Cade Metz / Wired:

Inside Facebook's one-year-old Artificial Intelligence Research lab, led by Yann LeCun — Facebook Envisions A.I. That Keeps You From Uploading Embarrassing Pics — Let's say you're out drinking with your buddies, things get out of hand, you pull out your smartphone …

More: Guardian, Gizmodo, GeekWire, InvestorPlace, Neowin, SiliconANGLE and ITProPortal

Alex Wawro / Gamasutra:

Kabam shifts focus to mobile, sells off social games to RockYou — Free-to-play game company Kabam is abandoning social games in favor of the lucrative mobile market at the same time that RockYou is trying to buy up unwanted social games, so it's not so surprising that Kabam just sold …

More: corporate.kabam.com and Pocket Gamer.biz

Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:

Google News to shut down in Spain Dec. 16 in response to recently passed Spanish copyright law — Strict New “Copyright Law” Forces End Of Google News In Spain — Google has decided to shut down Google News in Spain. This drastic step will occur next week and is the result …

More: Google Europe Blog, Guardian and The Spain Report. See also Mediagazer

Jonathan Vanian / Gigaom:

Avi Networks, fresh with $33M, aims to virtualize the network — Networking startup Avi Networks is ready to explain just how it virtualizes networking gear so that enterprises don't have to rely on legacy equipment. The startup is also announcing that it has raised $33 million in venture capital since being founded in 2012.

More: StrictlyVC, Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Talkin' Cloud

Mike Beasley / 9to5Google:

Google begins notifying users of $19 million settlement with FTC over in-app purchases — Google has started notifying users of its Play Store about a $19 million settlement it reached with the FTC in September. The company is being required to pay out refunds for in-app purchases …

More: Phandroid, Android Central, eWeek, TechRadar.com, AfterDawn.com, Geeky Gadgets, Ubergizmo, Geek.com, Yahoo Tech, PandoDaily and Droid Life

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google Hangouts For Android Gets Smarter, Adds Video Filters And More — Google's Hangouts app for Android is getting a major update today, as the company's VP of Product for Google+ Bradley Horowitz announced at the LeWeb conference in Paris this morning. Some of these new features …

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Google Brings ‘My Maps’ Custom Map Creation To Google Drive — Google's My Maps tool for building custom drives, trips and routes on its Maps product is now integrated into Google Drive, which means you can build custom maps just as easily as you can new documents, slideshows and spreadsheets.

More: Google LatLong, Android Police, AndroidHeadlines.com, The Next Web, Wall Street Journal, Google Operating System, 9to5Google and Tech Times

Paresh Dave / Los Angeles Times:

Slacker Radio enlists Tyler Oakley, other YouTube stars as station DJs — YouTube stars who've been diversifying by acting in films, authoring books and selling clothing now have a new occupation to try out. — Pandora competitor Slacker Radio plans soon to invite any social-media star …

More: Gigaom, VentureBeat, PandoDaily, Billboard, iMore, Tubefilter, AllAccess.com, The Next Web and hypebot. See also Mediagazer

Yuliya Chernova / Wall Street Journal:

BuildDirect raises $43.7M at a $437M valuation for its home improvement products marketplace — BuildDirect Lands Funding to Deal With Onslaught of Demand … There could be too much of a good thing. BuildDirect, a site where consumers purchase large home improvement items on the cheap …

More: VentureBeat, Techvibes Global News and Forbes

Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:

Sidecar Follows The Competition, Starts Charging A $1 “RideSafe” Fee — Last year, Uber introduced a “Safe Rides” fee that added a $1 charge to uberX fares. This fee, they said, was meant to help them cover the cost of background checks, vehicle screenings, and “the development of safety features.”

More: GeekWire

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