Techmeme: Apple now requires cases protect devices from 1m drops, meet new environmental standards (Jordan Kahn/9to5Mac)

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December 12, 2014, 4:55 AM

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Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Google Removes Amazon's App Listing From Google Play Search Following Addition Of Appstore, Instant Video Integrations — In October, we spotted that Amazon had quietly launched a hidden and functional app store within its main Android application which was available for download on Google Play.

More: Android Police, Electronista, PhoneDog.com, GeekWire, Phandroid, WebProNews, Pocketnow, Gigaom, Droid Life, SlashGear, 9to5Google, The Verge, Engadget, BGR and The Next Web

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Apple now requires cases protect devices from 1m drops, meet new environmental standards — Apple recently started requiring case manufacturers in its Made for iPhone (MFi) licensing program follow new requirements that will ensure cases better protect Apple devices and cover glass from impact …

More: BGR, MacNN, Ubergizmo, InvestorPlace, App Advice, MacDailyNews, MacRumors, iLounge and NBC News. Tweets: @applespotlight. Thanks:@apollozac

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Xbox One sells 1.2M units in U.S. in November, topping PS4 and Wii U in early holiday battle — Microsoft's Xbox One posted overall record unit sales in November, with 1.2 million units sold in the U.S. — reaping the benefits of a $50 price cut to top the PlayStation 4 and Wii U …

More: Engadget, The Verge, Windows Phone Central, WinBeta, Neowin and The Next Web. Thanks:@belril

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Apple online retail stores in US and UK now accepting PayPal — Apple's Online Store Starts Accepting PayPal — Apple.com shoppers in the U.S. and the U.K. have a new way to pay for the latest iPhone or iPad: PayPal. Previously available as a payment option only in Apple's app and content stores …

More: 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, MacRumors, The Next Web, iMore, iPhone Hacks, MacDailyNews and App Advice

Chris Mills / Gizmodo:

YouTube is experimenting with a built-in GIF maker tool for videos — YouTube Now Lets You Make GIFs From Videos — Making short GIFs of YouTube videos is a pretty well-established practice now — so much so that there's dozens of websites dedicated to this finest of art forms.

More: Engadget. Tweets: @waxpancake

Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:

Adobe acquires stock photo giant Fotolia for $800 million in cash — Buried within its fourth quarter earnings report, creative technologies company Adobe today revealed it plans to acquire Fotolia, a stock photo site which hosts 34 million images and videos.

More: ZDNet, TechCrunch and silicontap.com

Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:

Adobe sees strong Q4 with $1.07B in revenue, 644K new paying Creative Cloud subscribers

More: Business Wire, Re/code, The Next Web and Tech Trader Daily

Tweets: @corytv, @corytv and @corytv

Oculus VR:

Oculus acquires skeletal hand tracking firm Nimble VR and 3D mapping company 13th Lab, hires motion capture expert Chris Bregler — Nimble VR, 13th Lab, and Chris Bregler join Oculus — Computer vision is at the heart of delivering comfortable and incredible virtual reality.

More: Gizmodo, Nimble VR, 13th Lab, Engadget, VG247, SlashGear, The Verge, TechCrunch, Gigaom, Gamasutra, CNET, Seeking Alpha and GamesIndustry.biz

Tweets: @paulamarttila and @stumm

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft ready to show off Windows 10 mobile SKU on January 21 — Summary:Microsoft will share more about the Windows 10 ‘consumer experience’ at an event on January 21 in Redmond. — Microsoft officials sent invitations on December 11 to selected press and analysts to its next Windows 10 reveal event.

More: Blogging Windows, The Verge, Reuters, Re/code, SuperSite for Windows, Tech Times, Computerworld, TechCrunch, TechRadar.com, BetaNews, GeekWire, Gotta Be Mobile, CNET, WinBeta, The Next Web, Wall Street Journal, Windows Phone Central and VentureBeat. Tweets: @thurrott

Julia Love / Mercury News:

Protesters storm Apple campus urging better working conditions for service workers — CUPERTINO — As rain pummeled the Bay Area, a group of protesters stormed Apple's campus Thursday, calling for the tech giant to help the service workers who keep its campus humming make a better living.

More: AppleInsider and iMore

Tom Huddleston Jr / Fortune:

Google to close its Russian engineering office before country's new rules on data storage take effect Jan. 2015 — Google gives a big ‘nyet’ to Russian engineering operations — Google may be the latest tech company to pull up stakes in Russia. — The online search giant is reportedly planning …

More: The Information, Bloomberg, 9to5Google, Financial Times, NASDAQ.com, The Next Web and AndroidHeadlines.com

Reuters:

Canada's Competition Bureau probing Apple's contracts with domestic wireless carriers, says it has found no evidence of wrongdoing so far — Canada competition watchdog probing Apple mobile carrier deals — (Reuters) - Canada's Competition Bureau is investigating allegations …

More: Globe and Mail, 9to5Mac, DailyTech, The Register, The Verge, Techvibes Global News, VentureBeat, AppleInsider, MobileSyrup.com, iPhone in Canada Blog, iMore and Patently Apple

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Qualcomm, Intel, and others speak out against Title II net neutrality — Much of the fight over how to handle net neutrality has been between the two industries that have the most obvious stake in it: cable companies and web services. Today, though, 60 tech companies, including Intel …

More: Verizon Public Policy, Cult of Mac, PC World, SlashGear, FierceWireless, Engadget, The Register, CNET, Ars Technica and eWeek. Tweets: @stevesi

Edward Wyatt / New York Times:

Verizon says future investments in its networks will be unaffected by net neutrality policy

More: Gizmodo, Re/code, Ars Technica, Techdirt, DSLreports, Associated Press and Washington Post. Tweets: @timkarr

Matthew Zeitlin / BuzzFeed:

Robinhood launches commission-free stock trading app for iOS — Robinhood Can Turn Every iPhone User Into A Trader — The mobile stock trading startup turns stock buying and selling into yet another thing to be done inside a mobile app. The target is young people that have turned away …

More: TechCrunch, The Verge, Robinhood Blog, TheStreet.com, Institutionalinvestor.com, Entrepreneur, Business Insider Australia, TIME, iPhone in Canada Blog, VentureBeat, Mashable, Wired and 9to5Mac. Tweets: @mattzeitlin. Thanks:@kbarker19

Kia Kokalitcheva / VentureBeat:

Google chips in $2M to help San Francisco's homeless — Google is donating $2 million in grants to San Francisco to help the city's homeless population, the mayor's office announced today. — The grants go to three organizations — Hamilton Family Center, Larkin Street Youth Services …

More: Mashable and Office of the Mayor. Tweets: @annielin

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

App-analytics company New Relic picks up $115M in its IPO, setting price at $23 — New Relic today announced that it has raised $115 million from investors before it hits the New York Stock Exchange on Friday under the symbol NEWR. — The company set the price of its shares at $23 …

More: Business Wire and Gigaom

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

LinkedIn Rolls Out A Simplified Homepage With Analytics And News Feed Front And Center — LinkedIn, the social network for the working world, today gets around 198 million monthly unique visitors globally to linkedin.com spending on average 4.6 minutes per visit, according to comScore …

More: Official LinkedIn Blog, Re/code, Gigaom, TheStreet.com, ReadWrite, SiliconBeat and WebProNews. Tweets: @ingridlunden

Nathan Olivarez-Giles / Wall Street Journal:

Facebook allows adding buttons such as “sign up”, “book now”, “use app” to tops of Pages — New Facebook Buttons Let You Make Reservations, Launch Apps and More … Facebook has rolled out a new feature that will let you click a single button …

More: Facebook for Business, VentureBeat, Marketing Land, Inside Facebook, The Next Web and AllFacebook. Tweets: @wsjd

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Dropbox launches Microsoft Office collaboration features for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on Windows and Mac — Dropbox today launched its much-anticipated Project Harmony functionality, which brings collaboration tools to Microsoft Office desktop applications.

More: ZDNet and Gigaom. Thanks:@harrisonweber

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:

Latest Salesforce Product Lets Enterprises Roll Out Their Own App Stores — As companies develop more mobile apps, they need an organized way to distribute them and track usage. Salesforce announced a product today called AppExchange Store Builder that gives companies what they need: their very own AppExchange.

More: InformationWeek, Enterprise Apps Today, ProgrammableWeb, Business Cloud News, Computerworld and ZDNet

S Somasegar / MSDN Blogs:

Microsoft acquires cross-platform crash analytics and distribution service HockeyApp — Microsoft acquires HockeyApp, leading mobile crash analytics and beta distribution service for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone — Today I'm pleased to announce that we have acquired HockeyApp …

More: HockeyApp, MacNN, AndroidHeadlines.com, Tech Times, MSDN Blogs, eWeek, ZDNet, Computerworld, SlashGear, Seeking Alpha, MacRumors, iPhone in Canada Blog, WinBeta, Engadget, MacStories, GeekWire, The Fire Hose, Neowin, 9to5Mac, Windows Phone Central, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, TUAW, iMore, Android Central, The Register and The Next Web

Tweets: @scottgu and @msftnews

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