Techmeme
January 1, 2015, 8:00 AM

Top News

Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Snapchat raises $485.6M at $10B+ valuation from 23 investors  —  Snapchat Raises $485.6 Million to Close Out Big Fundraising Year  —  Snapchat Inc., among a pack of elite technology startups that has attained a valuation of $10 billion or more, capped the year with a filing that disclosed it raised $485.6 million.
William Turton / The Daily Dot:
U.K. police allegedly arrest Lizard Squad hacker … Lizard Squad took credit for the Dec. 25 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.  DDoS attacks overwhelm a network with too much traffic, leaving targeted networks inaccessible for legitimate users.
New York Times:
Interviews with Sony employees show that the company was slow to realize the gravity and impact of hacking  —  Sony Hacking Attack, First a Nuisance, Swiftly Grew Into a Firestorm  —  LOS ANGELES — It was three days before Thanksgiving, the beginning of a quiet week for Sony Pictures.
Tal Kopan / Politico:
Jana Winter / The Intercept:
Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:
Google Fiber could use utility poles and other utility-owned infrastructure under Title II, spurring broadband, company says in letter to FCC  —  Google Strikes an Upbeat Note With FCC on Title II  —  In a rare public comment by Google on net neutrality, the Internet giant this week …
Se Young Lee / Reuters:
Samsung Electronics says new smart TVs in 2015 to run Tizen platform  —  (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Thursday that all its new smart television products launched in 2015 will be powered by the Tizen operating system, marking a fresh effort by the company to increase the usage of the software platform.
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
HP sells Palm trademarks, likely to Alcatel One Touch; brand could be resurrected with new Android smartphones  —  HP sells Palm trademarks; brand could be resurrected with new smartphones  —  It looks like Palm will rise from the dead as a Chinese smartphone brand.
Jennifer Booton / MarketWatch:
New York City considers letting drivers pay for parking tickets with Bitcoin, Apple Pay, and PayPal  —  NYC weighs bitcoin, Apple Pay for parking tickets  — The city of New York issues eight to ten million parking tickets annually.  But great news: Drivers will soon be able to use …
Craig Buckler / SitePoint:
Average web page size increased 15% in 2014 to almost 2MB; HTTP requests per page hardly changed at 95  —  Average Page Weight Increases 15% in 2014  —  The HTTP Archive Report collates information from almost half a million of the web's most popular websites.
More: theWHIR.com and GigaomTweets: @craigbuckler
J.R. Wu / Reuters:
Taiwan clears Xiaomi, Apple, Samsung, Sony, Huawei, others of breaching data privacy laws  —  Taiwan clears Xiaomi, other smartphone brands of breaching data privacy  —  (Reuters) - Taiwanese regulators cleared on Tuesday China's Xiaomi Inc [XTC.UL] and other smartphone brands …
Jonathan Soble / New York Times:
Abandoned Japanese social network Mixi resurges with Monster Strike, its first mobile game  —  ‘Monster Strike’ Gives Former Social Media Giant Mixi a Second Act  —  TOKYO — It was a familiar trajectory for a social network like Facebook that did not happen to be Facebook …
Julia Love / SiliconBeat:
Apple hit with class action over storage eaten up by iOS 8  —  Apple has been hit with a lawsuit alleging that it doesn't inform users just how much storage its new operating system will eat up - and then prods them to buy more space through its iCloud service.

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:
Introduction: Zoho Notebook now imports and transcribes your call recordings automatically from Zoho apps  —  Does your team run on Zoho's call and meeting apps?  That's where decisions get made, plans come together, and work actually moves forward.
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.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
How The AI Bet Pays Off + AI Lab Strategy Game — With David Cahn
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Oliver Darcy on Status, Bari Weiss, and Why Media Reporters Are Too Soft
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:
Chai Discovery's Bitter Lesson: Drug Design Is Another Scaling Problem
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:
Gavin Baker - AI Market Jitters
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:00 AM ET, January 1, 2015.

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.

More News

Earlier Picks

Anupam Saxena / Times of India: