Techmeme
January 5, 2015, 6:35 PM

Top News

Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Dish announces Sling TV: stream channels like ESPN, CNN, and TNT over the internet for $20 per month without a cable subscription  —  You Can Finally Get ESPN on the Web, for $20 a Month  —  Lots of people say they want to ditch cable TV for the Web, but can't because they want to watch sports …
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
Broadwell U arrives: Faster laptop CPUs and GPUs from Core i7 to Celeron  —  Intel's staggered Broadwell rollout continues with 17 new laptop chips.  —  Intel promised us more chips based on the new Broadwell architecture in early 2015, and today it's delivering on that promise.
Marco Arment / Marco.org:
Apple's marketing priorities are driving the pace of software releases at the expense of quality  —  Apple has lost the functional high ground  —  Apple's hardware today is amazing — it has never been better.  But the software quality has fallen so much in the last few years that I'm deeply concerned for its future.
Scott Stein / CNET:
Lenovo enters the smart fitness band game with e-ink, water-resistant Vibe Band VB10  —  LAS VEGAS — Fitness band meets smartwatch: yeah, it's a well-trodden formula.  Lenovo, however, hasn't made a splash into wearables before.  The Vibe Band VB10, debuted at the 2015 International CES in Las Vegas …
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Google Asked to Remove 345 Million “Pirate” Links in 2014  —  In the hope of steering prospective customers away from pirate sites, copyright holders are overloading Google with DMCA takedown notices.  —  These requests have increased dramatically over the years.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Acquires Wit.ai To Help Its Developers With Speech Recognition And Voice Interfaces  —  Facebook today acquired Wit.ai, a Y Combinator startup founded 18 months ago to create an API for building voice-activated interfaces.  Wit.ai already has 6,000 developers on its platform who have built hundreds of apps.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Gogo issues fake HTTPS certificates to block in-flight YouTube streaming, says no user info collected  —  Gogo issues fake HTTPS certificate to users visiting YouTube  —  Gogo has been caught issuing a fake digital certificate for YouTube, a practice that in theory could allow …
Lynn La / CNET:
LG G Flex 2: curved smartphone with 5.5-inch screen and Snapdragon 810 coming to Korea this month, AT&T and Sprint later this year  —  LG G Flex 2: Second-gen curved smartphone features 5.5-inch screen, Snapdragon 810 and ‘self-healing’ capabilities (hands-on)
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google Cast for audio lets you stream music from apps like Pandora and Rdio to compatible speakers, coming this spring  —  Google Cast will offer direct streaming from apps to Sony, LG, and Denon audio products this spring  —  What will be hot in consumer electronics and computing in 2015?
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Netflix's Recommended TV program will help you find the best TV for streaming  —  A lot of what we watch on TV nowadays comes streaming in from the internet, but not every TV is cut out to do that well out of the box.  In an attempt to make sure that viewers have a good experience …
Micah Singleton / The Verge:
AT&T is the first US carrier to support WebRTC  —  WebRTC will allow AT&T customers to make calls and video chat using their AT&T numbers in the browser  —  During its annual Developer Summit held the day before CES officially begins, AT&T announced it will be the first carrier in the US …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Nest adds 15 new partners, now integrates with smartlocks, lighting, and home appliances  —  Nest's thermostat gets smarter with support for more third-party devices  —  Nest is today announcing a handful of new additions to the company's “Works with Nest” program, a designation given …
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Alibaba Competitor Wanda E-commerce Raises $161M At $3B Valuation  —  China-based Wanda E-commerce, which hopes to position itself as a rival against Alibaba, has raised one billion RMB (about $161 million) in funding from investment funds Centec Networks and Xude Rendao.
Brian Barrett / Gizmodo:
Parrot's New In-Dash System Gives Any Dumb Car Apple or Android Brains  —  While Apple CarPlay and Android Auto promise to make your car's in-dash system infinitely more bearable in the not so distant future, you're still stuck in the unfortunate position of having to choose between one or the other.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:35 PM ET, January 5, 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

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks