Techmeme: Google Acquires Odysee, An App For Private Photo/Video Backup And Sharing, Team Joins Google+ (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

February 9, 2015, 9:45 AM

Top News

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Sling TV opens the floodgates, accepts sign-ups without invites — Credit: Janko Roettgers / Gigaom — Credit: Janko Roettgers / Gigaom — Sling TV, the online TV streaming service from Dish Networks, is now available to everyone: The service ended its invitation-only soft launch late Sunday night …

More: VentureBeat, Re/code, Business Wire, The Verge, The Next Web, DSLreports, Engadget, Electronista, Geeky Gadgets, SlashGear, Geek.com and Slate

Shane Harris / The Daily Beast:

Samsung's SmartTV privacy policy warns that spoken personal or sensitive information captured by voice recognition may be transmitted to a third party — Your Samsung SmartTV Is Spying on You, Basically — You may be loving your new Internet-connected television and its convenient voice-command feature …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Google Acquires Odysee, An App For Private Photo/Video Backup And Sharing, Team Joins Google+ — Google may be adding more offline and private sharing features to its Google+ Photos service soon. It has acquired Odysee, an iOS and Android app that let users automatically back up photos …

More: Odysee, Android Authority, ZDNet, Digital Trends, TechSpot, Engadget, VentureBeat, Android Central, BetaNews, Geeky Gadgets, Android Police, Ubergizmo, Ausdroid, SiliconANGLE, The Next Web and ResearchBuzz. Tweets: @korzing

Erik Franco / Motherboard:

Inside Chinese sites that mine 4050 bitcoins/month, equivalent to about $1.5M, with computing power that amounts to roughly 3% of the bitcoin network — Inside the Chinese Bitcoin Mine That's Making $1.5M a Month — In October of last year Motherboard gained access to a massive …

More: jackgavigan.com and TechCrunch. Tweets: @kelvindchen and @digiphile

Quentin Hardy / New York Times:

VPNs increasingly used to circumvent geo restrictions, access content on sites like Netflix — VPNs Dissolve National Boundaries Online, for Work and Movie-Watching — Rod Drury, an entrepreneur in Auckland, New Zealand, regularly visits the United States. Sometimes there are multiple visits a day.

Tweets: @digiphile and @jonrussell

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

The FCC isn't afraid of AT&T's legal threats over net neutrality — Lawyers dissect AT&T's claim that broadband can't be a common carrier service. — AT&T will probably be one of the first companies to file a lawsuit if the Federal Communications Commission follows through on a plan to impose stricter rules on broadband.

Steve LeVine / Quartz:

Profile of John B. Goodenough, who invented the lithium-ion battery and is now trying to build a powerful new super-battery — The man who brought us the lithium-ion battery at the age of 57 has an idea for a new one at 92 — AUSTIN, TEXAS—The chances are you have never heard of—nor …

Tweets: @fmanjoo and @dtunkelang

Kashmir Hill / Fusion:

How Slack makes sure the work conversations of 365K people stay private — How a start-up got 365,000 people to trust it with their office secrets — It was Anne Toth's first week at Slack, and she already had a crisis on her hands. “TeamNameGate,” she now calls the episode.

Tweets: @msquinn, @juliaangwin and @kashhill

Paul Carsten / Reuters:

China's Alibaba to invest $590 million in smartphone maker Meizu — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said in a statement on Monday it will buy a minority stake in domestic smartphone maker Meizu Technology Co for $590 million. Alibaba didn't disclose how much of the privately owned handset maker it will acquire.

More: GSMArena.com, Re/code, CNET, The Verge, Ubergizmo, Business Wire, TechCrunch, Android Authority, Geeky Gadgets, Wall Street Journal, Engadget and SiliconANGLE. Tweets: @inafried

Kevin Roose / Fusion:

How Waterloo recovered after BlackBerry's decline and avoided a talent exodus — The life, death, and rebirth of BlackBerry's hometown — It's a little after 5:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night, and I'm sitting in a freezing rental car outside the BlackBerry headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, looking for signs of life.

More: Bloomberg View. Tweets: @kevinroose, @cdixon and @pmarca

Daniela Velázquez / Fast Company:

In Kansas City, Google Fiber penetrates wealthier neighborhoods, but digital divide remains — Lessons From Google's First Rollout Of Google Fiber — Three summers ago, it was everywhere: An old-fashioned ice cream truck with peppy, electronic music blaring from its speakers.

More: PC World

Jason Tanz / Wired:

Some techies with DIY mentalities choose to homeschool their children — The Techies Who Are Hacking Education by Homeschooling Their Kids — Chris and Samantha Matalone Cook are homeschooling their sons Simon and Parker. (Their daughter Lucy asked to attend private school for the time being.)

More: Wired. Tweets: @mims, @toughloveforx and @mat

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.

Zoho:

Enhancements to Zoho Writer's automation flow designer: New PDF operations, password protection, and more — Once we rolled out the automation flow designer in Zoho Writer's merge templates …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

2025 In Review, 2026 Predictions — With Reed Albergotti

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:

Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt's Second Act: Less Budget, More Control

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.

BG2 Pod:

AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean

Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.

Subscribe to BG2 Pod.

Great Chat:

The stories we told ourselves in 2025

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Grit:

How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

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 9:45 AM ET, February 9, 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.