Techmeme: Samsung, with its bloated product line and hierarchical structure, struggles to lead in design (Mark Wilson/Co.Design)

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February 18, 2015, 9:15 AM

Top News

Bloomberg Business:

Source: Snapchat is in advanced discussions on a new funding round valuing the company between $16B and $19B — Snapchat Said to Seek Up to $19 Billion Value in Funding Round — Don't Miss Out — by Elizabeth WollmanLeslie PickerSarah Frier — (Bloomberg) — Snapchat Inc. is seeking …

More: New York Times, Fortune, Forbes, Business Insider, Tech Times, TechWeekEurope UK, Wired.co.uk, VatorNews, SiliconANGLE, The Register, CNET, Reuters, SlashGear, VentureBeat, Mashable, Guardian, socalTECH.com, Seeking Alpha, VentureBreak and Telegraph

Tweets: @fmanjoo, @chrismessina, @joshconstine, @tomgara and @shaig

Owen Williams / The Next Web:

HTTP/2, the first major change to HTTP in 16 years, has been finalized — Today, the next major version of HTTP took a big step toward becoming a reality; it's been officially finalized and now moves towards being fully standardized. — According to a blog by Mark Nottingham …

More: The Verge, BetaNews, Gizmodo, Technology Personalized, Web Browser, Tech2, CNET, memeburn, SlashGear and bit-tech.net

Robin Wauters / Tech.eu:

Yandex asks Russian antitrust authorities to probe Google over bundling of Android with Google services (including search) — This just in: Yandex, the ‘Google of Russia’, has submitted a request to Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to investigate a possible violation of the Russian antitrust law by rival Google.

More: PC World, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Next Web and Business Insider. Tweets: @robinwauters

Mark Wilson / Co.Design:

Samsung, with its bloated product line and hierarchical structure, struggles to lead in design — Why Samsung Design Stinks — Kevin Lee calls it “Steve Jobs Syndrome.” As the former head of product strategy and user experience design at Samsung Design America, Lee watched …

More: MacDailyNews, Daring Fireball and BGR

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

Apple Watch revenues could be dominated by relatively low-volume, high-priced Edition model — Thinking About the Split in Apple Watch Sales by Model — Lorraine Luk and Daisuke Wakabayashi, reporting today for the WSJ, “Apple Orders More Than 5 Million Watches for Initial Run”:

More: Business Insider, Inquirer, Tech Times, Neowin, Geeky Gadgets, 9to5Mac, MacDailyNews, BGR, Wired, SlashGear, Ubergizmo and Reuters

Tweets: @hblodget, @zkahn94 and @derekpearcy

Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:

Raspberry Pi 2 Review: A $35 Computer Can Do a Heck of a Lot — An open-source computer that encourages you to look inside — The small, bare-bones Raspberry Pi 2, meant to encourage children and adults to build and engage more with computers, does more than you think. WSJ's Joanna Stern puts it to the test.

More: TechCrunch, The Verge, ZDNet and Engadget

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft to allow developers to turn retail Xbox Ones into dev kits by summer and open the platform to more universal apps in November; SDK preview in May — Microsoft is ready to unleash Xbox One apps — Microsoft is planning to open up its Xbox One apps platform in a big way this summer.

More: Engadget, BGR, InfoWorld, Pocketnow, GeekWire, The Next Web, Neowin, Polygon, SlashGear, GamePolitics blogs, Eurogamer.net, destructoid and WMPoweruser. Tweets: @mgsiegler

Bryan Bishop / The Verge:

Upcoming Modern Family episode was shot entirely on iPhones, iPads and MacBook Pros — Modern Family's new episode never leaves the screen of a MacBook Pro — ‘Connection Lost’ feels like a half-hour Apple commercial — but it actually works — MacBooks and iPhones pop up in movies …

Li Xiaoxiao / MarketWatch:

Apple Pay expansion in China hindered by revenue share issues with Union Pay, Alipay and banks, government regulations — Apple Pay's invasion of China stalls — BEIJING (Caixin Online) — China's central bank, UnionPay bank-card service and e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. BABA …

More: FierceMobileIT News, 9to5Mac, Business Insider, O'Grady's PowerPage, AppleTell, Fox News, MacNN, Bank Innovation, MacDailyNews, iPhone in Canada Blog, CNET, iMore, BGR, AppleInsider, Ubergizmo, iDownloadBlog.com and MacRumors

Rik Henderson / Pocket-lint:

VLC 3.0 will come with Chromecast support across multiple devices — A changelog posted by VLC has confirmed that support for the Google Chromecast is soon to be added to the popular media player. That means users will be able to stream just about any media file through VLC on the connected TV dongle.

More: Engadget, TechSpot, TechnoBuffalo, 9to5Google, 9to5Mac, Liliputing, SlashGear, Android Authority, PC World, Gizmodo, Phones Review, Android Community, Ubergizmo, PhoneArena and The Tech Report

Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:

Apple wins a patent for iPhone headset similar to Samsung Gear VR — Apple wins patent for a head-mounted iPhone virtual reality display — In a concept similar to Samsung's Gear VR, Apple has been awarded a patent for a device that would allow an iPhone to serve as the display for a portable virtual reality headset.

More: Re/code, Guardian, PandoDaily, The Register, Android Authority, Engadget, SlashGear, CNET, PC Magazine, Slashdot, GeekWire, TechnoBuffalo, Phones Review, Ubergizmo, Business Insider and TechCrunch

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

WorldRemit Raises $100M To Take On Western Union In Money Transfers — WorldRemit, a UK-based startup that is going after the Western Unions and MoneyGrams of the world with a commission-beating online and mobile remittance service, has raised another $100 million — funding that it will use …

More: Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Business Insider and Tech City News

Tweets: @innfin and @projectacom

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Facebook is working on virtual reality versions of its apps — Facebook is building versions of its apps in virtual reality, according to Chris Cox, the company's head of product. Speaking at Recode's Code Media conference in Dan Point, CA, Cox told interviewer Peter Kafka that Facebook VR is on its way.

More: The Atlantic Online, Digital Trends, VentureBeat, SlashGear, iDownloadBlog.com, Ubergizmo, Engadget, The Next Web, Neowin and Android Central

Dylan Tweney / VentureBeat:

IBM to invest $1B over 5 years in storage software, introduces centralized storage management tool — IBM makes a big bet on software-defined storage and hybrid clouds — IBM believes in the hybrid cloud, and now it's backing that with software and a promise.

More: SiliconANGLE, Data Center Knowledge, eWeek, SiliconANGLE, SiliconANGLE, BetaNews, cloudcomputing-news.net, Bloomberg Business, PR Newswire, The Register, ZDNet and EE Times

Wall Street Journal:

TransferWise Launches Money-Transfer Service in the U.S. … Americans can now send money overseas through a high-profile startup trying to fill the gap left by banks pulling back from the cash-transfer business. — TransferWise, a London-based startup founded in 2011 …

Kevin Rawlinson / BBC:

UK banks RBS and NatWest add Apple's Touch ID logins to their mobile apps — Banks to allow account access using fingerprint tech — Apple's TouchID, now to be used to access banking apps, was criticised after hackers managed to breach it — Two banks are allowing their customers …

More: 9to5Mac, iMore, rbs.com, Engadget, Cult of Mac and textually.org

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