Techmeme: Pebble Time smartwatch: color display, 20% thinner body, microphone, new “Timeline” interface, to retail for $199 with pre-sale on Kickstarter now (Nathan Olivarez-Giles/Wall Street Journal)

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February 24, 2015, 4:00 PM

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Nathan Olivarez-Giles / Wall Street Journal:

Pebble Time smartwatch: color display, 20% thinner body, microphone, new “Timeline” interface, to retail for $199 with pre-sale on Kickstarter now — Pebble Unveils Color-Screen Time Smartwatch as Apple Threat Looms … Smartwatch pioneer Pebble is facing the toughest threat of its short life: the Apple Watch.

More: Business Insider, Digital Trends, BetaKit, Telegraph, ReadWrite, Washington Post, USA Today, TechCrunch, Guardian, ReadWrite, Gizmodo and Gotta Be Mobile

Tweets: @nateog and @joannastern

Steven Levy / Backchannel:

How Pebble built Pebble Time amidst looming competition from Android Wear and Apple Watch — A Pebble in Apple's Shoe — In the battle for your wrist, a small company thinks it can hold off the tech giants by going back to its Kickstarter roots— with a watch called Time

More: The Verge, The Register, BGR, ABC News, Inquirer, New York Times, The Verge, SiliconBeat, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Next Web, 9to5Mac and PhoneDog.com. Tweets: @stevenlevy

Lisa Eadicicco / Business Insider:

Pebble Time sells out at lowest $159 tier on Kickstarter, passes $3M in pre-sales in under two hours — Pebble raised more than $5 million in less than five hours for its new smartwatch — Pebble doubled its Kickstarter goal and raised $1 million dollars for its new smartwatch in less than an hour.

More: TechCrunch, Engadget, Techvibes Global News, PandoDaily, Globe and Mail, MobileSyrup.com, Quartz, Ars Technica, GeekWire, The Verge, VentureBeat, Mashable and PSFK

Tweets: @kickstarter, @boredelonmusk and @pkedrosky

IDC:

Android and iOS take 96% of smartphone OS market in Q4 and calendar year 2014 — Android and iOS Squeeze the Competition, Swelling to 96.3% of the Smartphone Operating System Market for Both 4Q14 and CY14, According to IDC — Android and iOS inched closer to total domination …

More: TechCrunch, 9to5Google, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, VentureBeat, Tech Trader Daily, iPhone in Canada Blog, WMPoweruser, eMarketer and Newsroom Posts and www.idc.com. Tweets: @shiraovide

Joey-Elijah Sneddon / OMG!:

Google says Chromebook Pixel 2 is coming soon, pulls video of announcement made at an event — Google Say Chromebook Pixel 2 Will Go On Sale Soon — Google has confirmed that a second generation Chromebook Pixel will go on sale ‘soon’. — Speaking at the Team Work 2015 event this week …

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple to overhaul Genius Bar, changing appointments and using phones as pagers — Apple will soon make a significant change to retail store Genius Bar appointments to improve the customer experience, according to several sources briefed on the upcoming shift.

More: CNNMoney, CNET, Fortune, GeekWire, TechnoBuffalo, App Advice, iPhone in Canada Blog, MacNN, iLounge, Ubergizmo, The Verge, SlashGear, Engadget, Business Insider, iMore and MacDailyNews

Mike Isaac / New York Times:

Reddit now prohibits posting nude photos or videos of sex acts without prior consent from the people depicted in them — In Privacy Update, Reddit Tightens Restrictions on Nude Photos — For nearly a decade, Reddit, the huge online message board, has been known for its freewheeling stance on letting its users govern themselves.

More: BuzzFeed, Gizmodo, The Daily Dot, ABC News, TIME, The Verge and Engadget

Tweets: @broderick and @mikeisaac

Facebook:

Facebook counts 2M businesses as advertisers, launches Ads Manager app on iOS — Introducing Ads Manager App — As business owners and marketers spend less time on desktop computers and more on mobile devices, advertisers have a growing need to manage Facebook campaigns on the go.

More: VentureBeat, iMore, TechCrunch, Seeking Alpha, Fortune, The Next Web and WebProNews

Martin Beck / Marketing Land:

Facebook Passes 2 Million Advertisers, Launches Ads Manager App For iOS

More: Facebook, The Technology Chronicles and SocialTimes

Mic Wright / The Next Web:

Visa announces credit card tech that could speed up Apple Pay's arrival in Europe — Visa Europe has announced that it's introducing a secure way to pay with your smartphone while keeping your credit card details concealed. Bringing the method to Europe could speed up the arrival of Apple Pay …

More: PC World, 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, Fortune, MacRumors, O'Grady's PowerPage, BGR, iMore, App Advice and iLounge

Kevin Kingsbury / Wall Street Journal:

At $765B+, Apple's market cap is double any other publicly traded US company — Apple Is Now More Than Double the Size of Exxon—And Everyone Else — Just how ginormous is Apple Inc. now? — As the iPhone-maker's shares continue to set fresh record highs, its market cap is now above $765 billion.

More: bizjournals, CNBC, iPhone in Canada Blog, IEEE Spectrum, Medium, MacDailyNews and ParisLemon

Owen Williams / The Next Web:

Sense sleep tracker now available for purchase, shipping to backers today — After a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014 that raised $2.4 million, Hello is today announcing that the Sense sleep tracker is shipping for Kickstarter backers and pre-orders of the devices.

More: Wired, The Verge, New York Times, TechCrunch and Gigaom

Brandon Walkin / Facebook Code:

Facebook releases Origami Live, a new app for testing app prototypes designed with Origami on iPhone or iPad — Introducing Origami Live — Just over a year ago, we released Origami — a free tool for designing interactive user interfaces. We've used it here at Facebook to design …

More: VentureBeat, The Next Web, Ubergizmo and VentureBreak

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

FTC fines marketers of two apps that claim to detect melanoma — A screenshot of advertising for MelApp. (Courtesy of the FTC.) — The Federal Trade Commission on Monday announced two enforcement actions against the makers of two smartphone apps — “Mole Detective” and “MelApp” …

More: Federal Trade Commission, CNET, PandoDaily, TIME, Gizmodo, 9to5Google, 9to5Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, Cult of Mac, The Hill, Ars Technica, The Register, Gigaom, mobihealthnews and Consumerist

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

Apple Acquires Popular Instrument and Effect Plug-In Maker Camel Audio — Apple appears to have acquired popular music plug-in and effect maker Camel Audio, based on information found on corporate registry site Companies House [PDF]. Camel Audio's address has been updated to 100 New Bridge Street …

Natt Garun / The Next Web:

Plex for Roku gets updated with flat design for smoother, faster access to your library — The Plex for Roku app today received a visual overhaul with a new flat design and carousel layout that sees more content fit on the user's home screen, adding faster access to their library.

More: Plex Blog, Engadget, TechHive, TechSpot, Digital Trends, TechCrunch, Gigaom and Ubergizmo

Brian Merchant / Motherboard:

Majority of health sites send troves of data about your medical searches to third-party companies — Looking Up Symptoms Online? These Companies Are Tracking You — It's 2015—when we feel sick, fear disease, or have questions about our health, we turn first to the internet.

More: SiliconBeat, Fast Company and ECPM BLOG. Tweets: @aaronwall

Kevin Fitchard / Gigaom:

Artemis is building 4G network using its pCell technology on Dish spectrum to cover most of SF — Artemis is building a 4G network in SF to prove its pCell tech works — Source: Shutterstock / Max Krasnov — Credit: Shutterstock / Max Krasnov — Source: Shutterstock / Max Krasnov

More: ReadWrite, Re/code, DSLreports, Business Insider, TechCrunch, SlashGear, Tech Times and New York Times. Tweets: @kfitchard

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Firefox 36 arrives with full HTTP/2 support and a new design for Android tablets — Mozilla today launched Firefox 36 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Major additions to the browser include full HTTP/2 support and a new tablet user interface on Android.

More: BetaNews, Firefox, The Next Web, Mozilla Developer Network and gHacks Technology News

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Microsoft launches new OneDrive API with change tracking, resumable uploads, and customizable thumbnail images — Microsoft today launched a new OneDrive API on GitHub. The company is encouraging developers to use it when integrating OneDrive into their apps to store and manage user data.

More: OneDrive Blog, Gigaom, BetaNews, The Verge, The Next Web, iMore, SlashGear and Neowin

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Twilio Acquires Two-Factor Authentication Service Authy — Twilio today announced that it has acquired Authy, a Y Combinator-backed startup that offers two-factor authentication services to end users, developers and enterprises. The two companies declined to disclose the financial details of the transaction.

More: Authy, ZDNet, Twilio Cloud Communications …, Re/code, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Marketwire, Forbes, SiliconANGLE, Gigaom and silicontap.com

Mark Hachman / PC World:

AMD claims Carrizo chip offers substantial performance, battery life boosts — In January, AMD said that its upcoming Carrizo chip for notebooks and low-power desktops would cut power significantly over the prior generation, Kaveri. On Monday, AMD explained how.

More: Forbes, Inquirer, AnandTech, ExtremeTech, PC Magazine, Tom's Hardware Guide, PC Perspective and The Register

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