Techmeme: Obama criticizes China's new rules requiring US tech companies to provide backdoor access, says Beijing must change policy if it wants to do business with USA (Jeff Mason/Reuters)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

March 3, 2015, 9:50 AM

Top News

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Pebble Reveals Pebble Time Steel And A Smartstrap System Open To Hardware Developers — Pebble announced Pebble Time last week, the next-generation version of its Pebble smartwatch, and today it's revealing another new product: Pebble Time Steel. This is the stainless steel version of the Pebble Time …

Jeff Mason / Reuters:

Obama criticizes China's new rules requiring US tech companies to provide backdoor access, says Beijing must change policy if it wants to do business with USA — Exclusive: Obama sharply criticizes China's plans for new technology rules — (Reuters) - President Barack Obama …

More: Motherboard, 9to5Mac, Computerworld, MacDailyNews, Wall Street Journal, NBC News and The Hill

Tweets: @csoghoian, @loosewire, @lorenzofb, @matthew_d_green and @ggreenwald

Ben Popper / The Verge:

Inside Project Loon: Google's internet in the sky is almost open for business — “Good news,” says Katelin Jabbari, Google X's communications chief. “It's about to explode.” — We're several hundred feet in the air, inching our way along a wooden walkway tucked high into the rafters …

More: DSLreports and Business Insider. Tweets: @vassko

Kurt Wagner / Re/code:

Oculus Has Hired Mary Lou Jepsen Away From Google X — Facebook-owned Oculus has hired away big-time Google X executive Mary Lou Jepsen, according to sources familiar with the move. — Jepsen, who spent the last three years running the Display Division at Google X, is joining …

More: Gigaom, Business Insider and VentureBeat

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

BlackBerry plans four phones this year, including $275 all-touch 5-inch Leap phablet — BlackBerry plans to launch a sliding ‘dual-curved display’ phone this year — During a press conference at Mobile World Congress today, BlackBerry revealed that it plans to launch a new touchscreen slider device later this year.

More: BlackBerry Press Room, Re/code, New York Times, CNET, The Register, Inside BlackBerry, Associated Press, BetaNews, InfoWorld, Globe and Mail, Inquirer, Gigaom, Pocketnow, Bloomberg Business, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Associated Press, Engadget and SlashGear

Luke Westaway / CNET:

The Lenovo A7000 is a $169, 5.5-inch 4G LTE smartphone with Dolby sound — BARCELONA — Once the preserve of the high-fallutin', gadget-lovin' elite, smartphones no longer need to cost the Earth. The latest mobile to offer smartphone tech on a modest budget is Lenovo's A7000 …

More: Tech2, India - The Huffington Post, NDTV Gadgets, PC Pro, Android Authority and MobileBurn.com

AnandTech:

Lenovo unveils 5-inch VIBE Shot 2-in-one 16MP smartphone/camera with image stabilization, tri-color flash; available June for $349

More: Lenovo Newsroom, Engadget, Android Authority, PhoneArena, Tom's Guide, Android Authority, TechnoBuffalo, Android Police, GadgeTell, ShinyShiny, PhoneArena, Digital Trends, Android and Me, PhoneDog.com, The Verge and Pocket-lint

Lauren Johnson / Adweek:

Interview with Kim Kardashian on her hit game, aspirations in tech, and plans to create more apps — After Conquering Reality TV, Kim Kardashian Is Taking the Mobile World By Storm — Kim Kardashian West first grabbed our attention in October 2007 with the premiere of E!'s Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

More: Business Insider and Fortune

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

Uber launches a quarterly print magazine, Momentum, for drivers in Boston, New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Ohio, and Oklahoma — Uber just launched a quarterly print magazine, Momentum — Here's something different. — Uber, the $41 billion ride hailing company …

More: Gigaom. See also Mediagazer

Chloe Sorvino / Forbes:

The World's Richest Tech Billionaires: Jack Ma Breaks Through to Top, Google Leaders Slip — Want to join the upper crust of the billionaire ranks? Building a tech company could be your way in: Seven of the world's 15 richest self-made billionaires earned their wealth through a technology business.

More: Business Insider and CNET

Kashmir Hill / Fusion:

Open Whisper System's Signal app for encrypted calls gets encrypted texting in version 2.0 for iOS — You can now call or text anyone with end-to-end encryption, for free — For years, smartphone users have been out of luck if they wanted to call or text everyone in their address books …

More: Open Whisper Systems Blog, Help Net Security, Wired, Gigaom, The Intercept, Ars Technica, The Register, RT, Forbes, The Verge and The Next Web. Tweets: @micahflee

Aaron Pressman / Yahoo Tech:

Samsung Pay vs. Apple Pay vs. Android Pay — Samsung's new mobile payment system, coming this summer, will work even at the millions of old-fashioned checkout terminals that don't have a wireless connection. That solves one of the big limitations of Apple's mobile pay system …

More: Samsungmobilepress.com, Droid Life, Tech Times and BGR

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Sundar Pichai confirms Android Pay, says it will exist as an “API layer” for developers

More: The Verge, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, The Next Web, SlashGear, Computerworld, Android Central, InvestorPlace, AppleInsider, Android Police, MacRumors, Ubergizmo, iPhone in Canada Blog and Android Authority

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Cook teases ‘ton’ of Apple Watch announcements, including Panera Bread, Salesforce enterprise & fitness apps — In addition to discussing the international Apple Watch launch and accessibility efforts at a briefing in Germany, Apple CEO Tim Cook teased “a whole ton of announcements coming shortly …

More: ITProPortal, Business Insider, MacDailyNews and App Advice

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Tim Cook says Apple Watch will be available outside U.S. in April

More: iMore, ITProPortal, App Advice, Electronista, Tech2, NEWS.com.au, GSMArena Blog, iPhone in Canada Blog, Macworld, BGR, Ubergizmo, CNET and Business Insider

Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:

Google quietly backs away from encrypting new Lollipop devices by default — Encrypted storage will only be required in “future versions of Android.” — Last year, Google made headlines when it revealed that its next version of Android would require full-disk encryption on all new phones.

More: Slashdot, Computerworld, HotHardware.com News, Tech Times, Forbes, TechSpot, Gizmodo, Business Insider, The Next Web, SlashGear, 9to5Google, Gizmodo UK, Wired.co.uk, MobileSyrup.com, Engadget, iMore, Android Authority, The Register, Droid Life, BGR, Tech2, NextBigWhat, Phandroid, OSNews, AppleInsider, Gigaom, PhoneDog.com, VentureBeat, PC World and siliconrus.com

Tweets: @ageis and @aaronwall

Owen Williams / The Next Web:

Stratos Bluetooth connected card aims to unify all credit cards, ships in April — Stratos' Bluetooth connected payment card works everywhere, available this April — Everyone wants a piece of the payments space and if the excitement for Coin proved anything, people want a single card …

More: Bank Innovation, Fox News, BGR, TechCrunch, Tom's Guide, Gizmodo, eMarketer and Newsroom Posts, CNNMoney, NBC News, Mashable and CNET

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

PCH buys Fab.com, will use it as a sales channel for the hardware products it helps startups make — Fab.com's Fire Sale Is Official — Fab.com finally has a new home. — PCH, a company that helps startups design and manufacture hardware products, has announced that it has purchased …

More: TechCrunch, Medium, Wall Street Journal and PCH - We make

Sebastian Anthony / Ars Technica:

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 will feature Kryo CPU, Krait's 64-bit successor — At long last, it's (almost) time for Qualcomm's custom-designed 64-bit chip. — BARCELONA, Spain—Qualcomm, after an agonizingly long wait, has finally revealed a few details about its next-gen, top-end CPU core.

More: AnandTech, Engadget, Ars Technica, Forbes, TechnoBuffalo, Wired.co.uk and Android Authority

Joel Hruska / ExtremeTech:

Qualcomm's cognitive compute processors are coming to Snapdragon 820

More: Droid Life, Ubergizmo, Android Central and Android Police

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:

Bringing local models and sandboxed tools to Windows and GitHub Copilot — GitHub Copilot will soon determine when a task is best handled by on-device AI and when it needs cloud-scale models.

Will Reed:

The best sales leaders aren't job hunting. Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach. — Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.

Zoho:

Zoho Books now supports CT600 & Final Accounts Filing as an add-on in the FREE plan — Managing end-of-year filing for limited companies in the UK is often expensive and multi-layered.

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Sources:

Qualcomm's CEO on the coming AI phone supercycle

Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Subscribe to Sources.

The Upstarts Podcast:

Bringing Back Mammoths And Building Noah's Ark 2.0 | Colossal's Ben Lamm

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

Great Chat:

The launch industrial complex

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.

Big Technology Podcast:

Can AI Keep Growing Exponentially? Let's Ask SemiAnalysis — With Dylan Patel and Jordan Nanos

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:

Larry Ellison's Media Ambitions & Kevin Roose on AI's Biggest Gamble

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:

Google's AI Infrastructure Chief, Amin Vahdat, on the Physics & Economics of Frontier AI

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:50 AM ET, March 3, 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.