Techmeme
March 19, 2015, 3:35 PM

Top News

Bloomberg Business:
Google, Intel and TAG Heuer Partner on Luxury Smartwatch  —  Watch industry, consider yourself warned  —  Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer is creating a smartwatch in partnership with American technology firm Google.  The watch is an attempt to compete with devices by consumer-electronics makers, particularly the much-hyped watch by Apple.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple Store retail plan for Watch: 15-minute appointments, at least 10 try-on stations, some employees dedicated to assisting Edition buyers  —  Apple Store retail plan for Watch: 15 min. appointments, 10+ try-on stations, Experts for Edition  —  Apple will introduce several major initiatives …
Matt Peckham / TIME:
Nintendo CEO talks about plans for smartphone games, says most will be developed in-house  —  Exclusive: Nintendo CEO Reveals Plans for Smartphones  —  It's official: Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda will appear on smartphones and tablets at last—and that's just the start.
Alyssa Bereznak / Yahoo Tech:
Facebook Engineering Director David Recordon joins White House as Director of Information Technology, a newly created position  —  Exclusive: Facebook's Engineering Director Is Headed to the White House  —  The White House just added another Silicon Valley veteran to its growing roster of tech experts.
CBS News:
Target agrees to $10M settlement in class-action suit for 2013 data breach, up to $10K/person  —  Target agrees to pay $10 million to data breach victims  —  MINNEAPOLIS — Target has agreed to pay $10 million under a proposed settlement in a class-action lawsuit stemming from a massive 2013 data breach …
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Android Auto now available for devices running Android 5.0+, compatible with some Pioneer in-car systems; third-party Auto apps available on Google Play  —  Android Auto Now Available On Android 5.0+ And Pioneer Head Units  —  Android Auto has gone live, for devices running Android 5.0 and up …
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Rakuten Buys Ebook And Audiobook Platform OverDrive For $410M  —  Rakuten is beefing up its digital content chops after it announced the acquisition of ebook and audiobook marketplace OverDrive for $410 million.  —  The Japanese e-commerce giant got into the e-reader game when it picked up hardware maker Kobo for $315 million in 2011.
Geoffrey Smith / Fortune:
Alibaba's Jack Ma demos Smile to Pay app that validates mobile payments using facial recognition  —  Alibaba's Jack Ma shows off new ‘pay with a selfie’ technology  —  New facial recognition software is intended to buttress the fast-growing mobile-payments business.
Ben Sisario / New York Times:
RIAA finds streaming services made $1.87B in 2014, eclipsing US CD sales for the first time  —  Sales of Streaming Music Top CDs in Flat Year for Industry  —  The American market for recorded music was flat in 2014, but income from streaming services like Spotify and Pandora has quickly grown …
Ben Woods / The Next Web:
Deezer's high-quality ‘Elite’ streaming service is now available worldwide - but still only on Sonos  —  Deezer's ‘Elite’ high-quality music streaming service is now available to users around the world following a brief US-only stint at the end of 2014.  —  First launched in September …
More: TechCrunch and hypebot

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Do you need a Zoho Partner?  Here's why working with one can benefit you.  —  Zoho offers over 60 applications, each one built for a unique use case.  From sales and marketing to finance, HR, and customer support …
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.

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
Open Model Wars + Claire Stapleton's Dishy Google Memoir + Substack's Slop Fight
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Great Chat:
Tech's short-term era
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.
Access:
Meet the most AI-pilled CEO on Earth
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Basis's Matt Harpe: Why AI Won't Replace Accountants — It'll Make Them Richer
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros' Limbo, Netflix's Anxiety, and Hollywood's Sort-of Comeback
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:35 PM ET, March 19, 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

Earlier Picks

Mark Sweney / Guardian: