Techmeme
March 26, 2015, 2:20 PM

Top News

Adam Lashinsky / Fortune:
Profile: since replacing the legendary Jobs, Tim Cook has led Apple to even greater financial success and changed the culture of the company  —  Apple's Tim Cook leads different  —  Tim Cook assumed he was ready for the harsh glare that shines on Apple's AAPL CEO.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Twitter launches Periscope: replays are its killer feature, push notifications are noisy  —  Periscope, Twitter's answer to Meerkat-style live streaming, is now available  —  Live-streaming apps are the thirstiest of all media.  A Facebook post wants a like, a tweet begs for favs, and a snap means little without a response.
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Amazon Cloud Drive goes unlimited: $11.99/year for photos and $59.99/year for everything  —  Amazon has announced two unlimited storage plans for its cloud-based storage service, Amazon Cloud Drive, which sees a massive price reduction for its giant hard-drive in the sky.  —  The plans focus on two specific scenarios.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple Watch launch retail stock to be limited for many models, reservations favored  —  If you want to buy the Apple Watch model of your choice at an Apple Store at launch, you should consider pre-ordering online or through an Apple Store reservation, sources have told 9to5Mac.
Richard Lai / Engadget:
HTC One M9 to go on sale for $649 unlocked tonight  —  Never mind that M9+ thing in China.  Back in the US, it's all about the M9 for local HTC fans, as the device is about to hit the official online store at midnight ET for $649 unlocked (it'll have the same bands as the AT&T model).
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Galaxy S6 release date is April 10th, and US pre-orders start tomorrow  —  Samsung today announced that the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge will be available on US carriers starting April 10th, the same time as they are scheduled to be available for sale across the world.
Zac Bowden / WinBeta:
Microsoft working on successor to Surface 2 tablet running full Windows instead of Windows RT, and Intel Atom or Core M processor  —  EXCLUSIVE: Microsoft is building a successor to the Surface 2 (RT), here are the first details  —  The Surface 2 is currently Microsoft's latest iteration of its Windows RT based tablet line-up.
Bloomberg Business:
Apple to expand iPhone trade-in program to China as soon as March 31 in partnership with Foxconn  —  Apple Plans China IPhone Trade-In Program With Foxconn  —  (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. plans to introduce a trade-in program for iPhones in China, people familiar with the effort said, after a similar program bolstered sales in the U.S.
Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
Microsoft requiring its 2K contractors to provide 15 paid days of sick leave and vacation  —  Corporate Peer Pressure: From Microsoft, a Novel Way to Mandate Sick Leave  —  From Microsoft, a Novel Way to Mandate Sick Leave  —  The company announced that many of its 2,000 contractors …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Ex-Beats Music CEO David Hyman's music competition app Chosen launches as invite-only beta  —  Crush Someone's Dreams In Music Competition And Judging App Chosen  —  If American Idol was mobile-first, it'd be Chosen.  Built by ex-CEO of Beats Music, Gracenote, and Mog David Hyman …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Lyft adds optional user profiles for drivers and passengers to its app  —  Lyft Adds Profiles to Make Ride Sharing More Personalized  —  In 1971, Herb Kelleher, a founder of Southwest Airlines, had an idea: As competition in the burgeoning airline industry intensified, he wanted to make his small …
Spencer Woodman / The Verge:
Exclusive: Amazon makes even temporary warehouse workers sign 18-month non-competes  —  Contract says it can limit jobs across the globe  —  Amazon is the country's largest and most sophisticated online retailer, but it still runs largely on manual labor.  Scattered around the country …
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Zynga must face lawsuit alleging fraud tied to IPO  —  (Reuters) - Zynga Inc must face a lawsuit accusing the online gaming company known for “FarmVille” of defrauding shareholders about its prospects before and after its December 2011 initial public offering.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google Will Not Integrate Its Dart Programming Language Into Chrome  —  Dart is not coming to Chrome, Google announced today.  —  The lingua franca of the web is JavaScript, but with Dart, Google launched a project that effectively aimed to replace JavaScript.
New York Times:
Apple unable to persuade record labels to lower licensing costs for Beats streaming music service; will be priced similarly to rivals at around $10  —  Apple and Beats Developing Streaming Music Service to Rival Spotify  —  In what would be the biggest change to its music strategy in years …
Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Slack's next funding round will value company at $2.8B, to include new investors IVP, Horizons Ventures, Index Ventures, DST Global  —  Slack's Valuation More Than Doubles to $2.8 Billion in Five Months  —  The growing popularity of workplace collaboration tool Slack has attracted a new group …
James Trew / Engadget:
Create apps for your quadcopter with 3D Robotics' free ‘DroneKit’ software  —  3D Robotics develops the open source software that powers a lot of home brew UAVs.  Today it's introducing a new tool to the public: DroneKit, software that allows anyone to create apps for, well, drones!
Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
Cloud ERP firm FinancialForce that runs on Salesforce's platform raises $110M  —  FinancialForce raises $110 million in funding  —  Summary:The cloud ERP player is now hitting an annual revenue run rate of about $50 million and plans to spend the dough on product development, sales and various corporate functions.
Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:
Meerkat's Series B investors includes an array of Hollywood names along with lead Greylock  —  Meerkat Confirms It Raised A Round Led By Greylock, Josh Elman Joins Meerkat's Board  —  Late last week, our own Jordan Crook reported that Meerkat, the trendy, Twitter-centric livestreaming app …
Amy Schatz / Re/code:
FTC Denies Report That Agency Ignored Staff Recommendation on Google  —  Three Federal Trade Commission members denied media reports that the agency essentially ignored a staff recommendation to sue Google during its 2012 investigation of the search giant's practices.
Brody Mullins / Wall Street Journal:

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.

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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:20 PM ET, March 26, 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