Techmeme: Neither of the Steve Jobs biographies gives enough attention to uglier episodes like the anti-poaching conspiracy, and attacks on journalism (Dan Gillmor/Slate)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

March 31, 2015, 2:00 AM

Top News

Régis Décamps / Gmail Blog:

Gmail for Android updated with unified inbox view, conversation view for non-Gmail accounts, smarter search — All your mail, together in one place — These days, many of us have more than one email address. If you're a student, you may have one account for school, one for a campus group you lead, and one for your blog.

Ben Popper / The Verge:

Jay-Z relaunches Tidal with $9.99/month standard and $19.99/month high-quality tiers, with top artists as co-owners — Jay Z relaunches Tidal with music's biggest artists as his co-owners — At a press conference in New York City this afternoon, Jay Z and a huge group of musical stars took …

Bob Lefsetz / The Lefsetz Letter:

Tidal is dead on arrival because listeners are cheap, it lacks a critical mass of both users and musicians, and the market is crowded — Tidal — Now let me get this straight...piracy can be eradicated if artists just band together in the name of money? That's what this is all about, cash.

More: Medium. Tweets: @tomcoates, @alfredspellman, @st1ck3r and @travisthrasher

See also Mediagazer

Josh Hudgins / Google Drive Blog:

Google makes photos and videos from Google+ Photos available in Drive — Your photos and files, together in Drive — We take all kinds of photos, from pics of friends and family to snapshots of a scenic view. We also use photos for more practical purposes, like planning a wedding …

New York Times:

Two former federal agents charged for stealing bitcoin during Silk Road investigation — 2 Federal Agents in Silk Road Case Face Fraud Charges — Two former federal agents are expected to be arrested on Monday on charges of stealing money while working undercover on an investigation into Silk Road …

More: SiliconANGLE, The Verge, Engadget, ValueWalk, PandoDaily, CryptoCoinsNews, SlashGear, Business Insider and CoinDesk

Tweets: @dannysullivan, @adamguerbuez and @maggythebrave

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

Former DEA agent who worked on Silk Road case charged with acting as paid mole for Ross Ulbricht; second agent charged with pocketing $800K in bitcoin — DEA Agent Charged With Acting as a Paid Mole for Silk Road — Nearly 18 months after the Silk Road online drug market was busted by law enforcement …

More: Fusion and Forbes. Tweets: @a_greenberg, @msquinn, @a_greenberg and @mattblaze

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft rolls out first Windows 10 preview with ‘Spartan’ browser — Summary:Microsoft has released to testers a new Windows 10 Desktop preview build, the first to include the coming new ‘Project Spartan’ browser. — Microsoft is making available to its Windows Insiders testers …

More: Windows Blog, Windows Blog, SiliconANGLE, Digital Trends, TWCN Tech News, AnandTech, The Verge, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Pocketnow, MSDN Blogs, Liliputing, VentureBeat, Engadget and The Next Web

Mark Wilson / Co.Design:

Facebook moves into its new 430,000-square-foot Menlo Park building designed by Frank Gehry — A First Look At Facebook's New Mothership, Designed By Frank Gehry — 2,800 people. One room. And a giant green roof. — This is the story of “MPK 20”—Facebook's new flagship building in its Menlo Park campus.

More: Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, bizjournals, and Wired

Martyn Williams / PC World:

US International Trade Commission to investigate Apple after it allegedly infringed Ericsson's LTE wireless technology patents — US trade body to investigate Apple after Ericsson complaints — The U.S. International Trade Commission has decided to investigate Apple after two complaints …

More: VentureBeat, iMore, MacRumors, AppleInsider, iDownloadBlog.com and Patently Apple

Economist:

Messaging services like Facebook Messenger, Slack, and WeChat could expand into platforms superseding even Android and iOS — The message is the medium — Messaging services are rapidly growing beyond online chat — “I PROPOSE, if and when found, to take him by his beastly neck …

More: TechCrunch. Tweets: @sgendzel and @csoghoian

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

DHS subpoenas Reddit for personal data on users involved with defunct dark-web marketplace Evolution — Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum — Over the last year, Reddit's “dark net markets” discussion forum has grown into one of the central fixtures of the online drug scene.

More: SiliconANGLE, Gizmodo and The Verge

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook's new Event subscribe button offers notifications of nearby events, incentivizes musicians to set up Facebook Events — Facebook Helps Musicians With Subscribe Button For Any Page's Nearby Events — You don't want to miss your favorite band's concert in your town …

More: The Next Web and FACT Magazine. Tweets: @digiphile

Rachel King / ZDNet:

Google Cloud Platform launches mobile console for Android; iOS console in the works, but release date not yet revealed — Google Cloud Platform launches mobile console for Android — Summary:An iOS console for Google Cloud Platform is promised to be in the works, but an exact release date has not been revealed yet.

More: The Register and VentureBeat

Dan Gillmor / Slate:

Neither of the Steve Jobs biographies gives enough attention to uglier episodes like the anti-poaching conspiracy, and attacks on journalism — The Cult of Steve — Why Apple insiders are so worked up over two admiring Steve Jobs biographies. — Someday, someone will write the definitive book …

More: Salon and MacDailyNews. Tweets: @alexismadrigal and @dangillmor

Mark Sullivan / VentureBeat:

SEC filing shows Fitbit likely paid at least $17.8M to acquire Fitstar — Fitbit likely paid at least $17.8M to acquire Fitstar (updated) — Correction 6:15PM PST: This story has been significantly updated to clarify the intent and terms of the Fitbit SEC filing.

More: Forbes

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft to roll out mobile device management to Office 365 commercial customers over next six weeks — Microsoft starts rolling out mobile device management to Office 365 business customers — Summary:Microsoft will be rolling out its promised, free subset of mobile-device-management features …

More: Office Blogs, Computerworld and The Register

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

AT&T launches gigabit fiber in parts of Cupertino, with prices from $110/month, $40 more than it charges in cities where it competes with Google Fiber — AT&T's newest fiber customers to pay $40 more than Google Fiber users — There's no $70 Google Fiber in Cupertino, so AT&T can charge what it wants to.

More: AT&T, Consumerist, bizjournals and DSLreports

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.

Equals:

Stop vibe coding analytics — Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards. Build once, iterate for years.

Zoho:

App Spotlight: Grow Payments for Zoho CRM — App Spotlight brings you hand-picked solutions that enhance your Zoho apps and tools. Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps, integrations …

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

Access:

The AI writing app fighting AI slop

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Lenny's Podcast:

Adam Mosseri: AI is a tailwind for authenticity

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Great Chat:

SPVs have a brand problem

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:

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth: Our Path To Frontier AI, Renting Models, Consumer AI's Struggles

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:

"We're in a Race Against Time," Joe Kahn on Running the New York Times in the Age of AI Slop

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:00 AM ET, March 31, 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.