Techmeme: Review of Asus Zenfone 2 smartphone with 5.5" 1080p display, 13mpx camera and Intel Atom CPU, which launches Tuesday in US, starting at $199 unlocked (Sam Rutherford/Tom's Guide)

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May 18, 2015, 6:15 PM

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Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple readies “TVKit” SDK for Apple TV, and Apple Watch updates like “Find my Watch”, irregular heart beat notifications, 3rd-party watch face complications — Apple readies first significant Apple Watch updates, ‘TVKit’ SDK for Apple TV

Reuters:

Appeals court reverses part of Apple's $930M win against Samsung, upholds patent infringements, not trade dress dilution; $382M in damages to be reconsidered — Apple gets partial win on appeal in Samsung patent case — Apple Inc (AAPL.O) was handed a mixed ruling by a U.S. appeals court …

More: Bloomberg Business, 9to5Mac, PhoneNews.com, Engadget, MacRumors, PC Magazine, International Business Times, ZDNet, PhoneDog.com, TechSpot, iMore, SlashGear, Patently Apple, FOSS Patents, Inquirer, Pocketnow, CNET, iPhone in Canada Blog and iLounge

Tom Dotan / The Information:

Facebook is in active talks with game developers about games for Messenger app platform — With Messenger Apps Sluggish, Facebook Eyeing Games — The first suite of apps that Facebook announced for Messenger were all for lightweight communication: sending people emojis, sound clips, gifs and the like.

More: PCWorld, Variety, The Verge, PandoDaily, Engadget, TechnoBuffalo, TechSpot, Digital Media Wire, The Geek Byte, Ubergizmo, Pocket-lint and WebProNews

Steve Dent / Engadget:

Google researchers create amazing timelapses from public photos — There are uncountable digital photos in the public domain and scientists have now figured out something very cool to do with them. Researchers from Google and the University of Washington have developed a fully automated …

More: The Daily Dot, prosthetic knowledge, PC Magazine, CNET, Wired.co.uk, 9to5Google, iDownloadBlog.com, The Next Web, The Verge, Index, kottke.org and Boing Boing

Evan McMorris-Santoro / BuzzFeed:

Obama uses someone else's iPhone to post first tweet from his own Twitter account @POTUS — Obama Used Someone Else's iPhone To Tweet His First Presidential Account Tweet — President Obama still carries his secure BlackBerry. On the day of the first tweet from @POTUS, the White House won't say if that device is Twitter capable.

More: Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, The Verge, International Business Times, 9to5Mac, White House Blog, The Register, DailyTech, NPR, MacNN, Guardian, Adweek, GeekWire, ABC, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, iMore, UT San Diego, iPhone in Canada Blog, BBC, Slate, Re/code, The Next Web, Ubergizmo, Mashable, The Verge, WebProNews, Yahoo Tech, CNET, Bloomberg Business, TechCrunch, Boing Boing, SBNation.com and Digital Trends. Tweets: @potus. Thanks:@buzzfeedben

Michael J. Casey / Wall Street Journal:

Bitcoin startup 21, which has raised $116M, exits stealth, unveils plans to make mining chips for smartphones and other gadgets, adds Larry Summers to board — Bitcoin Startup 21 Unveils Product Plan: Embeddable Mining Chips — The world's best-funded bitcoin startup has revealed plans …

More: Medium, PCWorld and TechCrunch

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google Drops Cloud Computing Prices By Up To 30 Percent, Launches Preemptible Instances — Google today announced yet another round of price cuts for its cloud computing platform, as well as a new instance type that will allow businesses to save even more on some of their cloud computing tasks.

More: Google Cloud Platform Blog, InfoWorld, BetaNews, ZDNet, Data Center Knowledge, Seeking Alpha, 9to5Google, Virtualization Review, VentureBeat and StorageReview.com

Bloomberg Business:

Uber Joins Baidu as Nokia's Maps Unit Draws Multiple Bidders — Uber Technologies Inc. is teaming up with Baidu Technologies Inc. and Apax Partners to pursue Nokia Oyj's maps business, people with knowledge of the matter said, as a bidding war for the unit intensifies.

More: Search Engine Land and Seeking Alpha

Sam Rutherford / Tom's Guide:

Review of Asus Zenfone 2 smartphone with 5.5" 1080p display, 13mpx camera and Intel Atom CPU, which launches Tuesday in US, starting at $199 unlocked — Asus Zenfone 2 Review: Very Fast, Very Affordable … Phones like the Oneplus One and Alcatel Onetouch Idol 3 exposed a weakness …

More: 9to5Google, Engadget, ASUS Press Room, Android Authority, The Verge, ZDNet, TechRadar.com, Tom's Hardware Guide, GSMArena.com, mid-day, Android and Me, ExtremeTech, AnandTech, AndroidHeadlines.com, Liliputing, Mashable, Phandroid, MobileSyrup.com and Droid Life

Lizette Chapman / Wall Street Journal:

Booze On-Demand Service Drizly Lands $13 Million to Expand — Getting booze delivered from your smartphone has never been easier. — A half-dozen startups have built apps allowing users in certain cities nationwide to order alcohol and get it delivered in as little as 20 minutes.

More: PandoDaily, BetaBoston, Fortune, bizjournals, BevNET.com, Xconomy, TechCrunch, Virtual-Strategy Magazine and socalTECH.com

Brett LoGiurato / Fusion:

Politicians are using Snapchat to attract young supporters ahead of the 2016 election, presenting a challenge to regulators — Snapchat is going to be huge in 2016 — and regulators have no idea how to handle it — As he gears up for a presidential run, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley held …

Tweets: @robertfaturechi

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