Techmeme
December 3, 2015, 12:30 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: YouTube seeks streaming rights for TV shows and movies to support its new subscription service Red  —  YouTube Seeks Streaming Rights to TV Shows, Movies  —  Efforts come as YouTube looks to bolster $9.99-a-month subscription service called Red  —  YouTube is seeking streaming rights …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Uber unveils SPOT, a LED color-coded lighting system that helps passengers and drivers find one another easily, available in Seattle only for now  —  Uber color coding experiment promises smoother pickups  —  If you've ever used a ridesharing service, you've probably had that moment where you had to guess which car was your ride.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Yahoo revamps Messenger with group messaging, ability to unsend and like messages, send GIFs, and more, now available on iOS, Android, and the Web  —  Yahoo finally relaunches Messenger as an app aimed at families and groups  —  When Marissa Mayer became CEO of Yahoo in 2012 …
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple's Swift programming language is now open source  —  As promised earlier in the year, Apple's Swift team has now posted source code for the Swift compiler and standard library functions and objects.  Open-sourcing Swift is a big win for the developer community as it means Swift …
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Sources: Andy Rubin has tried to recruit personnel to help build a new Android phone company  —  For Andy Rubin, Android Comes Calling Again  —  Andy Rubin, the father of Google's Android smartphone operating system, has recently talked about getting back in the Android phone business after more than two years away from it.
Moxie Marlinspike / Open Whisper Systems:
Open Whisper Systems releases Signal Desktop in beta, available through Chrome Web Store, links to Android devices only for now  —  Signal Desktop  —  Today we're making the Signal Desktop beta available.  Signal Desktop brings the trusted private messaging experience of Signal to the desktop …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
BlueStacks hits over 109M downloads, 1B apps used per month, now supports multiple simultaneous Android apps on Windows  —  BlueStacks hits a billion apps used per month and launches new mobile platform  —  In 2011, BlueStacks was a small company when it debuted its virtualization platform …
More: The Verge and iMore.  Thanks:@akanksha1105
Dina Bass / Bloomberg Business:
Steve Ballmer: Microsoft should disclose profit margins and sales for its cloud and hardware businesses, not just the run rate  —  Microsoft Should Disclose Cloud Revenue, Margins, Ballmer Says  —  Former CEO says the company should provide hardware metrics  —  Ballmer comments at Microsoft's annual shareholder meeting
Lora Kolodny / Wall Street Journal:
Institutionalization of seed investing, and higher volume of startups, have seen seed funds increase from $100K-$250K in early 2000s to $1M-$4M today  —  Venture Investors on the New Normal in Seed Funding … As growth-stage valuations in tech startups have ballooned recently …
More: VatorNews
Alastair Sharp / Reuters:
Canada's national police force to create a cyber crime team with 40 new positions by 2020 at a cost of $22.5M  —  Canada's national police force launching cyber crime unit  —  Canada's national police force said on Wednesday it would create a team of cyber crime investigators …
More: Engadget
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
KGI: 4-inch iPhone resembling iPhone 5S with A9 chip, curved glass edges, Apple Pay, and more, to launch early 2016  —  New A9-Based 4-Inch iPhone Expected to Launch Early 2016 With Apple Pay and Colorful Metal Casing  —  KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a research note corroborating rumors …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: potential bidders for a Yahoo sale include Verizon, IAC/InterActive, with News Corp and Time Inc. likely interested in pieces of Yahoo  —  Bidders Emerge for Yahoo's Internet Business  —  Potential buyers range from media and telecom giants to private-equity firms
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google finishes porting Songza's features to Google Play Music and will shut down Songza on January 31  —  Google will shut down Songza on January 31, 2016  —  Google today announced the Songza website and app will be killed off on January 31, 2016.  The Google Play Music team …

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