Techmeme
February 16, 2016, 11:50 AM

Top News

James Vincent / The Verge:
Samsung starts pushing Android 6.0 Marshmallow update to its devices, beginning with Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge today  —  Samsung starts Android Marshmallow update with Galaxy S6 today  —  Samsung is pushing the latest version of Google's Android operating system to its mobile devices from February 15th.
John Kell / Fortune:
Mattel's ThingMaker, a 3D-printer and app enabling kids to make toys, is available for pre-order on Amazon for $299, will ship this fall  —  Mattel Is Using 3D Printing to Resurrect An Old Hit  —  Mattel kicked off New York Toy Fair with a big announcement: the world's largest toy maker …
Reuters:
Apple Pay to go live in China on Feb 18  —  Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) Apple Pay mobile payment system will be available in China from Feb. 18 for Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC) (601398.SS)(1398.HK) customers, bank representatives said in social media posts on Tuesday.
Pavel Alpeyev / Bloomberg Business:
Vaio owner says it aims to strike three-way merger deal with the PC units of Toshiba and Fujitsu by March's end, focusing on Japan market at first  —  Vaio Near Deal With Toshiba, Fujitsu to Form Japan PC Giant  —  Sony's PC spinoff aims to strike a merger deal by March's end
Daniel Rubino / Windows Central:
The end of MixRadio as LINE quietly kills off music streaming service  —  After a whirlwind ride through many owners the latest one - LINE - has just posted a late-night press release noting that the company is shuttering the doors on the popular music streaming service MixRadio.
Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Apple Uses Dr. Dre Video, Other TV Production as Apple Music Marketing  —  Wait a minute: After years of anticipation, Apple finally made its entry into the TV business, and the rest of the world ... shrugged?  —  Well, yes.  But also, no.  —  Because it's interesting — but not that interesting.
Steve Ragan / CSO:
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center's network down for more than a week after ransomware attack; hackers demand $3.6M  —  Ransomware takes Hollywood hospital offline, $3.6M demanded by attackers  —  Network has been offline fore more than a week, $3.6 million demanded as ransom
LG Newsroom:
LG details its Stylus 2 smartphone: 5.7 inch display, 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, 1.5GB RAM, 13 MP rear camera, 8 MP front camera, will be unveiled at MWC 2016  —  ALL NEW LG STYLUS 2 TO MAKE FIRST PUBLIC APPEARANCE AT MWC 2016  —  Enhanced Stylus Pen Offers Easy Note Taking and Drawing Experience
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
Giphy closes $55M Series C at a $300M post-money valuation led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, though the service is not yet monetizing  —  Giphy Closes $55 Million Series C At A $300 Million Post-Money Valuation  —  Giphy, the Google of GIFs, has closed a $55 million Series C funding round at a valuation of $300 million post-money.
John Markoff / New York Times:
How software designers are grappling with creating a computer voice that people like, which is as much an art as it is a science  —  Creating a Computer Voice That People Like  —  When computers speak, how human should they sound?  —  This was a question that a team of six IBM linguists …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work  —  Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.
Zoho:
The quiet power of email marketing to maximize impact for nonprofits  —  A life changed.  A problem solved.  A community strengthened.  A future made a little better than it was yesterday.For nonprofits, that's the metric.
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.
WebBrain:
WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser  —  Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox.  Use local models or your preferred AI provider.  Get started free.

Featured Podcasts

Sources:
A quiet investor's $10 billion bet on AI, chips, and defense
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Cheeky Pint:
The company building America's uranium supply from scratch
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Grit:
The Difference Between 1% Improvements and 10x Growth | Immad Akhund
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
How a 19-year-old intern built the growth engine behind this $2B AI company | Hector Serrano
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
Big Tech's Ugly Week, Getting Rich At Anthropic, AI Costs Plunge
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.
Machine Gods:
OpenAI's Latest Discoveries Spark a Backlash + Help! My Kid Hates AI
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:50 AM ET, February 16, 2016.

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

Matt Kinne / Phone Probe:

Earlier Picks

Andrew Liszewski / Gizmodo:
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Fitz Tepper / TechCrunch: