Techmeme
September 29, 2016, 1:55 PM

Top News

Financial Times:
Sources: Spotify is in advanced talks to acquire SoundCloud after its two earlier attempts proved unsuccessful  —  Spotify, the music streaming service, is in advanced talks to acquire SoundCloud, as competition heats up with Apple for the future of digital music, said people briefed on the discussions.
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
KGI: ‘Increasing likelihood’ iPhone 8 will feature glass front and back, stainless steel metal for premium models  —  Reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities has released a new report further forecasting that the 2017 iPhone will likely adopt and glass front and back design like the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s.
Harry Shum / The Official Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft consolidates multiple groups to create new combined AI and Research group, which will include Bing and Cortana teams  —  This week at Microsoft Ignite, we showed how we are infusing artificial intelligence (AI) broadly across Microsoft to help our customers.
Recode:
Sources: Qi Lu, Microsoft's EVP of applications and services, is leaving the company due to health issues; Corporate VP Rajesh Jha to assume many of Lu's duties  —  Rajesh Jha will assume many of Lu's responsibilities  —  Longtime Microsoft executive Qi Lu is leaving the company following medical issues …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Skype iOS app updated with Siri and CallKit support, allowing incoming calls to be displayed and answered on lock screen  —  Skype today updated its iOS app to version 6.25, adding support for new features that were introduced with iOS 10.  Skype now integrates with Siri …
Roger Parloff / Fortune:
Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft launch Partnership on AI, a nonprofit to advance best practices in AI; the group isn't intended to lobby government  —  Five tech giants announced on Wednesday that they are launching a nonprofit to “advance public understanding” …
Akin Oyedele / Business Insider:
Report: Qualcomm is in talks to acquire NXP Semiconductors in deal likely to be worth over $30B  —  Qualcomm is in talks to buy NXP Semiconductors, according to Eyk Henning, Dana Mattioli and Dana Cimilluca over at The Wall Street Journal.  —  Qualcomm is worth $95 billion, while NXP has market cap of $32 billion.
Michael Kan / PCWorld:
Security firm InfoArmor says hackers-for-hire, not state-sponsored actors, breached Yahoo, and have sold the entire database three times, once for $300K+  —  Elite hackers-for-hire were actually behind the breach, according to InfoArmor  —  Common criminals, not state-sponsored hackers …
John Voorhees / MacStories:
Apple says Search Ads will go live in the App Store on October 5, offers developers $100 credit towards first campaign  —  First announced at WWDC in June and beta-tested over the Summer, Apple launched Search Ads for iOS apps today.  The ads will appear at the top of App Store customers …

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More News

Yuji Nakamura / Bloomberg:
James Rufus Koren / Los Angeles Times:

Earlier Picks

Lauren Goode / The Verge:
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Julia Love / Reuters: