Techmeme
May 21, 2014, 12:55 PM

Top News

Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
SEC filing says Google could serve ads to thermostats, cars, refrigerators, and other devices; Google says language does not reflect its product roadmap  —  Google Predicts Ads in Odd Spots Like Thermostats  —  Advertising may be coming to your thermostat and lots of other strange places, courtesy of Google.
Loek Essers / Computerworld:
Google plans international acquisitions worth up to $30B, it tells SEC  —  Google passed on a potential acquisition of a non-U.S. company worth up to $5 billion, it said  —  Google plans to spend $20 billion to $30 billion of its of its accumulated international profits to fund potential acquisitions …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
eBay Advises Users To Change Passwords Following Cyberattack, “Large Number” Of Users Affected  —  Following an odd blog post which appeared overnight and then was quickly taken down which alerted eBay users to reset their passwords, eBay has now published its official statement informing …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Adds Shazam-Style Audio Recognition To Help You Automatically Tag Posts With TV Shows And Songs  —  Facebook has a new weapon in the battle against Twitter to host lucrative conversations about media.  A Shazam-esque opt-in feature coming to the iOS and Android status composer …
Joshua Brustein / Businessweek:
Spotify reaches 10M paid subscribers, launches in Brazil next week, still isn't profitable  —  Streams of Tears: Why Spotify Can't Make Money  —  Daniel Ek has devoted most of his waking moments over the past few years to evangelizing about the glories of streaming music.  He's well suited to the task.
Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:
Wealth Management Startup FutureAdvisor Raises $15.5 Million  —  Looking to bring top-flight wealth management services to the middle class, FutureAdvisor has raised $15.5 million in fresh capital.  —  The round was led by new investor Canvas with participation from the company's previous investors including Sequoia Capital.
Lauren Hockenson / Gigaom:
Anonymous app Secret launches on Android and expands worldwide  —  International users will no longer have to wait to get their hands on buzzy anonymous confession app Secret, as the company announced Wednesday that the app is now available to download worldwide on both iOS and Android.
Clive Thompson / Wired:
How D-Wave began selling its quantum computer amid skepticism it was really a classical computer  —  The Age of Quantum Computing Has (Almost) Arrived  —  Google owns a  —  lot of computers—perhaps a million servers stitched together into the fastest, most powerful artificial intelligence on the planet.
Tweets: @arala
Liz Gannes / Re/code:
Airbnb Agrees to Give New York Anonymized User Data  —  Airbnb, which has already taken down 2,000 accommodation listings in New York from “bad actors,” agreed to warn all new and old hosts in the state that they may be breaking hotel laws.  —  It was part of an agreement in which the office …
Megan Geuss / Ars Technica:
California approves rules for testing self-driving cars in California  —  On Tuesday, the California DMV officially approved rules to allow the testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads.  The rules will take effect September 16, 2014.  —  The move had been a long time coming …
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Local Services Marketplace Thumbtack Raises $30 Million  —  Thumbtack, a marketplace that connects local professionals with clients, has raised a $30 million Series C round from Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management, TechCrunch has learned.  —  The startup has an original approach when it comes to local services.
Jonathan Vanian / Gigaom:
Internet performance and management company Dyn acquires Renesys  —  Dyn, the internet performance and management company Wednesday said it has bought Renesys, which provides networking information to internet service providers (ISPs).  With the acquisition, Dyn plans to launch …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Ex-Beats, Spotify Execs Debut Soundtrack Your Brand To Stream Spotify In Public Venues  —  Spotify today dominates the market for music streaming services for consumers.  Now a new startup, started by Spotify's ex-head of business development Andreas Liffgarden and co-founder of Beats Music Ola Sars …
Lisa Richwine / Reuters:
Netflix launching in France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxembourg this year  —  Netflix to launch in six European countries this year  —  (Reuters) - Netflix Inc will launch its online movie and TV subscription service later this year in France, Germany and four other European countries …
Bloomberg:
Microsoft backed off from debuting smaller Surface today, concerned it lacked differentiation  —  Microsoft Said to Back Off Plans to Debut Smaller Surface  —  Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), struggling to break into the tablet market, backed off plans to introduce a smaller version …

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