Techmeme: Developer preview test for Android L's Project Volta shows promise, 2 hours or 35% more battery life on Nexus 5 (Ron Amadeo/Ars Technica)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise

July 2, 2014, 1:10 PM

Top News

R. Jai Krishna / Wall Street Journal:

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg apologizes for poorly communicating controversial News Feed study: “We never meant to upset you” — Sandberg: Facebook Study Was ‘Poorly Communicated’ — Facebook 's psychological experiment on nearly 700,000 unwitting users was communicated “poorly …

More: Telegraph, Mercury News, SiliconBeat, The Next Web, Guardian, Business Insider, TIME, NDTV News, Forbes, USA Today, ROUGH TYPE, PandoDaily, Mashable, Times of India and Press Association

Tweets: @astepanovich, @nycjim and @dangillmor

Jillian Ward / Bloomberg:

Facebook's News Feed Experiment Probed by U.K. Regulators

More: The Register, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, New York Times, bizjournals, WebProNews, iMore, Gigaom, Ubergizmo, Engadget, Reuters, The Next Web, CNET and The Laboratorium

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Developer preview test for Android L's Project Volta shows promise, 2 hours or 35% more battery life on Nexus 5 — Examining Project Volta: We put Android L through our battery test — For each Android release, Google likes to have a “Project” that picks an area of weakness and focuses on tuning the whole OS to fix it.

More: BGR, Gigaom, Android Beat, Redmond Pie, TechnoBuffalo, Geeky Gadgets, Geek.com, SlashGear, Business Insider and Android Police

Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:

Investor Tim Draper wins auction for 29,655 bitcoins seized from Silk Road, partners with Vaurum to leverage the pool as a liquidity source in emerging markets — Famed investor Tim Draper wins auction of Silk Road's 29,655 bitcoins — Draper to partner with Vaurum, which offers “secure storage solutions” to banks.

More: New York Times, Medium, Re/code, Gigaom, PandoDaily, Fortune, TechCrunch, CoinDesk, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Wired, TIME, On Bitcoin and NEWSBTC

Tweets: @boostvc and @adamdraper

Cindy Cohn / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Flawed Oversight Board Report Endorses General Warrants — The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) issued a legally flawed and factually incomplete report late Tuesday that endorses Section 702 surveillance. Hiding behind the “complexity” of the technology …

More: Computerworld, The Verge, Techdirt, Alexander B. Howard, Re/code, Softpedia News, Reuters, Nextgov, Guardian, Mashable and Inquirer. Tweets: @matt_cagle

Julian Hattem / The Hill:

Federal privacy watchdog finds NSA programs targeting foreigners are effective, legal and show “no trace” of “illegitimate activity”

More: Forbes, Bloomberg, Associated Press and Wired.co.uk

Tweets: @the_intercept and @granick

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Source: Google paid more than $39M for Songza — Google Buys Songza, a Playlist Service for Any Occasion — In a sign of growing consolidation in the digital music business, Google announced on Tuesday that it had bought Songza, a three-year-old app that competes with Pandora and others …

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Google acquires music streaming service Songza for undisclosed amount, will keep product intact for now

Mariella Moon / Engadget:

Chumby's smart alarm clock relaunches with 1,000 apps — Remember Chumby? You probably haven't heard much about the snuggly tiny computer/smart alarm clock since its makers' company disbanded, but now it's back from its semi-retired state. Its current owner, Blue Octy LLC …

More: The Verge, Connectedly, Geeky Gadgets and Liliputing. Tweets: @chumby

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers raises $1.2B: $450M for flagship early-stage fund, $750M for digital growth fund — Exclusive: Kleiner Perkins raises $1.2 billion — Kleiner Perkins has no trouble raising a pair of new venture capital funds. Venerable venture capital firm Kleiner …

More: VentureBeat

Hitesh Arora / NDTV Gadgets:

Google Discontinues SMS for Hangouts; Might Integrate Google Voice Soon — Google on Monday has updated that it is discontinuing SMS for Google Hangouts feature for Web from July 2. Up till now the feature was available for India, Pakistan, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Congo and many other countries from Africa and Asia.

More: Gizmodo, Google Operating System, Gigaom, Google Operating System, Droid Life, The Next Web and AndroidGuys

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

BlaBlaCar Raises A Massive $100 Million Round To Create A Global Long Distance Ride-Sharing Network — In what is the largest VC round in a French startup of all time, BlaBlaCar just raised a $100 million round led by Index Ventures, with existing investors Accel Partners, ISAI and Lead Edge Capital also participating in the round.

More: VatorNews, Gigaom, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, PE Hub Blog, Re/code, VentureBeat, CNET, Skift, New York Times, Guardian, Rude Baguette, Webrazzi, PandoDaily, Tnooz and Engadget

Tweets: @scottmaustin and @robinklein

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

An Upper Limit For Apps? New Data Suggests Consumers Only Use Around Two Dozen Apps Per Month — There are now well over a million mobile applications in both Google Play and the iTunes App Store alike, and growth of those app marketplaces shows no sign of slowing down.

More: asymco.com, ZDNet, Technologizer, 9to5Mac, MacDailyNews and TIME

Husain Sumra / MacRumors:

Apple Launches $49 Mac Pro Security Lock Adapter in Online Store — Apple today launched a new $49 Mac Pro Security Lock Adapter in its online store, offering users of the new Mac Pro a way to easily secure their machines using existing Kensington locks. Previously, users had to resort …

More: iMore, Softpedia News, SlashGear, AppleInsider, iPhone in Canada Blog, 9to5Mac and App Advice

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

Facebook's new type of ad in India lets users place a ‘missed call’ for more information — Facebook faces several challenges in emerging markets. The company has to find ways for people to access its platform by maneuvering around limitations which include a widespread use of feature phones …

More: Facebook, VentureBeat, AllFacebook, Quartz, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Windows Phone Central, The Drum, SocialTimes and Mashable

TechCrunch:

Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don't Store Personal Data In Russia — The Russian government has moved one step closer towards a “China-like” approach towards Internet services. — Last night, the Russian State Duma (parliament) passed the first bill requiring that the personal data …

More: Gigaom, VentureBeat, The Voice of Russia, News, theWHIR.com, Geek.com, Geeky Gadgets and Ubergizmo

Ian Austen / New York Times:

Canadian antispam law goes into effect, resulting in a flurry of ‘please opt in’ emails — Canadian Antispam Law Whips Up a Storm of Last-Minute Messages — OTTAWA — The email has all the markings of malicious spam: an overwrought subject line screaming “Urgent Action Required …

More: Toronto Star, Craig Addy, Marketing Pilgrim, CAUCE, Financial Post, natlawreview.com, Ottawa Citizen, Politico, Canadian Business, Rachel Rodgers Law Office, Slate and Michael Geist Blog

Soma Somasegar / MSDN Blogs:

Microsoft acquires SyntaxTree, creator of UnityVS plugin for Visual Studio — Game developers build the apps that hundreds of millions of users play every day across a wide variety of devices, from Xbox and Windows to iOS, Android and the Web. Games are the most popular application type …

More: ZDNet and Develop Feed

Bloomberg:

Shutterfly Said to Hire Qatalyst to Seek Buyers for Site — Shutterfly Inc. (SFLY), which turns digital photos into printed albums, is working with boutique investment bank Qatalyst Partners to find buyers for the company, according to people familiar with the matter.

More: SiliconBeat

Nicholas Stango / Gizmodo:

Inside the Secret Building That's Bringing Cell Service To NYC's Subway — As Hurricane Sandy revealed almost two years ago, New York's 100-year-old subway is not a modern and robust system. In fact, compared to other cities, it's downright dirty, unpredictable and technologically behind.

More: ANIMAL

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Tinder CEO's Internal Memo Says Harassment Complaint Is Inaccurate — TechCrunch has obtained an internal memo sent from Tinder CEO Sean Rad to employees in the wake of a new lawsuit waged against the company. The lawsuit focuses on the relationship between Whitney Wolfe …

More: VentureBeat, VatorNews, Valleywag, Gawker, Slate, USA Today and Washington Post

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Amazon sues former employee for taking Google cloud job, in new test of non-compete deals — Amazon is suing a former Amazon Web Services strategic partnerships manager, Zoltan Szabadi, alleging that his new job at Google Cloud Platform violates the terms of a non-compete agreement that he signed when he originally joined Amazon.

More: CNET, Gigaom, The Register, SlashGear, VentureBeat, Business Insider and 9to5Google

Tweets: @ywxwy and @adamnash

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Austrian Tor Exit Node Operator Found Guilty As An Accomplice Because Someone Used His Node To Commit A crime — Three years ago we wrote about how Austrian police had seized computers from someone running a Tor exit node. This kind of thing happens from time to time …

More: Blackout Austria and Electronic Frontier Foundation

Sponsor Posts

Termina:

AI Powered Diligence at Scale — VCs and founders deploy Termina AI Scans on >12% of all known series A+ deals to uncover hidden risks and opportunities. Explore how you too can invest and build better companies with AI.

Intel:

Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking — With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs. Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.

Zoho:

Gamification: A simple way to enjoy getting more work done — Work doesn't have to be boring. Gamification transforms everyday tasks into exciting challenges, making employees feel more engaged and motivated.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:

E2EE For All!

The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.

Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.

Sponsor this podcast

Decoder with Nilay Patel:

Why Trump can't be trusted with Congress' new anti-deepfake bill

A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.

Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.

Lenny's Podcast:

Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months--one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz)

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.

The Logan Bartlett Show:

Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen Breaks Down the Global Impact of Trump's New Tariffs

A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.

Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.

Generative Now:

Dan Shipper: The First MultiModal Media Company

A podcast from Lightspeed dedicated to highlighting the stories, strategies and insights behind today's most exciting AI companies.

Subscribe to Generative Now.

Spotlight On:

Nebius's Arkady Volozh on What it Takes to Build Infrastructure Needed for the AI Era

A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.

Subscribe to Spotlight On.

Add your postcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:10 PM ET, July 2, 2014.

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.