Techmeme
July 15, 2014, 9:40 AM

Top News

Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft likely to announce job cuts this week; may be biggest restructuring in its history  —  Microsoft Said to Announce Job Cuts as Soon as This Week  —  Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is planning its biggest round of job cuts in five years, as the software maker looks to slim …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft plans holiday assault on Chromebooks with $199 HP laptop, $249 laptops from Acer and Toshiba  —  Microsoft launches a price assault on Chromebooks  —  Microsoft is aiming straight for Google's Chromebooks this holiday season.  At the company's partner conference today …
Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:
Nest and Samsung launch Thread, a wireless mesh standard for the smart home  —  Samsung, ARM, Nest and four other companies have gotten together to build a new radio standard for the smart home.  Dubbed Thread, it is a low-power, mesh network protocol that also supports IPv6.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple debuts iTunes Pass in Japan, allows Passbook-based iTunes credit refills at Apple Stores  —  Apple today has launched an interesting new service for iTunes Store, App Store, and iBookstore users in Japan with iPhones and iPod touches.  The new service, called iTunes Pass (no …
Daniela Hernandez / Wired:
Microsoft says its deep learning project “Adam” is faster than Google Brain in benchmark test  —  Microsoft Challenges Google's Artificial Brain With ‘Project Adam’  —  Microsoft's new artificial intelligence system, Project Adam, can identify images, including photos of a particular breed of dog.
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Data Breaches in New York Hit Record High in 2013, State Attorney General Says  —  Last year was a record-setting one for the state of New York — and not in a good way.  —  Public and private institutions in New York experienced more than 900 data breaches in 2013, according to a report released …
More: Tech Times
Todd Hoff / High Scalability:
Bitly: Lessons Learned Building a Distributed System that Handles 6 Billion Clicks a Month  —  Have you ever wondered how bitly makes money?  A URL shortener can't be that hard to write, right?  Sean O'Connor, Lead Application Developer at bitly, answers the how can bitly possibly …
Tweets: @jewelia
Glenn Greenwald / The Intercept:
GCHQ developed tools to manipulate online polls, inflate pageviews, censor videos, more  —  Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet  —  The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information …
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Seattle legalizes Uber, Lyft to operate without caps  —  Transportation startups like UberX, Lyft, and Sidecar will finally be able to legally operate in Seattle.  The City Council today voted 8-1 to approve legislation that provides a new regulatory framework for the San Francisco-based startups …
More: CNET and PandoDaily
Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:
Dish Anywhere streaming stays alive, despite Fox's win over Aereo  —  Appellate court denies Fox's request to impose a preliminary injunction.  —  A federal appeals court has denied Fox's bid to immediately shut down the Dish Anywhere streaming platform.  The United States Court of Appeals …
Ellen Emmerentze Jervell / Wall Street Journal:
Swedish author and his bot created 2.7M Wikipedia articles; some editors object to methods  —  For This Author, 10,000 Wikipedia Articles Is a Good Day's Work  —  In Sweden, Sverker Johansson and His ‘Bot’ Have Created 2.7 Million Articles; Some Purists Complain
Secret / Medium:
Secret raises $25M series B, launches ‘Collections’ feature and anonymous Facebook login  —  Onward  —  The next six months  —  Six months into growing and evolving Secret, our community has shown us how much demand there is for a social network centered around honest conversations.
Aldrin Calimlim / App Advice:
PayPal for iOS now lets you carry virtual versions of your loyalty cards  —  PayPal has just updated its flagship iOS app with a major new feature and a couple of welcome improvements.  —  In September last year, just ahead of the launch of iOS 7, PayPal for iOS was updated with a new design …
Matt Burns / TechCrunch:
ScribbleLive Acquires CoveritLive, Will Still Operate Both Brands  —  Once bitter rivals ScribbleLive and CoveritLive are now family.  Scribble Technologies is today announcing the acquisition of CoveritLive from Demand Media, effectively bringing two of the largest live content creation companies under one roof.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
Zoho Books now enables direct VAT filing with EmaraTax  —  We're excited to announce that Zoho Books is now recognised as a Digital Tax Integrator by the Federal Tax Authority, enabling direct VAT return filing from within your favorite accounting software.
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.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Tim Apple's Very Bad Week
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Jeffrey Katzenberg & Sujay Jaswa (WndrCo) on What Startup Founders Can Steal From Hollywood
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Hard Fork:
Google DeepMind C.E.O. Demis Hassabis on Living in an A.I. Future
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
BG2 Pod:
AI, Middle East, China, Tariffs, Recon Bill, Invest America
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is okay with reinventing the bus
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
Unconventional product lessons from Binance, N26, Google, more | Mayur Kamat (CPO at N26, ex-Binance Head of Product)
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:40 AM ET, July 15, 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.

More News

Jack Schofield / ZDNet:

Earlier Picks

Alina Selyukh / Reuters:
Stephen Hall / 9to5Google:
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider: