Techmeme: Apple releases iTunes 12.4, brings back left sidebar, but doesn't address core issues with navigation and possibly makes it worse (Jacob Kastrenakes/The Verge)

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May 17, 2016, 10:30 AM

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Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:

Source: Twitter will stop counting photos and links in the 140-character limit as soon as within next two weeks — Company said to make the change in next couple of weeks — CEO Jack Dorsey aims to make it easier to compose tweets — Twitter Inc. will soon stop counting photos and links …

More: Inquirer, Recode, Vox, Business Insider, Softpedia News, Computerworld, Social Media Today, The Atlantic, Engadget, Tech Times, International Business Times, TechCrunch, I4U News, Silicon Republic, Fone Arena, The Hill, SiliconANGLE, MacRumors, Ars Technica UK, TechSpot, The Technology Chronicles, The Verge, Digital Trends, Daily Mail, BBC, 9to5Mac, Tubefilter, PhoneDog.com, Slate, TIME, Neowin, Marketing Land, Investor's Business Daily, Gizmodo, SlashGear, VatorNews, Android Police, iPhone in Canada Blog, Daring Fireball, USA Today, New York Magazine, Tech Insider, Android Authority, Mashable, Refinery29, SiliconBeat, CBS San Francisco, Cult of Mac, BGR, AppAdvice.com Latest, MobileSyrup.com, Quartz, Droid Life, CBS New York, PCWorld, SocialTimes, The Next Web, Insanely Great Mac, Windows Central, The Daily Dot, VentureBeat and BuzzFeed

Tweets: @blacknerd, @amiibojason, @benthompson, @dannysullivan, @joshconstine, @jandawson, @eliothiggins, @norm, @elakdawalla, @robinwauters, @ashleymayer, @dangraziano and @mikeisaac

See also Mediagazer

Mark Harris / Backchannel:

Otto, founded by ex-Google engineers, exits stealth to sell self-driving kits for retrofitting semi-trailers — A group of ex-Google engineers have just launched Otto, an autonomous trucking startup — Otto's first vehicle is twice as long and six times as heavy as Google's cute prototype car …

More: New York Times, The Verge, Official Otto Blog, BBC, BGR, 9to5Google, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, The Next Web, Wired, Brad Ideas, Associated Press, ReadWrite, Roadshow, TechCrunch and Gizmodo

Tweets: @pkoonce, @nytimesbusiness, @stevenlevy and @meharris

Wayne Cunningham / Roadshow:

NXP unveils BlueBox, a computing platform for helping automakers test and develop self-driving features, currently being tested by four major automakers

More: Digital Trends, VentureBeat, Tech Times, NXP Semiconductors, Forbes, ZDNet and EE Times

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

MCX postpones rollout of Apple Pay rival CurrentC, lays off 30, will focus on bank deals — As merchants like Walmart move aheadon their own mobile payment strategies, a consortium that once counted Walmart — along with a number of other big retailers and brands — behind it, has taken a step back.

More: iMore, BGR, Digital Trends, 9to5Mac, MacNN, NFC World+, SlashGear, Business Wire, ZDNet, Recode, Cult of Mac, PhoneDog.com, Daring Fireball, iPhone Hacks, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Engadget, Finextra Research news, PYMNTS.com and The Verge

Tweets: @mgsiegler, @glennf and @mdudas

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

Blockchain announces Thunder, an alternative network for enabling fast off-blockchain transactions that settle against the bitcoin blockchain at a later date — Blockchain, the company behind the world's most popular bitcoin wallet, has been quietly working on an interesting project called Thunder.

More: Blockchain Blog, PYMNTS.com, CCN, Bitcoinist.net, The Merkle, Blockchain Blog and CoinDesk

Tweets: @amyxiot, @christianlanng, @karlchappe and @naval

David Voreacos / Bloomberg:

Ukrainian hacker admits stealing 150K press releases from newswire services to help criminal network make $30M from insider trading — Hacker, 28, broke into network after stealing user credentials — First hacker convicted in conspiracy to steal 150,000 releases

More: U.S. Department of Justice, Inquirer, Business Insider and The Register. See also Mediagazer

New York Times:

China is quietly requiring foreign tech companies to submit their products to security reviews — HONG KONG — Chinese authorities are quietly scrutinizing technology products sold in China by Apple and other big foreign companies, focusing on whether they pose potential security threats …

More: Business Insider, Cult of Mac, The Verge, Softpedia News, Neowin, Patently Apple, AppleInsider, MacRumors, MacRumors, 9to5Mac and TechCrunch

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:

Fire TV gets new Alexa voice features, including app launching and restaurant searches — Amazon is giving TV viewers a few more, not-crazy reasons to talk back to their TVs. After bringing the functionality to various properties, opening it to third-party hardware and letting developers get a crack at it …

More: Amazon.com, The Verge, VentureBeat, Engadget and Android Central. Tweets: @brianroemmele

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

Microsoft and SAP expand partnership: Office 365 integrations, HANA on Azure — Microsoft is announcing today that it has deepened its partnership with fellow enterprise software vendor SAP. The HANA in-memory database from SAP will become available on top of Microsoft's Azure public cloud on top of machines packed densely with RAM.

More: TechCrunch, ZDNet, InfoWorld, Microsoft, Business Wire, Bloomberg and IT Community News

Wall Street Journal:

Inside the Final Days of LendingClub CEO Renaud Laplanche — The allegations around Mr. Laplanche also raise tough questions for the fast-growing fintech industry — On April 22, LendingClub Corp. founder and Chief Executive Renaud Laplanche took the stage at a New York ceremony …

More: Business Insider and FT Alphaville

Noah Buhayar / Bloomberg:

In regulatory filing, LendingClub discloses grand jury subpoena from US Department of Justice following CEO resignation May 9

More: Bloomberg, Business Insider, CNBC, SEC, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Seeking Alpha and StreetInsider.com. Tweets: @jonerlichman

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

Apple releases iTunes 12.4, brings back left sidebar, but doesn't address core issues with navigation and possibly makes it worse — Apple knows that the iTunes interface is extremely confusing and needs work. But apparently its solution is to add even more menus.

More: iMore, Computerworld, Apple Support, TechSpot, AppleInsider, iMore, Neowin, Engadget, AppleInsider, InvestorPlace, MacStories, The Next Web, MacRumors and 9to5Mac

Tweets: @craigmod, @joshconstine, @reckless and @kylebrussell

Nick Statt / The Verge:

SoundHound adds Houndify virtual voice assistant to its app for music search and controls — The SoundHound mobile app, which can listen for and identify music it hears through your smartphone speakers, is getting a huge artificial intelligence upgrade. Starting today, the app …

More: VentureBeat, Digital Trends, Engadget, MacStories and Mashable

Matt McFarland / Washington Post:

Computer science professor successfully used IBM's Watson to make an AI teaching assistant for answering questions online — To help with his class this spring, a Georgia Tech professor hired Jill Watson, a teaching assistant unlike any other in the world.

More: SiliconANGLE. Tweets: @pourmecoffee

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

BBC confirms work on a streaming service, plans to close or downscale a number of online properties like Food, News Mag, Travel, local news index — While the BBC is planning to take on Netflix by building its own “Britflix” on-demand video streaming service, on the news front …

More: BBC Press Office, Engadget, The Independent, Forbes and Telegraph. Thanks:@ingridlunden. See also Mediagazer

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