DTNS 2147 – Google Buys a Nest

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comIyaz Akhtar joins to chat about products at CES you CAN actually buy, the rise of messaging apps and Google buying Nest Labs.

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Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

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Show Notes

As I mentioned on the show today, next Thursday and Friday I’ll be shooting season 2 of Sword and Laser’s video show. So I need YOU to guest host.

Next Thursday and Friday will be special “News From You” shows. I’ll still pop in with a couple late-breaking headlines but I want to hear YOUR news reports. What’s the tech project you think isn’t getting
enough attention? What’s that point about wearables you think nobody else has mentioned? Let your voice be heard!

Here’s what you do
Record your bit as an audio file and email it to [email protected] and use the subject line NEWS FOR YOU or CALL (512) 593-2459 that’s (512) 59-DAILY. If we get it by 3 PM Eastern/11 AM Pacific Thursday morning, we’ll consider it for that day’s show. Same thing for Friday.

More show notes:

Google buys Nest for $3.2 billion: Always thought hip thermostat-maker Nest was Apple-like? Well think again. The Next Web reports Google just announced it has acquired Nest Labs for $3.2 billion. Nest will maintain a separate brand identity and Tony Fadell, who worked on the original iPod, will continue to lead the company.Fadell said Google will help Nest “change the world faster than we ever could if we continued to go it alone.” Google Ventures was an early investor in Nest.

Facebook purchases Branch:  According to CNET, Facebook has purchased Branch, a social topic discussion forum backed by Obvious Corp, the incubator owned by Twitter co-creators Evan Williams and Biz Stone. The news broke earliest on Jelly, the questions app launched by Biz Stone at CES. The Verge has sources that say Facebook paid around $15 million. Branch’s nine-person team will become Facebook Conversations, based in New York.

News From You:

Space X wins contract with Japanese satellite company: habichuelacondulce sent us a report from Bloomberg BusinessWeek that SpaceX has won a contract with Japan’s SKY Perfect JSAT Corp. to launch a telecommunications satellite in 2015. The satellite will replace an existing satellite, providing coverage to Asia, Russia, Oceania and the Pacific Islands.

Amazon most highly regarded brand in the US, according to YouGove Brand Index: spsheridan points us to a Business Insider story about the latest rankings from the YouGove Brand Index showing Amazon was the most highly regarded brand in the US last year, stealing the top spot from the Sandwhich-artists at Subway. Most tech companies took a dive not he chart after the Snwoden spying leaks implicated them. YouTube at 6 and Amazon’s Kindle at 10 were the only other tech brands int he top 10.

Virginia Court of Appeals orders Yelp to reveal names of negative reviewers:  WhoEver63 posted a BBC story about the Virginia Court of Appeals ordering Yelp to reveal the names of anonymous negative reviewers of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning. The judge said users have the right to express themselves anonymously, but added “If the reviewer was never a customer of the business, then the review is not an opinion; instead the review is based on a false statement.” The court believes Mr. Hadeed has provided sufficient reason to believe the reviewers were not customers. Yelp disagrees.

More links from the show: 

17 CES gadgets you can actually buy this year:

http://ces.cnet.com/2300-35294_1-10019396.html

Paris taxi drivers stage protest against Uber: 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/13/idUS327484426620140113

New Windows OS to ship April 2015:

http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/threshold-be-called-windows-9-ship-april-2015

WordPress founder moves into CEO role at parent company Automattic: 

http://recode.net/2014/01/13/matt-mullenweg-shifts-into-ceo-role-at-automattic/

Flurry Analytics released datashowing overall app use grew 115% year over year in 2013:

http://blog.flurry.com/bid/103601/Mobile-Use-Grows-115-in-2013-Propelled-by-Messaging-Apps

Dropbox outage Friday night caused by buggy OS upgrade: 

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/dropbox-messed-up-os-upgrade-caused-two-days-of-downtime/

EA makes a version of Sim City playable offline: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25715010