Google Buys a Nest

Google Buys a Nest
Number	2147
Broadcast Date	JANUARY 13, 2014
Episode Length	27:41
Hosts	Tom Merritt
Guests	Iyaz Akhtar

Iyaz Akhtar joins to chat about products at CES you CAN actually buy, the rise of messaging apps and Google buying Nest Labs.

Guest

• Iyaz Akhtar
• @iyaz

Headlines

• 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

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.

Submitted by: habichuelacondulce

• Amazon most highly regarded brand in the US, according to YouGove Brand Index

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.

Submitted by: spsheridan

• Virginia Court of Appeals orders Yelp to reveal names of negative reviewers

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.

Submitted by: WhoEver63

Discussion

• 17 CES gadgets you can actually buy this year
• Paris taxi drivers stage protest against Uber
• New Windows OS to ship April 2015
• WordPress founder moves into CEO role at parent company Automattic
• Flurry Analytics released datashowing overall app use grew 115% year over year in 2013
• Dropbox outage Friday night caused by buggy OS upgrade
• EA makes a version of Sim City playable offline

Links

• http://www.dailytechnewsshow.com/dtns-2147-google-buys-a-nest/
• patreon.com/acedtect
• subreddit

Preceded by: "Curved is better than flat"

Google Buys a Nest

Followed by: "Is Net Neutrality Dead?"