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Re/wind: Uber Exec Says Really Dumb Thing, Snapchatting Money and More
Plus the latest Apple news and Barbie’s latest bungle.
If you missed some news from this week, don’t sweat it — here are the headlines that powered Re/code:
- On Monday night, BuzzFeed reported that Uber executive Emil Michael floated the idea of hiring a team of researchers to investigate the private lives of critics in the media, specifically mentioning smearing PandoDaily editor-in-chief Sarah Lacy. Of course, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick immediately distanced himself and the company from Michael’s remarks (but stopped short of firing him). We discussed whether Kalanick should’ve canned the guy, talked to Sarah Lacy about her criticisms of the company and explained why snooping on user data isn’t just a problem with Uber. BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith maintained his Uber scoop didn’t require a disclosure, and Uber was all anybody could talk about at Goldman Sachs’ annual Las Vegas technology conference. Also, Re/code senior editor Liz Gannes looked at what separates Uber from, say, fellow Silicon Valley darling Airbnb.
- Snapchat broke into the mobile payments game on Monday when it unveiled a new partnership with Square that will enable Snapchat users to send each other money. It’s called Snapcash.
- In Apple news, the company pulled back the curtain on its iAd automated advertising platform. We looked at the newest Gorilla Glass offering from Apple supplier Corning, and Re/code co-executive editor Walt Mossberg traced the rise of the Mac. Sony scrapped its plans for a Steve Jobs movie, Apple’s $450 million e-book settlement was approved by a federal judge, and if you want to know how to use the iCloud photo library, then read this. Oh, and Apple received a perfect “workplace inclusion” score from the Human Rights Campaign.
- Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani penned a guest column for Re/code on the recent sexist screw-up from the makers of Barbie, and the work she’s doing to fight gender discrimination in tech.
- Previously, Dan Lyons was the guy behind the satiric “Secret Diary of Steve Jobs,” the technology editor at Newsweek and more recently, a writer on HBO’s “Silicon Valley.” Now he’s going to be taking over Gawker’s Valleywag, after current editor Nitasha Tiku leaves for The Verge. Here’s our Q&A with Lyons.
- Mozilla announced it had signed a five-year deal to make Yahoo its default search engine, putting an end to Mozilla’s long-running deal with Google.
- Facebook doesn’t care what you think. Facebook does what it wants. And what it wants is for you to download more Facebook apps. The newest one? Groups. What’s next? Maybe it’ll be “Drones.”
- Netflix CEO Reed Hastings wants his company to be at the forefront of Internet TV, so he’s inviting a lot of tech and media luminaries to show up at a Utah resort for a conference next month to talk. Sounds like a blast.
- Up your Twitter game with this new keyboard that lets you send GIFs.
- Retail startup Fab.com is on its last legs, sort of, and its CEO has a wacky scheme to salvage it, along with his new, Germany-based online furniture seller, Hem.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
