10 Things You Need To Know In Tech Right Now
1. Apple declined to stream "The Interview" on iTunes. The company did not comment to the New York Times on why it didn't want to touch the movie at the heart of the Sony hack.
2. Yes, Sony will release "The Interview," despite the hack: "We have never given up on releasing The Interview and we're excited our movie will be in a number of theatres on Christmas Day," said Michael Lynton, chairman and CEO of Sony Entertainment, in a statement.
3. Songwriter revenues on Pandora are pitiful. Pharrell made less than $3,000 in writer royalties for 43 million streams of "Happy."
4. There's a big 'Android IPO' coming in 2015. IronSource is valued at $1.5 billion and gets 90% of its revenues from the non-Apple platform.
5. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has been indicted in South Korea. He will be charged with "violating a law prohibiting individuals or firms without appropriate licences from providing or facilitating transportation services," Reuters reports.
6. Supply and demand for iPhone 6 remains strong. Details in a note to investors from Piper Jaffray.
7. Salesforce has lost a key engineer. The engineer who led Wave, Fayyaz Younas, has departed for a tiny startup known as Kahuna.
8. TripAdvisor was fined $610,000 in Italy for publishing false reviews. The fine was pushed for by hotel lobby groups.
9. Google made self-promotion in the Play app store much more strict: "With today's update, developers are now forbidden to include user testimonials in their app's description. Any developer who breaks this rule could see the app in question pulled," says 9to5Google.
10. "The Snappening" had no affect on Snapchat's growth. Data from 7Park shows uniterrupted usage despite people's nekkid pics being leaked online.