(Photo: NASA)

Microsoft recently updated its YouTube app for Windows Phones, but Google isn't too pleased with the results--going so far as to send a cease and desist. That's because Microsoft built in features allowing users to block ads. [The Verge]

A spokesman said they'd be "more than happy to include advertising but need Google to provide us access to the necessary APIs." [The Verge]

"Reading is an activity more likely to be on screen than on the printed page." So there's that. [BBC]

Car-sharing service Relay Rides has gotten the ax (locally at least) from the New York State’s Department of Financial Services, who said their insurance is “illegal and inadequate.” [PandoDaily]

Looks like, after technical problems, NASA's other-Earth-seeking Kepler Telescope is powering down. [Popular Science]

“Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99.” That's the kind of email that, even if you are Steve Jobs, lands you in hot water with antitrust enforcers. [AllThingsD]

Ditching the suit for a swimsuit. (Photo: Flickr.com/gpaumier)

Hawaii Zuck-O Look who ditched the hoodie (but kept the Adidas sandals). Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was recently spotted indulging in a little Hawaiin R&R with wifey Priscilla Chan. US Weekly reports the pair “looked excited to be spending quality time together,” which makes sense since it's pretty easy to be happy when you’ve escaped the maw of Silicon Valley. The Zucks also “chowed down” on something called “beachside burgers” at a “picnic table.” Stars: they're just like us (but rich).

Instaparty Former Tumblr engineer and prolific blogginghead Marco Arment officially sold his company, read-it-later app Instapaper, to NYC-based Betaworks yesterday. Though he will stay on indefinitely as an advisor, Mr. Arment appeared to be celebrating the occasion by tweeting uncharacteristically adorable things about his followers:

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/327636666787454976

Of course, this aroused the wry suspicion of Mr. Arment's followers:

https://twitter.com/meaghano/status/327637122309828608

Mr. Arment, as it turns out, appeared to be rightfully celebrating his Betaworks deal with a delicious cold beverage. "I can’t feel my face much anymore," he admitted. "I’ve had one beer. Granted, it’s about 20% ABV. It’s a hell of a beer." Lightweight!

So maj It's become somewhat of a celebrity rite of passage to participate in the ever-meta act of snapping a photo of yourself with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, then plastering it onto--that's right--your Instagram profile. Stylist, fashion designer and Bravolebrity Rachel Zoe is the latest victim of this trend, snapping the below photo of her and Mr. Systrom. Sorry, Rach, but Kev is much better at smizing.

(Photo: Instagram)

Cult of Steve Erin Caton, a former project manager at Apple, took to Medium today to lament the growing number of douchey startup CEOs, who--in their attempt to emulate Steve Jobs--end up growing ever-douchier and unwilling to listen to peer feedback. To illustrate her story, she shares two anecdotes of her experience with Mr. Jobs: one, in which he cut in front of her in line at the Apple cafeteria (rude!), and another in which he blamed the Mobile Me team for a shoddy launch.

She writes:

Once it was up, we (at least a hundred of us) got called into a meeting with Steve Jobs. We all walked over to the building like we were headed to the guillotine. He stood in front of us and yelled at us, told us that we should be mad at each other, said we could have done a staggered launch and complained that we didn’t even try to do all the things that we (those on the ground floor of production that actuallymake the fucking products of the world) had been begging to do. It was the world’s best de-motivational speech.

We look forward to Ashton Kutcher's dramatic reading of this Medium post.

Must love Martha Poor Martha Stewart. You could give her a bag of cotton balls, used gum and a Razr phone and she’d craft the most beautiful centerpiece perfect for any Bat Mitzvah. But the one thing she can’t master is the art of filling out her Match.com profile, because it’s too damn hard. “It was, like, impossible,” the 71-year-old told Today bully Matt Lauer. You don’t have to use your words on Tinder, Martha.

https://twitter.com/todayshow/status/327751873564114944

Wows all the way down Storied VC Marc Andreessen took a break from annotating hip hop lyrics this week to gush about the potential transformative nature of Google Glass at the she++ Conference, when he jokingly claimed to already be beta testing Google Contact Lenses. Mr. Andreessen also took time to preach on the life-changing wonders of Google Glass, with a twinge of Valley girl thrown in. “You put it on and you’re like ‘Oh my God, I have the entire internet in my vision. Where have you been all my life?’” Andreessen said.

Andreessen and his firm are known for showing Glass some lovin', having already invested heavily in startups focused on building apps for Google Glass. But Mr. Andreessen is probably so gung-ho about Glass because he's hoping they'll help him finally solve the mystery of Silicon Valley Cougar Night at the Rosewood Hotel.

Get Dorsey Man of few emotions Jack Dorsey showed a flicker of excitement this week. No, he didn’t discover a new train yard to stare at--rather, he’s mildly excited about the new Daft Punk album. He attached a picture of the Get Lucky song art to prove to us that he knows how to take a screenshot or something. Maybe this was all ploy to subtweet us for not giving a shit about Twitter #Music.

https://twitter.com/jack/status/327796327931076609

(Wikipedia.)

Ray Kurzweil's official title at Google is director of engineering, but we're starting to suspect Larry keeps him around as a kind of science-fictional mascot for the programmers. Case in point: This Wired Q&A, in which he reminds everyone of his belief that one day soon, death will hold no dominion over technologists.

After chatting about Steve Jobs (fun fact, it's actually impossible to get into the Wired offices without passing a brief quiz about Steve Jobs*), interviewer Stephen Levy asked his thoughts on one of the Silicon Valley demigod's famous quotes: “Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent.”

Well, Ray Kurzweil thinks that's bullshit.

"This is what I call a deathist statement, part of a millennium-old rationalization of death as a good thing. It once seemed to make sense, because up until very recently you could not make a plausibly sound argument where life could be indefinitely extended. So religion, which emerged in prescientific times, did the next best thing, which is to say, ‘Oh, that tragic thing? That’s really a good thing.” We rationalized that because we did have to accept it. But in my mind death is a tragedy."

Pretty sure Mr. Kurzweil isn't the only person who thinks death sucks?

"It’s not the case that there are only a fixed number of positions, and if old people don’t die off, there’s no room for young people to come up with new ideas, because we’re constantly expanding knowledge.... Knowledge is growing exponentially. It’s doubling approximately every year."

Right, but there might not be enough literal room for the extra people. Guess that's what Mars is for.

At any rate, he believes we're just 15 years away from "a tipping point in longevity." So if you think Ray Kurzweil's right, go right ahead and eat that burger from the Heart Attack Grill. (We'll pass.)

*Not a true statement.

(Photo: 9 to 5 Mac)

Just this weekend we were sitting around wondering when exactly someone would create another Steve Jobs biopic. We already have the indie one starring Ashton Kutcher and the fast-talking, sure-to-be-sexist incarnation dreamt up by Aaron Sorkin. What we really need is a third one that can make fun of the other two.

Luckily Funny or Die has come to our rescue, announcing that they'll be putting a full-length comedic biopic about Mr. Jobs online on April 15th.

The "60 to 75 minute" film is called iSteve and will star Justin Long, he of Mac commercial fame, as Mr. Jobs, and Hurley from Lost as Woz. Sadly, John Hodgman (a.k.a. PC) won't be playing Steve "Sweaty" Ballmer, which we think is a real oversight.

"In true Internet fashion, it’s not based on very thorough research — essentially a cursory look at the Steve Jobs Wikipedia page,” Ryan Perez, the film's director, told The New York Times.

There, there, Ashton.

As far as technophiles seeking political office go, Jack Dorsey is taking the opposite approach from Sheryl Sandberg.

Ms. Sandberg's new book may read like the source material for a campaign platform, but on a recent 60 Minutes appearance, she evaded questions about leaning in to the White House. Mr. Dorsey, on the other hand, is once again boldly pointing to his desired political office (Mayor of New York City), just not, you know, when he's running or what exactly he'd do when he got here--besides marvel at our transportation system, of course.

Last night, the Twitter and Square cofounder also took the hot seat on 60 Minutes. Actually, the temperature was rather warm and welcoming. The CBS crew seemed smitten with the man "many people" call "the intellectual successor" to Steve Jobs and his shy, contemplative ways. Indeed, it was hard not to read a note of admiration as Lara Logan asked about his inability to communicate, as is befitting the new mode of deference to our nerd-boy-kings, who are somehow still able to snag model girlfriends and charm celebrities.

The segment was also bookended with mentions of Mr. Dorsey's vague mayoral campaign. As Ms. Logan intoned:

"Square is still a startup, but we were surprised to learn that Jack Dorsey already has his eye on the next job he wants, Mayor of New York City--an unlikely role for a man who calls himself a loner and spends a lot of time dreaming and thinking."

The daydream believer revisits that ambition as he and Ms. Logan are filmed riding around the subway. Here's their exchange from the middle of the Times Square station:

Dorsey: What I love about New York is just the electricity I feel right away. Just look at us in this station, there's just people walking everywhere--

Logan: Chaos.

Dorsey: It's chaos. It's kind of like being in a car in the middle of a thunderstorm. Everything is raging around you but you're safe inside that car. So New York feels very much to me like that.

Yeah, "safe" isn't the first word most New Yorkers would use to describe life in the city?

That segues into a photo of Mr. Dorsey and Mayor Bloomberg. "Jack Dorsey knows it helps to be a billionaire if you run for mayor in New York," according to Ms. Logan's voiceover. In fact, as David Kirkpatrick noted in 2011, Mr. Bloomberg explicitly advised Mr. Dorsey to "make a lot of money first."

At that point, Ms. Logan swings it back his comfort level with face-to-face communication with voters. Mr. Dorsey looks down as he responds:

"I guess my natural state would be through mediation of letters or through text, all those mediums I definitely find ease with. But do I appreciate it as much as face to face communication? No. Do I feel like I'm an expert at having a normal conversation, face to face? Absolutely not. That's just not my natural state. I would rather be walking in Land's End [across from the Golden Gate bridge] and thinking about things."

Sounds more like he's running for successor to Steve Jobs than mayor.

(Photo: Irish Examiner)

Move over, Josh Brolin: there's a new uber-dedicated method actor in town, and his name is Aplusk.

If you thought the recently released clip of the Steve Jobs biopic Jobs looked a lot like Ashton Kutcher walking and talking just like Ashton Kutcher but in a black turtleneck, you obviously underestimate his dedication to his craft. USA Today reports that just prior to shooting Jobs, Mr. Kutcher was briefly hospitalized for submerging himself a little too deeply into the character. In an attempt to get closer to his hippie entrepreneur character, Mr. Kutcher adopted Mr. Jobs's all-fruit-and-nut diet.

The diet didn't sit well with Mr. Kutcher's delicate body chemistry. "I went to the hospital like two days before we started shooting the movie," Mr. Kutcher told USA Today. "I was like doubled over in pain."

"My pancreas levels were completely out of whack," he added. "It was really terrifying ... considering everything."

Mr. Jobs died of pancreatic cancer in 2011, and we suppose Mr. Kutcher is intimating that all the fruit had something to do with his poor health?

Luckily, Mr. Kutcher survived his harrowing fruit scare and received a standing ovation for Jobs at Sundance. Take that, Demi.

(The Hollywood Reporter)

Feeling blue about missing Sundance? Cheer up. Ashton Kutcher's Steve Jobs biopic is slated to arrive April 19 at a theater near you. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Apple set a company record for iPhone sales last quarter, but it wasn't enough to placate investors, who sent shares falling in late trading after Apple announced its quarterly results. [AllThingsD]

It wasn't all bad for tech stocks. Netflix soared after the company announced better-than-expected profit on the strength of new subscribers. [Bloomberg]

Careful. The NYPD has a new device that detects the energy emitted by the rocket in your pocket. [NYDN]

"While I haven’t seen hard data on how this plays out across the industry, my personal experience has been that women in tech are primarily found in these emotional labor-heavy departments, even in the tiniest companies." [Quartz]

Raaaaaaandi! [Fast Company]

Nice shirt, Jimmy! (Artists House Music.)

It's no wonder that Jimmy Iovine has been the beau of the ball called CES—what would you rather write about, more dumb gadget shit or the smack-talking, paisley-loving head of a major record label?

Mr. Iovine's big news was that Beats Electronics, the maker of premium headphones he founded with rapper Dr. Dre, is launching a digital music subscription service, called Project Daisy, to compete with Spotify, Rhapsody and the like.

That's all well and good, and means that Mr. Iovine—not to mention his chief creative officer and former Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor—are going to be big tech news in the months to come. Better still was that Mr. Iovine came to CES ready to regale journalists with tales of his closed-door conversations on the future of the music business with late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.

So what do you need to know about Jimmy? He got his start in the music industry as a recording engineer, producing albums for U2, Tom Petty and Patti Smith, then founded Interscope in the 1990s, invested in Death Row Records, and introduced Eminem to Dr. Dre. Also, seems like he has a thing about being photographed with a hat on.

Somewhere along the line, Mr. Iovine started lobbying for Mr. Jobs to try out a subscription model, according to AllThingsD:

But I was always trying to push Steve into subscription. And he wasn’t keen on it right away. [Beats co-founder] Luke Wood and I spent about three years trying to talk him into it. He was there, not there … he didn’t want to pay the record companies enough. He felt that they would come down, eventually.

As for why he thinks he can thrive in the music game? Because the tech nerds running his soon-to0-be competitors are tech nerds, obviously:

I was shocked at how culturally inept most consumer electronics companies are. And what I also learned is that you can build Facebook, you can build YouTube, you can build Twitter—you can be a tech company and do that. But those [sites] program themselves. Subscription needs a programmer. It needs culture. And tech guys can’t do that. They don’t even know who to hire. They’re utilities.

Meanwhile, Beats notched 40 percent of U.S. headphone sales—and 70 percent of the premium market—according NPD statistics, a coup Mr. Iovine followed up by telling the Financial Times that his competitors "have no idea how to move sound around."

We may not know much about Beats’ new subscription service yet, but it’s going to be fun to have Mr. Iovine around.

And yet, Facebook is apparently doing just that, charging some users $100 to prevent their message Mr. Zuckerberg from landing in his spam:

If you try to send founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg a message on Facebook, Mashable discovered Thursday, the social network may offer to keep the message out of his "Other" Inbox — for a cool $100.

The new price on messaging Mr. Zuckerberg comes as Facebook experiments with a pay-to-message model. Last month, the social media giant unveiled a feature that lets users send messages to people they don't know at the cost of $1 a message.

Per Mashable:

There were sporadic reports in December of Facebook charging various people $100 for the service, but this is the first time we've seen it — and certainly the first time we've seen it applied to the founder. ... Here's what Facebook had to say in a statement from a spokesperson: "We are testing some extreme price points to see what works to filter spam."

Of course, users only pay to message people they aren't Facebook friends with, or in the case of public figures like Mr. Zuckerberg, people whose pages to which they don't subscribe. To that end, Mr. Zuckerberg's 16 million subscribers means there's a large swatch of Facebook users who will never be asked for $100 to message Zuck.

Nonetheless, we were curious how the Facebook founder would respond if someone did shell out a c-note to message him.

We'll let you know if we get a reply.

(Photo: Igor Rossak, RIA Novosti)

The international community, it seems, is still publicly grieving the loss of Apple founder Steve Jobs. In fact, the St. Petersburg National Research University in Russia unveiled a statue of a huge iPhone today to commemorate Mr. Jobs' death, because it's Russia, you guys.

The super tall iPhone replica features a screen that displays a photo and video tribute to Mr. Jobs' life. There's also a QR code appended to the back that visitors can scan to learn more about the Apple founder.

Sadly, the monument does not come equipped with a vodka dispenser to help drown your sorrows.