The great shortcoming of apps is that they don’t allow for the interconnectedness of the Web. A “deep linking” startup named Button is just to change that, and just raised $12 million for the cause. “Deep linking is a technology that allows apps to talk to each other so that users can tap from inside one app to access a specific point inside another app as if they were clicking a link on a Web page,” Re/Code reports. 

Backing up its Beats Music unit, Apple has quietly acquired music analytics startup Semetric. The British startup is best known for its Musicmetric analytics tool. “Musicmetric launched in 2008 as a way for music labels and other industry clients to track data on sales, BitTorrent downloads and social networking statistics for their artists, with its platform expanding to YouTube videos and audio streams over the next few years,” The Guardian reports. 

Though historically uncharacteristic of the company, Apple is trying to make more friends in D.C. “Apple, which has come under increasing scrutiny as the world’s most valuable company, is becoming more of a regular around Washington,” Bloomberg reports. “While co-founder Steve Jobs shunned the nation’s capital, Apple lobbied the White House, Congress and 13 departments and agencies from the Food and Drug Administration to the Federal Trade Commission in 2014 through the third quarter.” 

Struggling to right its ship, Samsung is bringing in Lee Don-tae as senior vice president of its global design team. Don-tae previously served as a top executive at U.K. design agency Tangerine, which is perhaps best known for its work with Apple. “Lee will join Chang Dong-hoon, Samsung’s former mobile design chief, who moved last year to a new role heading up the company’s design strategy team,” The Wall Street Journal reports. 

Expanding the reach of digital media services like Netflix, Hulu, and Pandora, Marriott is reportedly testing a service that lets guests stream all three. “Marriott International Inc. is letting guests at eight of its properties access Netflix, the biggest subscription-streaming service, Hulu and Pandora through their television sets,” Bloomberg reports. “The move is part of an effort to construct a new in-room entertainment service.” 

Steve Jobs wasn’t big on styluses, which largely explains their absence from any iPhone or iPad ever produced. That could soon change, however, now that Apple is reportedly weighing the benefits of adding a stylus to its next iPad. “Apple is likely to launch a hardware stylus to enhance the user experience for its long-rumored 12.9-inch ‘iPad Pro,’” AppleInsider reports, citing a report by KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. 

Smartphones have far greater applications that just selfies and casual gaming. Take “Be My Eyes” -- a new app that connects people with the visually impaired when they need help navigating the world around them. “It’s quite a simple concept,” GigaOm reports. “Visually-impaired people use the camera on their mobile device to shoot live video of whatever it is they need distinguishing or reading, and a sighted volunteer on the other end tells them what they need to know.” 

TechCrunch takes a look at Timeline a new app that serves up the day’s news in the context of historical events. “One big complaint about current news coverage is that there’s not enough context -- an article or TV report might tell you what happened today, but it gives you no understanding about the history that led up to today’s news,” it notes. Timeline is designed the correct that. 

Despite the best efforts of Google and its eager “explorers,” the search giant is ceasing the sale of Google Glass. “The company insists it is still committed to launching the smart glasses as a consumer product, but will stop producing Glass in its present form,” BBC News reports. “Instead it will focus on ‘future versions of Glass’ with work carried out by a different division to before.” Among other implications, that means an end to the Explorer program, which gave software developers the chance to buy Glass for $1,500. 

Not only is David Cameron vowing to ban encrypted messaging services like SnapChat and WhatsApp (if his intelligence services are not able to decode the communications), but Britain’s Prime Minister wants U.S. officials to follow suit. “David Cameron is to urge Barack Obama to pressure internet firms such as Twitter and Facebook to do more to cooperate with Britain’s intelligence agencies as they seek to track the online activities of Islamist extremists,” The Guardian reports.