Techmeme
February 5, 2013, 12:50 AM

Top News

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:
Twitter Makes Big Acquisition, Buys Social TV Analytics Company Bluefin Labs  —  Twitter has acquired Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics company that was founded in 2008, sources say.  Although we don't know the exact acquisition price, we were told this is Twitter's biggest acquisition to date.
Douglas MacMillan / Bloomberg:
Facebook Is Said to Create Mobile Location-Tracking App  —  Facebook Inc. (FB) is developing a smartphone application that will track the location of users, two people with knowledge of the matter said, bolstering efforts to benefit from growing use of social media on mobile computers.
Wall Street Journal:
Dell Nears $23 Billion Deal to Go Private  —  Dell Inc. on Monday was close to finishing a $23 billion deal to take itself private at between $13.50 and $13.75 a share, said people familiar with the matter, in a buyout that marks an unofficial end to the era when a handful of young entrepreneurs made PCs the dominant computing device.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
“Evasi0n” Overloads Servers As Over 270,000 People Download The New Jailbreak For iOS 6.0/6.1 Devices, Including iPhone 5  —  Jailbreaking has returned, and already servers are overloaded.  Today, a group of iOS hackers styling themselves as the Evad3rs team has released a usable jailbreak for the iPhone 5 …
Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:
AOL In Talks To Buy Gdgt, The Consumer Electronics Review Site Started By Former Engadget Founders  —  I'm hearing that gdgt (pronounced 'gadget'), the consumer electronics review site founded by Engadget co-founder Peter Rojas and former Engadget editor-in-chief Ryan Block, is in late-stage acquisition talks with AOL.
Doug Palmer / Reuters:
Trade group wants U.S.-China action on cyber security threats  —  (Reuters) - U.S. companies want the U.S. and Chinese governments to work together to address the growing problem of cyber attacks that threaten to undermine trade between the world's two largest economies, a U.S. business leader said on Monday.
More: ZDNet
Nicole Perlroth / NYT Bits:
Cade Metz / Wired:
Meet the Data Brains Behind the Rise of Facebook  —  Jay Parikh sits at a desk inside Building 16 at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, and his administrative assistant, Genie Samuel, sits next to him.  Every so often, Parikh will hear her giggle, and that means she just tagged …
Stuart Miles / Pocket-lint:
HTC M7 to ditch megapixels in favour of Ultrapixels  —  HTC is to use a new camera sensor on its much-rumoured HTC M7?smartphone, Pocket-lint can confirm, which will use what the company calls Ultrapixels.  —  Although rumours have suggested the new smartphone will use a 13-megapixel sensor …
Paul Sawers / The Next Web:
Hailo closes $30.6m Series B round from Union Square Ventures, Richard Branson, KDDI and others  —  Hailo has scooped a whopping $30.6m Series B funding round led by Union Square Ventures (USV), with participation from a slew of high-profile investors including Richard Branson and Japanese telco KDDI.
More: TechCrunch and Skift
John Herrman / BuzzFeed:
How Monoprice Is Eating The Tech World From The Inside Out  —  An empire built on cheap HDMI cables stretches its reach.  Monoprice is angling to be the next huge electronics brand.  —  Five years ago, Monoprice was associated with two things: HDMI cables and nerds.
More: The Loop
Kate Kaye / AdAge:
Facebook to Make Targeted Ads More Transparent For Users  —  Move Is Another Step Toward Web-Wide Ad Network  —  Facebook is about to get more transparent in the way it targets advertising at its users.  —  The social network has agreed to start displaying the little blue “AdChoices” …
Fang Zhang / IHS iSuppli:
Hard Disk Drive Market Revenue Set for Double-Digit Decline This Year  —  Facing a relentless onslaught from tablets, smartphones and solid state drives (SSD), global hard disk drive (HDD) market revenue in 2013 will decline by about 12 percent this year, according to an IHS iSuppli Storage Space market brief …
Pui-Wing Tam / Wall Street Journal:
Venture Firms Narrow Sights in Tough Times  —  Venture-capital firms are taking stiff measures to survive a tough fundraising environment and lackluster returns, including gutting their partnerships, slashing their fund sizes and refocusing their investment areas.
More: Stowe Boyd
Paul Smith / Financial Review:
Nokia chief suggests Windows tablets on the way  —  Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop has given the clearest indication yet that the Finnish mobile phone stalwart will soon make its assault on the booming tablet computer market, and a windows-based device is the most likely starting point.
Josh Sternberg / Digiday:
Publishers Cool on Facebook  —  We are entering the end of the like era.  There was a time, not long ago, when all industries, including publishing, wondered how to turbocharge their growth via Facebook.  But as the plunging fortunes of Zynga show, that's a dangerous proposition.
Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:
Beginning This Week, Expect to See a Lot Fewer Spammy Actions on Facebook  —  If there's one thing I hate about Facebook, it's reading about my friends' every single action.  The launch of Open Graph in 2011 made this possible, as developers began to create apps that automatically posted …
Tweets: @mathewi
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Lenovo ThinkPad Helix delayed until March or April  —  Lenovo's versatile ThinkPad Helix was one of the more impressive convertible laptops we saw at CES 2013, but there's some bad news for those holding out for its mooted February release date.  Responding to a question on the company's Facebook page …
Steven Singer / Associated Press:
Amazon to collect Conn. sales tax, ending dispute  —  HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Amazon has agreed to collect Connecticut's sales tax, ending a dispute over the tax that the online retailer had refused to charge its customers, state officials and the company said Monday.

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More News

Karl Bode / DSLreports:

Earlier Picks

Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:
Violet Blue / ZDNet: