Techmeme: A Popular Ad Blocker Also Helps the Ad Industry (Tom Simonite/MIT Technology Review)

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June 18, 2013, 11:15 AM

Top News

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

FiftyThree, Maker Of Drawing App Paper, Raises $15 Million From Andreessen Horowitz And Others — FiftyThree, the startup behind the wildly popular drawing app Paper, has closed a Series A round of financing led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Highline Ventures, Thrive Capital, SV Angels, and Jack Dorsey.

More: Chris Dixon, The Verge, GigaOM, FiftyThree, GeekWire, Guardian, 9to5Mac, PandoDaily, AllThingsD, Business Insider, Mashable, App Advice and Macgasm

BuzzFeed:

President Obama Defends NSA Spying — It's “transparent,” the president tells Charlie Rose in an interview. Here's a portion of that transcript, from PBS. — Image by Matt Dunham / AP — Barack Obama: Well, in the end, and what I've said, and I continue to believe …

More: CBS News, Best Bits, CNET, SiliconANGLE, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Post Politics, memeburn, Bloomberg, CNET, The Hill, WebProNews, Gizmodo and The Atlantic Wire

Tweets: @alexismadrigal, @ggreenwald, @whitehouse and @whitehouse

Vindu Goel / NYT Bits:

The Latest to Disclose Government Requests, Yahoo Reveals the Least

More: Yahoo!, Marketing Land, Hillicon Valley, TIME, ReadWrite, ZDNet, The Register, BBC, New York Times, WebProNews, Valleywag, CNET, Guardian, Engadget, Digits, The Next Web, Inquirer, PC World, RAPPLER, www.idigitaltimes.co.uk, SlashGear, TechCrunch, The Verge and AllThingsD. Tweets: @kashhill

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Next: Yahoo Also Eyeing Automated Video App Maker Qwiki in $50 Million Deal — According to sources close to the company, Yahoo is considering paying up to $50 million for Qwiki, the New York startup that makes an Apple iPhone app that allow users to turn photos, music and videos into short movies automatically.

More: Business Insider, Digital Trends, Mashable, WebProNews and App Advice. See also Mediagazer

Daniel Cooper / Engadget:

Huawei Ascend P6 announced: 6.18mm thickness, 4.7-inch 720p display — We knew it was in the works given the sheer quantity of leaks but, with a small sigh of relief, Huawei's Ascend P6 is now official. At the company's London launch, the handset has been revealed with a 6.18mm-thick body …

More: Huawei, 9to5Google, The Next Web, The Verge, Engadget, Tech in Asia, Inquirer, Digital Trends, Telegraph, BBC, BBC, CNET, PC World, Electronista, MobileSyrup.com, PhoneArena, Android Central, Android Beat and Wall Street Journal

AppleInsider:

AT&T starts nationwide FaceTime over cellular rollout — AT&T appears to be in the midst of rolling out support for Apple's FaceTime video calling service for iPhone on its cellular network, making good on a promise to support all video chat apps over wireless by the end of the year.

More: DSLreports, PhoneArena, iPhone Hacks, CNET, Electronista and App Advice

AppleInsider:

Apple TV gets iTunes Radio, Conference Room display option in beta update — Apple TV received little attention during Worldwide Developers Conference, but the diminutive set-top box still has the Cupertino company's attention, as new videos reveal iTunes Radio and a new Conference Room mode …

More: VentureBeat, 9to5Mac, Electronista, Macworld and Macgasm

Priceonomics:

Airbnb vs Hotels: A Price Comparison — Price of Airbnb vs Hotel by US City — Mouseover to get price comparison detail — Size of bubble corresponds to number of Airbnb listings (logarithmic scale) — At Priceonomics, we like to get more for our money.

More: Gizmodo, Web Strategy …, Y Combinator Posthaven and Betabeat

Tom Simonite / MIT Technology Review:

A Popular Ad Blocker Also Helps the Ad Industry — Millions of people use the tool Ghostery to block online tracking technology—few realize that it feeds data to the ad industry. — WHY IT MATTERS — There are few options for those wishing to avoid being followed around on the Web.

More: Business Insider

GigaOM:

Having problems with your Netflix? You can blame Verizon — If you are trying to get Netflix and use Verizon's broadband, then there is a good chance that your video performance is less than optimal. Some Verizon customers might even go as far as calling it a crappy Netflix experience.

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Jony Ive's title flattened to ‘Senior VP, Design’ alongside iOS 7 revamp — To go along with his complete redesign of iOS, Jony Ive's official executive title at Apple has been flattened to drop the word “Industrial.” The change is notable as this new title plants Ive's position …

More: AppleTell, Softpedia News, TUAW, The Mac Observer, App Advice, CNET, iDownloadBlog.com and AppleInsider

Roger Cheng / CNET:

Ex-HTC execs can't quit phone game, create startup Kazam — Kazam is a smartphone manufacturer focused on design, customer service, and the European market. But the company faces an extreme uphill climb. — Two former HTC executives are hoping for a fresh start with their own company.

More: BGR, Business Insider, PhoneArena, Inquirer, Lastest ITProPortal news, Digital Trends, Android Beat, SlashGear, Android Community, 9to5Google and Pocket-lint

Jackie Dove / Macworld:

Adobe releases Creative Cloud into the wild — Adobe has released its long-awaited and highly controversial Creative Cloud suite of applications for both longtime professional devotees and the newcomers it hopes to attract. Having historically operated on an upgrade schedule of every 12 to 16 months …

More: Creative Cloud Team Blog, 9to5Mac, CNET, Engadget, Forbes, TUAW, SiliconANGLE, The Next Web, 1001 Noisy Cameras, Gizmodo, AppleInsider, MacRumors and Softpedia News

Sam Biddle / Valleywag:

Top Wall Street Journal Reporter Jessica Lessin Going Solo — Jessica Lessin, a San Francisco-based senior technology reporter at the Wall Street Journal of several years, is quitting (somewhat abruptly) to launch her own tech website. It will sting a bit.

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Yahoo Offer to Buy Contact Startup Xobni Is at a Price of $30M to $40M — According to numerous sources close to the company, Yahoo is offering to pay $30 million to $40 million for the maker of address book apps and plugins. — That's below the more than $40 million raised …

More: CNET, Business Insider and TechCrunch

Don Clark / Digits:

AMD Prepares Move to ‘Seattle,’ Its First ARM Chip — Advanced Micro Devices has been using the same technology foundation as Intel since the 1980s. Now the underdog chip supplier is fleshing out plans to diverge. — The company on Tuesday is announcing “Seattle,” the code name …

More: AMD, Engadget, ZDNet, Gizmodo, PhoneArena, Bloomberg, Gearburn, Inquirer, The Register, SlashGear, GigaOM, The Verge and PC World

David Shapiro / The Official Google Blog:

Chromebooks: coming to more stores near you — In Northern California where I live, summer is here, which means family vacations, kids' camps, BBQs and hopefully some relaxation. But it also means back-to-school shopping is just around the corner. So in case you're on the hunt for a laptop …

More: ReadWrite, Pocketables, PC World, CNET, InvestorPlace, The Register, Digital Trends, BetaNews, Softpedia News, ZDNet, The Droid Guy, Engadget, WebProNews and VentureBeat

Bloomberg:

Facebook's Zuckerberg Meets Samsung Executives Amid Mobile Push — Facebook Inc. (FB) Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, seeking to boost advertising sales from mobile devices, is meeting with Samsung Electronics Co. executives today in Seoul. — Zuckerberg was seen entering Samsung offices …

More: TechCrunch, Digits, The Korea Herald and Android Authority

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

Voice recognition tool Dragon updates Android app with hands-free driver mode and voice notifications — Nuance Communications today released an update to its Dragon Mobile Assistant app for Android. Users with supported devices will find that it now includes hands-free driver technology …

More: 9to5Google, Engadget and Yahoo! News

Tim Peterson / AdAge:

Microsoft Builds Its Own iAd for Windows 8 Apps — New Technology Means a Banner Can Watch You — Microsoft is creating its own new native ad formats for Windows 8, not unlike Apple's iAd, which is designed to increase ad revenue in the iOS ecosystem. — The new ads — which will be …

More: Microsoft Advertising, The Verge, Softpedia News and Neowin

Wall Street Journal:

Maker of ‘Candy Crush Saga’ Plans IPO — Candy Crush Saga is lining up something besides jelly beans: bankers. — Midasplayer International Holding Co., the publisher of online and mobile games including the popular Candy Crush Saga, has hired banks to pursue a U.S. initial public offering …

Priya Kumar / Internet Monitor:

Twitter's Geography: Visualized and Explained — Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo has called the popular microblogging service “the pulse of the planet.” With a little less than eight percent of the world's population on Twitter, that pulse has room to grow. Nevertheless, recent big data research …

Zach Honig / Engadget:

AT&T and Goal Zero deploy solar-powered Street Charge stations in NYC, we go hands-on (video) — If you'e lucky, your smartphone's battery can just make it through a full day, with the percentage meter dropping to the single digits as you finally get a chance to plug in.

More: CNET, The Verge, Ars Technica, 9to5Mac, The Verge, SlashGear, New York Times, PhoneArena and textually.org

Alexis Santos / Engadget:

Microsoft offering Surface RT tablets for $199 to educational institutions — If you thought Microsoft's effort to push Surface RT tablets into classrooms would stop with a 10,000-unit giveaway, you'd be mistaken. Ryan Lowdermilk, a technology evangelist for the company …

More: ZDNet, The Next Web, BetaNews, Windows Phone Central, SlashGear, GeekWire, Neowin, The Droid Guy and The Verge

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Accel Closes $100M For Big Data Fund 2 To Invest In The ‘Second Wave’ Of Big Data Startups — The tech industry has been buzzing about “big data” for years now. And according to venture capital firm Accel Partners, the excitement around the big data space is not set to die down any time soon …

More: ZDNet, PE Hub Blog, VentureBeat, GigaOM, AllThingsD and GeekWire

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