Techmeme: Pandora Plans To Lift Its 40-Hour Free Mobile Listening Cap On Sept. 1 (Anthony Ha/TechCrunch)

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August 23, 2013, 10:00 AM

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Microsoft:

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months — Board of directors initiates succession process; Ballmer remains CEO until successor is named. — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer has decided to retire as CEO within the next 12 months …

More: AllThingsD, The Verge, GigaOM, New York Times, TechCrunch, ZDNet, Betabeat, ReadWrite, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, The Next Web, Business Insider, The Atlantic Wire, 9to5Mac, BGR, DailyFinance.com, Digits, Bloomberg, Reuters, BGR India, iDownloadBlog.com, Electronista, memeburn, Mashable, App Advice and NPR

Tweets: @realdanlyons, @edbott, @mattlynley, @marcoarment, @reckless, @anildash, @zacharye, @zpower, @theromit, @markpinc, @mkapor, @zissimos, @zacharye, @tubelite, @nikcub, @aaronklein and @sai

Microsoft:

Moving forward — Text of an internal email from Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer to employees regarding his plan to retire. — I am writing to let you know that I will retire as CEO of Microsoft within the next 12 months, after a successor is chosen.

More: BBC, WindowsITPro, Business Insider, The Verge, Digits, AppleInsider, AllThingsD, VG247 and Network World

Tweets: @edbott, @edbott, @danprimack, @monkbent, @charlesarthur and @tim

Don Reisinger / CNET:

Microsoft shares rise early amid Ballmer retirement news — The software company's shares are up approximately 8 percent in early trading. — Microsoft's shares are up significantly in early trading on Friday following news of CEO Steve Ballmer's impending retirement.

Jay Yarow / Business Insider:

Microsoft Investors Should Not Be That Excited About Ballmer's Departure

jessica lessin:

Exclusive: Apple Buys (Another) Map App, Embark — Apple Inc. keeps snapping up mapping companies. — The latest: Embark Inc., a small Silicon Valley upstart that builds free transit apps to help smartphone users navigate public transportation. — We don't know how much Apple paid …

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

Apple Acquires Embark to Further Improve Mass Transit Navigation

More: Engadget, Macworld, SlashGear and Softpedia News

Bloomberg:

Amazon Is Said to Have Tested a Wireless Network — Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) has tested a new wireless network that would allow customers to connect its devices to the Internet, according to people with knowledge of the matter. — The wireless network, which was tested in Cupertino …

More: VentureBeat, Business Insider, Gotta Be Mobile, CNET, Engadget, The Next Web, Mashable, I4U News, SlashGear, The Verge, PhoneArena, Gizmodo and dailywireless.org

Tweets: @stevenjcrowley and @bloombergtech

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Uber Filing in Delaware Shows TPG Investment at $3.5 Billion Valuation; Google Ventures Also In — According to a Delaware filing by Uber Technologies, it has sold stock in the fast-growing privately held transportation service to private equity giant TPG. In addition, according to sources …

More: Forbes, Digits, Fortune, The Next Web, ventureburn, Softpedia News, VatorNews, VentureBeat, Business Insider and Skift

Tweets: @mattrosoff, @mattrosoff, @mattrosoff, @danprimack, @rsarver and @nzkoz

TechCrunch:

Google Ventures Puts $258M Into Uber, Its Largest Deal Ever — A Certificate Of Incorporation unearthed by AllThingsD today shows that Uber has closed $361.2 million in its latest round. It's unknown why TPG, which picked up 775,092 shares, paid a lower per-share price than the other participants.

More: Forbes. Tweets: @danprimack, @mattbuchanan, @r_foucault, @howardlindzon, @mikeyavo, @danprimack, @akberzins, @alex and @justrosslawson

Dara Kerr / CNET:

Samsung denied new trial over Apple's ‘bounce-back’ patent — Amid planning for new damages retrial, Judge Koh rules that there will not be another new trial over the '381 patent. — A federal judge on Thursday denied Samsung's request for a new patent trial over Apple's “bounce-back” patent.

More: FOSS Patents, BGR, 9to5Mac, Engadget, Computerworld, Sammy Hub, Patently Apple, Softpedia News, Electronista, The Next Web and PhoneArena

Aries Poon / Digits:

Google Buys Patents From Apple Ally Hon Hai — Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., known for its close ties to Apple Inc., said Friday it sold some display patents to Google Inc. — The Apple and iPad assembler didn't specify a value for the deal or expound on details, except to say the patents sold …

More: Marketing Land, Financial Times, ZDNet, VentureBeat, 9to5Google, PC World, Softpedia News and Reuters

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Pandora Plans To Lift Its 40-Hour Free Mobile Listening Cap On Sept. 1 — During this afternoon's earnings call, Pandora executives said that they would lift for the 40-hour monthly cap on free mobile listening that was announced back in February. — This is actually the second time Pandora …

More: Pandora, CNET, iPhone, Engadget, App Advice, Android Beat, PhoneArena, iClarified, TechHive, iDownloadBlog.com, ReadWrite, Mashable, 9to5Mac and The Next Web. See also Mediagazer

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

Pandora Revenue Beats The Street, Grows 58% To $162M For Its Last Quarter Before iTunes Radio

More: AllThingsD, Digital Trends, Softpedia News, Digits, Engadget and Electronista. Tweets: @jonerlichman. See also Mediagazer

Andrew Mayeda / Bloomberg:

Canada's Moore Says BlackBerry Must Revive by Itself — Canadian Industry Minister James Moore said it's up to BlackBerry Ltd. (BB) to pull off a turnaround on its own, signaling the government has no plans to intervene in the struggling smartphone maker's future.

More: ZDNet, PhoneArena, The Register and BGR

Anand Lal Shimpi / AnandTech:

The Nexus 7 (2013) Review — Truth be told, Google has made (or at least directed the making of) some of the best tablets on the market today. The original Nexus 7 was groundbreaking in that it offered a totally usable platform, married to the latest version of Android, for $199.

Kellex / Droid Life:

New Nexus 7 Receiving Update to JSS15Q, Should Address Multitouch Issues

More: Consumer Reports Online, blog.chron.com, The Verge, 9to5Google, tech.uk.msn.com, PhoneArena, Android Beat, Gotta Be Mobile and Yahoo! News

Kevin C. Tofel / GigaOM:

Chrome OS users gain immersive mode and more in stable channel update — All Google Chromebooks, save one particular model, have a software update waiting for them. Google announced the update for the Chrome OS Stable channel Thursday, saying it would roll out over the next several days …

More: Google Chrome Releases, ZDNet, 9to5Google and Engadget

Daniel Cooper / Engadget:

Google applies for location-based security patent, locks down your phone on the go — Google's knack with location services helps us to get around, but hopefully, that same tech will serve to keep our devices safe in the future. Mountain View has applied to patent a system that modifies …

More: VentureBeat and TechCrunch

Chris O'Brien / Los Angeles Times:

Apple mega-investor Icahn, CEO Tim Cook to talk buyback over dinner — Carl Icahn tweeted that he and Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook would talk over dinner about the size of the company's stock buyback. (Associated Press) — Investor Carl Icahn revealed plans to have dinner …

More: AllThingsD, The Register, Inquirer, I4U News, MoneyBeat, MacRumors, NBCNews, Macworld, Business Insider, CNNMoney.com, SlashGear, Reuters, Mobile Marketing Watch and Digits

Ki Mae Heussner / GigaOM:

NoRedInk gets $2M led by Google Ventures to turn kids into grammar geeks — As a high school English teacher, Jeff Scheur said he could spend more than 42 hours grading papers for his 170 students every time he gave an assignment. So, eventually, instead of marking up the papers …

More: VentureBeat, The Next Web, Pulse 2.0 and AllThingsD. Tweets: @googleventures

Lee Chyen Yee / Reuters:

Huawei, ZTE win bulk of China Mobile's $3 billion 4G bonanza: sources — (Reuters) - China Mobile Ltd has awarded initial 4G contracts worth around 20 billion yuan ($3.2 billion), with Chinese firms securing more than half of the biggest prize in the global telecoms industry this year …

More: Lastest ITProPortal news and TechEye. Tweets: @tradefast

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Google:

Google improves definitions in Search w/ sample sentences, synonyms, translations & spoken responses — Google noted today on its Google+ page that it has updated search on both the desktop and mobile with new and improved definitions. Google search would previously let users ask …

More: Search Engine Land, TechHive, Gizmodo, The Verge, Macgasm, Search Engine Roundtable, Engadget and TechCrunch

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Sorry Twitter: Your IPO won't be ‘low profile’ — Twitter has an unreasonable request for its prospective IPO bankers. — FORTUNE — Twitter is beginning to speak with bankers about its inevitable IPO, according to the New York Post. No real surprise, except for this quote: … Say what now?

More: New York Post, TheStreet.com, ZDNet and PandoDaily

Tweets: @laurengoode, @mikeisaac, @steves1, @iwbailey, @crsy and @laura__pm

Danny Yadron / Wall Street Journal:

For Privacy, Phone Texts Pushed Over Encrypted Email — Companies That Specialize in Encryption Technology Fear Pressure to Turn Over User Data — Companies offering services to keep Internet communication free from prying eyes are increasingly pushing private text-messaging applications rather …

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