Techmeme: Google was the only serious bidder for Nest, Apple not in the mix (Liz Gannes/Re/code)

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January 14, 2014, 12:40 AM

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Google:

Google to acquire Tony Fadell's smart home startup Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in cash — Google to Acquire Nest — Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has entered into an agreement to buy Nest Labs, Inc. for $3.2 billion in cash. — Nest's mission is to reinvent unloved …

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Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Google was the only serious bidder for Nest, Apple not in the mix — Google Acquires Smart-Home Device Maker Nest for $3.2 Billion — Google has acquired Nest Labs, the company founded by Apple iPod creator Tony Fadell, for $3.2 billion. The smart-home startup makes an innovative digital thermostat, as well as a smoke detector.

More: Quartz, Computerworld, NYT Bits, ZDNet, 9to5Google, Business Insider, Business Insider, Digits, MacRumors, Gizmodo, GeekWire, The Mac Observer, CNET, Forbes and SlashGear

Tony Fadell / Nest:

Nest CEO: Nest will retain its own distinct brand identity, Google is a rocket ship for growth — Welcome home. — This is a momentous day for me, for Matt and for all of the Nest family. This afternoon, we announced that we will be acquired by Google.

More: Re/code, Gigaom, Gigaom, Forbes, Mashable, Droid Life, Salon, The Information, Tested and ParisLemon

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Nest Says Customer Data From Devices Will Only Be Used For Nest Products And Services — Nest says that it's not going to just hand over its customer data to Google willy-nilly post-acquisition - in a blog post sent to TechCrunch penned by Nest founder Tony Fadell, a question and answer section at the end contains the following:

More: Nest and The Verge. Tweets: @mattrosoff, @reckless, @caseyjohnston, @fmanjoo, @mattrosoff and @dannysullivan. Thanks:@mjburnsy

Katie Fehrenbacher / Gigaom:

The winners and losers in Google's acquisition of Nest — The designer who helped create the iPhone at Apple is now officially going to be part of Apple's arch rival: Google. That's right, on Monday afternoon Google and Nest announced that the search engine giant plans to spend $3.2 billion acquiring …

More: bizjournals and Business Insider

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

When Google closes the Nest deal, privacy issues for the internet of things will hit the big time

More: Gigaom Research, Forbes, TIME and TechCrunch

@twitter:

We're now rolling out a refreshed http://twitter.com reflecting the look & feel of our iOS & Android apps. pic.twitter.com/Mb6qjjP8Dm

More: The Next Web, VentureBeat, BetaNews, iPhone Hacks, SlashGear, TechCrunch, The Verge, Android Beat and Engadget

Nate Raymond / Reuters:

Apple loses bid to block antitrust monitorship — (Reuters) - Apple Inc lost a bid on Monday to block an antitrust monitor appointed after a judge's finding that the company conspired to fix e-book prices. — At a hearing, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan denied Apple's request …

More: Gigaom, GeekWire, iPhone in Canada Blog, iPhone Hacks, Electronista, BGR, AppleInsider, The Mac Observer, 9to5Mac, The Verge and MacRumors

Simon Khalaf / Flurry:

Mobile Use Grows 115% in 2013, Propelled by Messaging Apps — In November 2013, Benedict Evans, a well-respected and widely followed analyst, shared an updated version of his famous slide deck called “Mobile is Eating the World”. This deck quickly made the rounds on social media …

More: BGR, Forbes, The Next Web, MacDailyNews, VentureBeat, PadGadget, Electronista, TelecompetitorTelecompetitor and AppleInsider

Matt Mullenweg:

In role swap, Matt Mullenweg becomes Automattic's CEO, Toni Schneider to focus on new products — Toni Schneider & Automattic CEO — Eight years and one day ago I blogged about Toni Schneider joining Automattic as CEO, as I said then: … Fast-forward roughly two thousand, nine hundred …

More: Toni.org, TechCrunch, Om Malik, Post Status, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat and ZDNet. Tweets: @hunterwalk

See also Mediagazer

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Facebook acquires link-sharing service Branch for around $15 million — Link-sharing service Branch and subsidiary Potluck have agreed to be acquired by Facebook for around $15 million, sources familiar with the deal told The Verge. Branch CEO Josh Miller broke the news in a Facebook post this morning, but didn't disclose a price.

More: PandoDaily, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Nieman Journalism Lab, Nibletz, Daily Dot, SiliconBeat, iMore, DealBook, ClickZ, TechSpot, Wall Street Journal, VatorNews, Computerworld, App Advice, Softpedia News, ReadWrite, Slate, and PC Magazine

Tweets: @pkafka, @om, @joshm and @pkafka

Steven Levy / Wired:

I Spent Two Hours Talking With the NSA's Bigwigs. Here's What Has Them Mad — My expectations were low when I asked the National Security Agency to cooperate with my story on the impact of Edward Snowden's leaks on the tech industry. During the 1990s, I had been working on a book, Crypto …

Tweets: @samoltman, @liberationtech, @dannyyadron, @abrams and @jwherrman

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

A first look at the Beats Music website, with plenty of leaked screenshots — Beats Music is scheduled to launch its subscription service by January 21, but over the weekend, I stumbled across a beta version of the website that already let me sign up and snoop around.

More: PadGadget, POPSUGAR and Pocketables

Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:

‘High-profile’ Google+ users will get better default email settings — A few days ago, Google rolled out a potentially invasive new feature — if you have both a Gmail address and Google+ account, other Google+ and Gmail users will soon be able to send messages right into your inbox, even if you never gave them your email address.

More: Gigaom, AndroidHeadlines.com and hypebot

Tweets: @dannysullivan, @benthepcguy, @tomwarren and @nateingraham

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

App Monetization To Get Tougher Still, With Gartner Predicting 94.5% Of Downloads Will Be Free By 2017 — The business of making money from apps is going to get tougher still, with analyst Gartner predicting that through to 2018 less than 0.01% of consumer mobile apps will be considered a financial success by their developers.

More: Gartner, Business Insider and PC Magazine

Klint Finley / Wired:

Out in the Open: An NSA-Proof Twitter, Built With Code From Bitcoin and BitTorrent — When mass political protests erupted throughout Brazil in June, Miguel Freitas did what countless others did: He followed the news on Twitter. Tweets revealed information he couldn't get anywhere else, including the mainstream media.

More: Daily Dot. Tweets: @trevortimm

David Kravets / Wired:

Supreme Court Lets Stand Ruling Bolstering Gadget Privacy at U.S. Border — A convicted sex offender's loss at the Supreme Court today was indirectly a boost to the privacy rights of travelers crossing the border to the United States. — Without issuing a ruling, the justices let stand …

Tweets: @froomkin and @astepanovich

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Digital Ad Company Turn Raises $80M, Stays Vague On Possible IPO Plans — Turn, which describes itself as a “post-ad-tech” company, is announcing that it has raised $80 million in Series E funding, bringing its total investment to more than $135 million. — The round was led …

More: Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Adweek, VentureBeat, MarketWatch and bizjournals

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Eyeing An IPO, E-commerce Software Company Volusion Raises $35M To Take On Shopify — Volusion, a company that allows merchants to create an end to end e-commerce store online, has raised $35 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank. This is the first outside funding for Volusion in the company's ten year history.

More: PE Hub Blog and Pulse 2.0

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

PayPal makes buying products faster with its new in-context checkout process, available by June — PayPal is getting back to its roots to focus on improving its core feature: the checkout process. — The payment processing company today announced that it is releasing an updated experience to its online checkout system.

More: The Official PayPal, Engadget, CNET, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, ZDNet, Electronista and ReadWrite

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft, GoDaddy partner on Office 365 plans for small businesses — Summary: GoDaddy will be offering its small-business customers a choice of three Mirosoft Office 365 plans, including one for $12.49 a month that includes desktop versions of Office. — Microsoft and GoDaddy are extending …

More: Microsoft Corporation, The Microsoft Office Blog, Re/code, GeekWire, WebProNews, Computerworld, The Verge, TechCrunch, Engadget and Softpedia News

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