Techmeme: Nintendo offers a vague, confusing, unfocused vision for its future (Kyle Orland/Ars Technica)

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January 31, 2014, 4:23 AM

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Bloomberg:

Microsoft's board preparing to make Satya Nadella CEO, may replace Gates as chairman — Microsoft Said to Be Preparing to Make Satya Nadella CEO — Microsoft Corp.'s board is preparing to make Satya Nadella, the company's enterprise and cloud chief, chief executive officer …

Amazon.com:

Amazon.com Announces Fourth Quarter Sales up 20% to $25.59 Billion — Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2013. — Operating cash flow increased 31% to $5.47 billion for the trailing twelve months …

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Amazon shares fall 10% after big holiday earnings miss — Amazon this afternoon posted lighter sales and profits for the critical holiday shopping season than Wall Street was expecting, sending the company's shares tumbling in after-hours trading. — The company posted net sales …

More: Re/code and CNET. Thanks:@johnhcook

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

Amazon considering $20 to $40 price hike for Prime service in US — Amazon today said it's “considering” raising the price of its $79 a year Prime service to customers in the US by another $20 to $40. The possible increase, which has not been finalized, was announced during the company's fourth quarter earnings call with analysts.

More: CNET, Fortune, Digits, VentureBeat and Ars Technica. See also Mediagazer

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

Revenue and Profit Rise at Google, but Mobile Struggles Continue — SAN FRANCISCO — There is no denying that Google has become a mobile company. Now, Google — along with shareholders, industry partners and advertisers — is trying to figure out what that means.

More: Reuters. Tweets: @mhelft

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google Q4 '13 Beats With $16.86B Revenue, Misses With EPS Of $12.01 Because Of Motorola Weakness

More: International Business Times, eWeek, Mercury News, VatorNews, internetretailer.com, The Verge, IntoMobile and Gigaom

Google:

Google Inc. Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2013 Results

CBC News:

Snowden documents reveal Canadian spy agency used airport Wi-Fi to track passengers “for days after they left the terminal” — Canadian spy agency used airport Wi-Fi to track passengers for days after they left the terminal — Electronic snooping was part of a trial run for U.S. NSA and other foreign services

More: The Next Web, ZDNet and The Register

Tweets: @stephenlautens, @rj_gallagher, @csoghoian, @youranonnews, @emptywheel, @rj_gallagher and @declanm

Mark DeCambre / Quartz:

Box has secretly filed for an IPO — Box, the online storage company, has secretly filed paperwork for an initial public offering, according to a source. — That means Box could start trading as a public company before its chief rival, Dropbox. Both are among the most anticipated tech IPOs of this year.

More: DealBook, The Next Web, Business Insider, Forbes, The Verge, GeekWire, Inc.com, Gigaom and CNET

Tweets: @antderosa, @dmac1, @jguynn, @m_delamerced and @mattrosoff

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

Nest Team Will Become Google's Core Hardware Group — Google today sold Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. While many speculated that Google would release phones after it bought Motorola in 2011, it didn't happen — Motorola remained a partner like other Android OEMs.

More: MacDailyNews, TechnoBuffalo, Android Community, Phandroid, BGR, Android Authority, 9to5Google, PhoneArena, AndroidHeadlines.com, Daring Fireball, Droid Life, Gotta Be Mobile, Android Central, BetaNews and InvestorPlace

Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:

Zynga Buys NaturalMotion For $527M, Signaling A New Tack For The Gaming Giant — Zynga has long been famous (or infamous?) for its data-driven approach to game design. The company never focused on building strong character IP, or intellectual property, in favor of releasing games that had been thoroughly funnel-tested.

More: Zynga Company Blog, GlobeNewswire, Re/code, BizPunk, VentureBeat, MacRumors, SlashGear, Valleywag, Guardian, Digits, ReadWrite, Bloomberg, Digits, Ars Technica, VentureBeat and App Advice. Tweets: @dmac1

Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:

Zynga Lays Off 314 Employees, Or 15% Of Its Workforce

More: Reuters, VentureBeat, Business Insider, Tech Trader Daily and Betabeat

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft backpedals: Windows 8.1 update hides tile interface by default — Microsoft is once again planning to alter the way its Start Screen works in Windows 8.1 Update 1. While the software giant originally released Windows 8.1 last year with an option to bypass the “Metro” interface at boot …

More: Marco.org, Softpedia News, LAPTOP Magazine, Gotta Be Mobile, Kotaku, TechSpot, TechnoBuffalo and CNET

Tweets: @harrymccracken and @tomwarren

Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:

Nintendo offers a vague, confusing, unfocused vision for its future — The briefings Nintendo gives following its quarterly earnings results are usually relatively dry affairs, filled with charts of worldwide gaming hardware breakdowns and canned enthusiasm about upcoming game releases.

More: Nintendo, Polygon, Gigaom Research, The Verge, Softpedia News and Kotaku

Evelyn M. Rusli / Digits:

Salesforce CEO Benioff on How to Fix San Francisco — These days, you could call Marc Benioff a kind of anti-Tom Perkins. — The billionaire head of Salesforce.com doesn't have anything personal against the co-founder of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. But he adamantly disagrees with Perkins' recent defense of the tech elite.

Tweets: @pmarca, @georgia_wells, @evelynrusli, @benioff, @bxchen, @wsjd and @jameshiga

Associated Press:

Google's first-ever stock split scheduled for April 2 — Google poised to execute long-delayed stock split — SAN FRANCISCO—Google is finally ready to split its stock for the first time, more than three years after co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin began discussing a move engineered …

More: AndroidHeadlines.com

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

With Paper, Facebook just blew its own iPhone app out of the water — This morning, Facebook is announcing a new standalone iPhone app called Paper. Contrary to earlier rumors, it's much more than just a news reading app — it's a complete reimagining of Facebook itself.

More: TechCrunch, Engadget, Slate, TUAW, NYT Bits, Co.Design, ZDNet and Marketing Land. Tweets: @rsarver. See also Mediagazer

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

Paper, Facebook's new app for browsing and creating stories, will launch Feb. 3 for US iPhones

More: Marketing Pilgrim, BGR, Android Community, Mashable, The Verge, Gigaom, Guardian, AllFacebook, Inside Facebook and Macworld

Tweets: @bougie, @rsarver, @mikeisaac, @robertandrews, @whatthebit and @benedictevans

Brian Fung / The Switch:

The FCC is ‘beta testing’ a next-gen telephone network — Federal regulators have taken their first major step in accelerating the country's move toward high-capacity, fiber optic phone networks. In a unanimous vote Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission approved a program …

More: Wall Street Journal, Reuters, multichannel.com/rss, toptechnews.com, The Verge and The Register

Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Detects Mass Hack Attempt On Yahoo Mail, Resets All Affected Passwords — The details are a bit sparse right now, but Yahoo has just disclosed by way of their Tumblr that they've detected what they're calling a “coordinated effort to gain unauthorized access to Yahoo Mail accounts”.

More: Yahoo, GeekWire, Mashable, Los Angeles Times, The Next Web, The Snitch, BetaNews, Gotta Be Mobile, The Verge, The Register and NYT Bits. Tweets: @nycjim

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

PayPal Wants Role in Apple's Mobile Payments Dreams — Apple may finally appear serious about facilitating the purchase of physical products in retail stores through its devices — and that has gotten the attention of at least one potential major competitor.

More: TechnologyTell, Cult of Mac, BGR, iPhone Hacks, TechnoBuffalo, PhoneArena, MacRumors, Ubergizmo, Gigaom Research and iPhone in Canada Blog. Thanks:@delrey

Businessweek:

Facebook Turns 10: The Mark Zuckerberg Interview — Mark Zuckerberg doesn't usually observe sentimental anniversaries. This year he's confronted by three of them. On Feb. 4, Facebook (FB), the company he co-founded in a Harvard University dorm, turns 10 years old. The prodigy himself turns 30 in May.

More: TechCrunch, social media, Business Insider and CNET. See also Mediagazer

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Facebook changes stance, plans to allow anonymous logins in new set of apps

More: AdExchanger. Thanks:@ingridlunden

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