Techmeme
February 6, 2014, 7:10 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple buys sapphire crystal furnaces for AZ plant, capable of producing 100-200M ~5" iPhone displays per year  —  Exclusive: Apple just procured enough Sapphire Crystal furnaces to make 100-200M ~5-inch iPhone displays in Arizona  —  Last year, Apple and GT Advanced struck a deal to open …
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
iWatch time: Apple seeking physiologists to run fitness, energy expenditure tests  —  Apple has published a job listing on its website seeking physiologists and engineers to run tests related to health and fitness data.  This job will require the employees to “design and run user studies related …
Mike Isaac / Re/code:
LinkedIn to Acquire Job-Seeking Site Bright for $120 Million  —  LinkedIn announced on Thursday it plans to acquire Bright, a data-driven job search startup, for $120 million.  —  The buy is LinkedIn's largest acquisition to date, topping the company's earlier major acquisitions of SlideShare ($119 million) and Pulse ($90 million).
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
OpenTable Buys Ness For $17.3M To Beef Up Mobile And Restaurant Recommendations  —  Restaurant reservation platform OpenTable today reported quarterly earnings of $52.3 million and used the day to put out some other news: the company has acquired Ness Computing, makers of the personalized restaurant recommendations app Ness.
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
That Secret App Is Becoming Silicon Valley's New Blind Item  —  “I work at Evernote and we're about to get acquired... Watch this space”  —  That could be the first big acquisition rumor to have found its way onto Secret, the new “anonymish” sharing app launched late last week.  But it won't be the last.
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Google wants to replace your office's teleconference system with a $999 Chromebox  —  Google's $35 Chromecast dongle made it cheap and easy to show off YouTube videos on your TV.  Now, the company sees another narrow window of opportunity for Chrome: teleconferencing.
Mat Smith / Engadget:
Sony to exit VAIO PC business, spin off TV business, cut 5000 jobs worldwide  —  Sony sells its VAIO PC business, makes TV arm its own subsidiary  —  Sony said it was “addressing various options” as recently as yesterday when it came to its VAIO PC and laptop arm, and while announcing …
Laura Hazard Owen / Gigaom:
TechCrunch:
Amazon Acquires Video Gaming Studio Double Helix Games  —  Amazon has acquired a gaming studio called Double Helix Games, TechCrunch has learned, and Amazon now confirms.  The deal was for both talent and IP, we understand.  Financial terms have not been disclosed.
Kwame Opam / The Verge:
Google's acquisition of Nest wins FTC approval  —  The US Federal Trade Commission has cleared the way for Google to purchase Nest for $3.2 billion in cash.  After Mountain View announced the buyout earlier this year, Google stated it expected the deal to close in the next few months.
Michael Carney / PandoDaily:
After tripling year-on-year, PayNearMe raises $20M to build out its payments network for cash-only Americans  —  Entrepreneurs and VCs are falling all over themselves to grab a piece of the next-gen payments ecosystem.  But while much of Silicon Valley laments over the future of digital wallets …
More: Re/code and VatorNews
Alex Barinka / Bloomberg:
Aereo Reopens New York Online-TV Service to New Subscribers  —  Aereo Inc., the online-television company that's battling broadcasters in the Supreme Court, reopened its service to New York subscribers after regaining enough capacity to handle demand.  —  People who were on a waiting list …
Liam Tung / ZDNet:
IBM lands deal to make DARPA's self-destructing ‘VAPR’ ware  —  Summary: DARPA's VAPR project could allow it to blanket vast areas with monitoring sensors without risking the equipment falling into enemy hands.  —  Liam Tung  —  IBM has won a US government contract to create a model for transient devices that destruct on command.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Twitter rejects compromise on secret government orders  —  Twitter's latest transparency report is out, and the company seems furious about what it can't reveal.  While Google, Facebook, and others have reached a deal with the US government to break out national security requests in broad numbers …
Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:
Line shows the potential for chat apps as platforms, after chalking up $338m in revenue for 2013  —  Popular Japanese messaging service LINE has continued charting its way upwards in terms of revenue brought in by in-game purchases, sticker purchases and other areas such as official accounts and sponsored stickers.
More: LINE Corporation and QuartzTweets: @monkbent
Bloomberg:
HTC Sees New Devices and Fresh Marketing Push Driving Turnaround  —  HTC Corp. (2498) said an updated version of the One smartphone, its first wearable device and a renewed focus on marketing will help turn around the company this year after two straight annual declines in revenue.
Robert McMillan / Wired:
Apple pulls popular Bitcoin wallet app Blockchain from App Store, used by over a million people  —  Apple Yanks World's Most Popular Bitcoin Wallet From App Store  —  Apple has removed the world's most popular bitcoin wallet from its App Store.  —  Late Wednesday, the tech giant yanked …

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