Techmeme: Microsoft's Shaw to NYT's Manjoo: “you are using a rear-view mirror, not a windshield, to look at the road ahead (Jay Yarow/Business Insider)

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February 14, 2014, 5:10 AM

Top News

Mayumi Negishi / Wall Street Journal:

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten to buy voice-call app maker Viber for $900 million — Rakuten to Buy Voice-Call App Maker Viber — Japanese e-commerce Giant to Spend $900 million — TOKYO—Japan's Rakuten Inc. said it will acquire call-application maker Cyprus-based Viber Media Inc …

More: Business Wire, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Tech in Asia, ZDNet, Gigaom, Engadget, CNET, Re/code, iDownloadBlog.com, Ubergizmo, iPhone in Canada Blog, App Advice, Cult of Mac and Bloomberg

Tweets: @caseynewton, @semil, @fcourt and @benbajarin

Alistair Barr / USA Today:

Google working on 10 gigabit Internet speeds — Project to develop ‘next generation’ of the Internet is part of Google's broader obsession with speed, CFO says — SAN FRANCISCO - Google is working on technology that will provide data transfer speeds over the Internet that are many times faster …

More: ZDNet, Gizmodo, The Verge, BGR, Softpedia News, Digital Trends, I4U News, CNET, SlashGear, DSLreports and Droid Life

Tweets: @davethefuturist, @georgebludger and @alistairmbarr

TechCrunch:

Facebook Opens Up LGBTQ-Friendly Gender Identity And Pronoun Options — Facebook has just updated to let users choose the gender pronoun they associate with. Aside from the usual “male” and “female” options, users can choose up to 10 different gender definitions to describe themselves …

More: Facebook Diversity, GLAAD, CNN, Lastest ITProPortal news, VentureBeat, CNET, Re/code, memeburn, BBC, GeekWire, VatorNews, Salon, Computerworld, PC Magazine, AllFacebook, ZDNet, Reuters, Slate, Gizmodo, Gigaom, SlashGear, I4U News and BetaNews. Tweets: @tomscott

Michael Isikoff / NBC News:

Exclusive: Snowden Swiped Password From NSA Coworker — A civilian NSA employee recently resigned after being stripped of his security clearance for allowing former agency contractor Edward Snowden to use his pers...

More: BGR, Mashable, TheBlot, Nextgov, Ars Technica, Boing Boing, Slate, New York Times, TheHill, The Switch, Softpedia News, Gizmodo, Inquirer, Re/code, SiliconBeat and SlashGear

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:

Silk Road 2.0 ‘Hack’ Blamed On Bitcoin Bug, All Funds Stolen — The same bug that has plagued several of the biggest players in the Bitcoin economy may have just bitten the Silk Road. — On Thursday, one of the recently-reincarnated drug-selling black market site's administrators posted …

More: Deep Dot Web, The Verge, TechCrunch, SlashGear and MoneyBeat

Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Acquires Technical Recruiting Startup Distill — Yahoo just acquired a San Francisco-based startup called Distill, which was working on a way to make technical recruiting easier by pairing video interviews and programming challenges. They had raised $1.3 million in funding …

More: VatorNews, Computerworld, Softpedia News, CNET and Business Insider

Tweets: @joshconstine and @dsaezgil

Thanks:@anthonyha

Lisa Jennings / Nation's Restaurant News:

Taco Bell testing mobile ordering for in-store pickup, will roll out nationally this year — Taco Bell to offer mobile ordering nationwide — Taco Bell is preparing to roll out mobile ordering nationwide later this year, a move that will likely fuel a trend expected to shake up the quick-service world.

More: Ubergizmo, Los Angeles Times, The Verge, Phandroid, Electronista, The Switch, MacRumors, Droid Life, AndroidGuys, Digital Trends, Business Insider, Pulse 2.0 and Washington Post

Craig Malisow / Dallas Observer:

How an 18yo Texan who posted a facetious threat to Facebook now faces 10 years in prison — The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life — A young man's violent threat on Facebook lands him in jail, and limbo. — Approximately one hour after Justin Carter posted a sarcastic comment on a Facebook thread …

Tweets: @pronailprincesa, @nicolaskb and @jbrodkin

Jay Yarow / Business Insider:

Microsoft's Shaw to NYT's Manjoo: “you are using a rear-view mirror, not a windshield, to look at the road ahead — Microsoft PR Chief Shreds New NY Times Columnist Over His Advice Column — The New York Times recently hired former Slate (and former Wall Street Journal) technology columnist Farhad Manjoo.

Tweets: @willoremus, @fmanjoo, @thestalwart, @mikeisaac, @mhelft, @fxshaw, @davegirouard, @ganeshtoday, @mattyglesias, @drew, @mims, @stldreiling and @karaswisher

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:

To avoid obsolescence, buy Apple's hardware, use Google's services, and buy Amazon's media

More: Guardian and MacDailyNews. Tweets: @binarybits and @edbott

Martyn Williams / Computerworld:

Phil Schiller up again in next round of Apple-Samsung battle — The Apple executive is one of a handful of people Samsung said it will call to the court — Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller is among the witnesses that lawyers for Samsung plan to call when the two companies return to court in California in late March.

More: 9to5Mac, Network World, App Advice, AppleInsider, MacRumors and iDownloadBlog.com

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

New Android OEM licensing terms leak; “Open” comes with a lot of restrictions — The least understood area of the Android ecosystem has always been the highly secretive Google Play Apps licensing process. While Android is open source, the Google applications, like the Play Store, Gmail …

More: BenEdelman.org, Digits, Android Community, WindowsITPro, BGR, Pocketnow, The Register, ZDNet, Inquirer, FOSS Patents and Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @glennf

Amy Schatz / Re/code:

Peering could replace net neutrality as one of the key issues in Comcast-Time Warner review — Sleeper Issue Peers Around the Corner of Comcast-Time Warner Deal — Comcast executives scored big points three years ago with the Federal Communications Commission by volunteering to abide …

More: Comment, eWeek, Wired, Quartz, Techdirt, The Technology Chronicles and Deadline.com. See also Mediagazer

Bloomberg:

Lenovo Projects End to Motorola Losses With China Phone — Lenovo Group Ltd. (992), which posted a 29 percent surge in profit today, expects to end losses at Motorola Mobility within quarters of completing a deal as it reintroduces the smartphone brand to China.

More: Digits, Phandroid, TechnoBuffalo, ExtremeTech, MobileSyrup.com, Droid Life, Android Central, FierceWireless, The Verge, Android Central, Wall Street Journal, BBC, CNET, Reuters and ZDNet

Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:

Apple files patent for automated disposable email addresses to combat spam — Apple wants to stop, track down spammers with automated disposable email addresses — The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday published an Apple patent application describing a system that thwarts spam mail …

More: BGR, MacRumors, VentureBeat, CNET and TechCrunch. Tweets: @counternotions

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Windows 8 passes 200 million license sales — Microsoft has been rather quiet about its risky Windows 8 bet. The company passed 100 million license sales of Windows 8 after around six months, but a year on the market came and went without any real update on its progress.

More: ZDNet, The Next Web, Computerworld, Pureinfotech Newsletter, The Register, BGR, Pocket-lint, Reuters, Engadget, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Neowin, WinBeta, WindowsITPro and Softpedia News

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Asian gaming giant Nexon announces Owen Mahoney as successor to CEO — Don't look now, but a foreign guy will become the boss at one of Asia's biggest game companies. Free-to-play online gaming giant Nexon has announced Owen Mahoney's appointment as the successor for the top executive post at Nexon.

More: Digital Media Wire and Re/code

Josh Ong / The Next Web:

PlayStation 4 beat Xbox One for January console sales, but Xbox One sold more games — Sony and Microsoft are both trumpeting market share wins from NPD's January US gaming data. Sony declared its PlayStation 4 the top-selling console last month, while Microsoft took credit for selling the most games.

More: VentureBeat, Xbox Wire, VG247, Gearburn, The Verge, WinBeta, GeekWire, Joystiq, Engadget, VG247, Ubergizmo and SlashGear

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures Cutting Five Percent of Workforce — Intellectual Ventures, the invention house and patent consolidator run by former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold, is cutting five percent of its workforce. — “We continue to refine our business and in doing …

More: GeekWire and SiliconBeat

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft signs Android patent deal with Voxx Electronics — Summary: Microsoft has added Voxx Electronics to its list of Android patent licensees. — Microsoft may be considering ways to entice Android developers and handset makers to join the Windows world, but that isn't stopping …

More: PR Newswire, Seattle Times blogs, FOSS Patents and The Droid Guy

Stephen Shankland / CNET:

Chrome speeds up web apps by compiling JavaScript in the background — Google: Under-the-hood change helps Web apps on Chrome — Google has taught Chrome how to walk and chew gum at the same time. — The newest Chrome beta version, 33, includes a feature called concurrent compilation …

More: Chromium Blog, The Register and The Next Web

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Wall Street Journal:

Pandora to let advertisers target listeners based on its sense of their political leanings starting next week — Internet Radio Service Builds Profiles of Its Audience — Pandora Hopes to Build Ad Revenue by Pinpointing Likely Voting Preferences — Next time you listen to a Bob Marley channel …

Tweets: @peteskomoroch, @lizzadwoskin and @a_grossman. See also Mediagazer

Jason Clampet / Skift:

Study indicates 2/3 of Airbnb's 19.5K NYC listings have offsite owners, violating city law — Airbnb in NYC: The Real Numbers Behind the Sharing Story — The five biggest neighborhoods for Airbnb are in parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan with few hotels. Skift / Mapbox

More: Valleywag, The Verge, The Airbnb Public Policy Blog and CNET

Tweets: @rafat, @rafat, @rafat, @rafat, @curtwoodward and @antderosa

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