Techmeme
February 19, 2014, 6:15 PM

Top News

Facebook:
Facebook to acquire WhatsApp for $4B cash, $12B in Facebook shares, and $3B in restricted stock units  —  Facebook to Acquire WhatsApp  —  Facebook today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire WhatsApp, a rapidly growing cross-platform mobile messaging company …
Jan Koum / WhatsApp Blog:
WhatsApp says it will remain autonomous and nothing will change for users  —  Facebook  —  Almost five years ago we started WhatsApp with a simple mission: building a cool product used globally by everybody.  Nothing else mattered to us.  —  Today we are announcing a partnership …
Jim Goetz / Sequoia Capital:
WhatsApp in numbers: 450M active users, 32 engineers, $0 in marketing, and only $1/year to use  —  Four Numbers That Explain Why Facebook Acquired WhatsApp  —  WhatsApp Co-Founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton  —  Earlier today, Facebook announced its acquisition of WhatsApp for $16 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook:
WhatsApp and Messenger serve different uses, Facebook will continue investing in both  —  I'm excited to announce that we've agreed to acquire WhatsApp and that their entire team will be joining us at Facebook.  —  Our mission is to make the world more open and connected.
Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:
Wheeler unveils new proposed rules for network neutrality, will try to stop “improper blocking”  —  The FCC announced its response to an explosive court decision that ended “net neutrality” last month: it will not appeal the decision, but scramble to impose new rules.
Bloomberg:
Google Capital Lands $300 Million and Leaps Into Web Education  —  Google Inc. (GOOG)'s new investment arm has $300 million in fresh capital to put to work this year and is starting the dealmaking with its first foray into Web education.  —  Google Capital, established by the search company …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Google Fiber chooses nine metro areas for possible expansion  —  Google Fiber is ready to expand, as Google has identified nine metro areas scattered around the country as possible sites of deployment, the company said.  —  “We've invited 34 cities in nine metro areas across the US to work …
Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:
Google I/O is back June 25-26 and you'll need to win a lottery to attend  —  Google just announced dates for its annual I/O developers conference, an event that has typically brought new products and updates to other services.  This year's conference will be held from June 25-26 …
Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:
Loop Wallet review: mobile payments are finally everywhere you want to be  —  Loop tricks any cash register into thinking your phone is your credit card  —  NFC was supposed to be the future.  —  My next phone was going to include the technology, which would let me pay at any cash register …
Nick Summers / Businessweek:
New Tinder Security Flaw Exposed Users' Exact Locations for Months  —  Internet security researchers in New York say that a flaw in Tinder, the super-popular hookup app, made it possible to find users' precise location for between 40 and 165 days, without any public notice from the company.
Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:
BlackBerry's CEO is ‘outraged’ by T-Mobile's attempts to convert its customers to the iPhone  —  BlackBerry's new CEO John Chen is taking issue with what appears to be a fairly innocent T-Mobile promotion.  Last week, T-Mobile sent out an email to some customers currently using …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
eBay Acquires PhiSix To Integrate 3-D Virtual Try On Technology Across The Marketplace And More  —  It looks like 3-D virtual try-on technology will soon make an appearance on eBay.  The marketplace giant is announcing the acquisition of PhiSix, a company that develops 3-D visualization and simulation technologies for clothing.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple bringing iTunes Festival to the US for the first time at SXSW, for five nights in March  —  Apple has announced that it is bringing the iTunes Festival to the United States for the first time, after being a UK-only event since it began in 2007.  The festival will be held at SXSW …

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Emil Protalinski / The Next Web: