Techmeme
February 20, 2014, 5:10 PM

Top News

Jessi Hempel / Fortune:
Google offered to buy WhatsApp for $10 billion  —  Facebook is buying WhatsApp for $19 billion, but it wasn't the only suitor.  —  My colleague Dan Primack has written a smart post on the numbers that weren't in the press release Facebook (FB) issued announcing it will acquire messaging service WhatsApp.
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Google Was Willing to Beat Facebook's $19B Offer for WhatsApp  —  Last week, Google CEO Larry Page met with WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum in a last-ditch effort to prevent the rapidly growing messaging app from selling itself to Facebook, according to three people involved in the deal.
Benedict Evans:
WhatsApp's acquisition illustrates most of the key trends in consumer tech today  —  Whatsapp and $19bn  —  Facebook just bought WhatsApp, paying $16bn in cash and stock and $3bn in RSUs.  WhatsApp has 450m active users, of which 72% are active every day.  It has just 32 engineers.
Parmy Olson / Forbes:
Amanda Lefebvre / Office Blogs:
Office Web Apps rebranded as Office Online at Office.com  —  Introducing Office Online at Office.com  —  Today, you'll notice something new about Office.com and Office Web Apps-now officially called Office Online.  An online version of the Office you know and trust has been available for quite a while …
Tim Culpan / Bloomberg:
HTC to preview Qualcomm-based smartwatch to carriers next week, will not demo publicly  —  HTC Said to Plan Smartwatch Preview Amid Declining Market Share  —  HTC Corp. (2498), the Taiwanese smartphone maker struggling with sliding sales, plans to demonstrate the first of three wearable devices next week …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google Launches Project Tango Smartphone To Experiment With Computer Vision And 3D Sensors  —  Google today announced Project Tango, an Android-based prototype 5″ phone and developer kit with advanced 3D sensors out of its Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) hardware skunkworks group.
Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:
Online bank Simple acquired by Spain's BBVA for $117M — will focus on international growth  —  Nobody expected this Spanish banking acquisition.  —  Simple, the online bank devoted to offering a more humane alternative to traditional banking, announced today that it's being acquired …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Acompli Raises $7.3M Series A From Redpoint & Others To Fix Mobile Email  —  Acompli, a company building a mobile email application which functions as an all-in-one productivity app for iPhone, has raised $7.3 million in Series A funding - a sizable investment that points to the scale of the problem the startup is aiming to solve.
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Groupon Skyrockets After Hours On Q4 Beat With Revenue Of $768.4M, EPS Of $0.04 [Update: Following Enthusiasm, Investors Turn Sour]  —  Update 1: Investors bid Groupon massively higher following a better than expected financial performance.  However, a mere 10 minutes after pushing Groupon up nearly 15 percent, the tone turned.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Meg Whitman buys more time as HP beats earnings estimates  —  Caption: Hewlett-Packard chief executive Meg Whitman  —  Hewlett-Packard reported earnings that beat Wall Street's earnings expectations.  —  Analysts had expected a big drop in quarterly revenue, but HP exceeded estimates on both profits and revenues.
James Temple / Re/code:
Max Levchin's Glow to let businesses help employees fund fertility treatments  —  Glow Targets Businesses, but Will They Take a Shine to It?  —  Glow, which launched an app last summer designed to help couples conceive, has lined up partnerships with Domo, Eventbrite and Evernote as it attempts to …
Samit Sarkar / Polygon:
Xbox One Media Remote coming in early March for $24.99 (update)  —  The Xbox One Media Remote, a standard-looking remote control for Microsoft's latest gaming console, will be available in all Xbox One markets worldwide in early March, the company announced today.  —  In the U.S., it will retail for $24.99.

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Juli Clover / MacRumors: