Techmeme: Roku Said to Be Weighing Initial Public Offering in U.S. in 2014 (Bloomberg)

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February 21, 2014, 10:50 PM

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TechCrunch:

TestFlight Owner Burstly Acquired By Apple — Burstly, the makers of an in-app ad management platform called SkyRocket and the parent company of popular mobile app testing platform TestFlight, has been acquired, we're hearing. Though we're working to get more information on this now …

Paul Graham / Y Combinator Posthaven:

Sam Altman for President — I'm delighted to announce that Sam Altman has agreed to become president of Y Combinator starting next batch. I'll continue to do office hours with startups, but Sam is going to lead YC. — Why the change? Because YC needs to grow, and I'm not the best person to grow it.

More: Y Combinator Universe, Business Insider, VentureBeat, Gigaom, Entrepreneur, CNET and PE Hub Blog

Tweets: @cdixon, @garrytan, @alexisohanian, @pmarca, @sama, @alexia, @naval, @albertwenger, @sequoia_capital, @sanjaydastoor, @bonatsos, @bhorowitz, @papadimitriou and @brezina

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Sam Altman Taking Over As President Of Y Combinator, Replacing Paul Graham At The Helm — After nine years at the helm of Y Combinator, Paul Graham is stepping away from his leadership role at the famed Silicon Valley startup incubator. Taking over as Y Combinator's president is Sam Altman …

Tweets: @loyalelectron

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

WhatsApp Was Valued At ~$1.5B In Final Round Before Sale — WhatsApp did a great job of being surreptitious about its funding while growing into a messaging monster. But as they say, the truth always comes out. — In this case, the truth is that the company had three rounds of financing, with Sequoia as the sole investor.

More: Bloggers Blog, TechnoBuffalo, GeekWire and Computerworld. Tweets: @eghosao

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Crypto weaknesses in WhatsApp “the kind of stuff the NSA would love” — Poor implementation of SSL encryption could be a boon to eavesdroppers. — WhatsApp, the mobile messaging app developer that Facebook is acquiring for $19 billion, may be an attractive addition to the social network …

More: PandoDaily, Threatpost, SecurityWeek, The Droid Guy, Forbes, praetorian.com, Re/code and Wall Street Journal

Bloomberg:

To counter competition, Microsoft will charge manufacturers $15 instead of $50 to install Windows on devices under $250 — Microsoft Said to Cut Windows Price 70% to Counter Rivals — Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is cutting the price of Windows 8.1 by 70 percent for makers of low-cost computers …

More: The Verge, 9to5Google, Windows Phone Central and WinBeta

Tweets: @tomwarren, @mattrosoff, @mattrosoff, @parislemon, @tculpan, @dinabass and @tomkrazit

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Sources say Amazon readying an Android-based Web TV box competing with Apple TV and Roku, for March rollout — Amazon Gets Its TV Box Ready, Again — Amazon is gearing up to take on Apple and Roku, again. — Industry sources say Amazon is getting ready to launch a Web TV box …

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

Direct connection between Comcast and Netflix networks suggests peering agreement reached — Breaking: Netflix and Comcast have reached a peering agreement — Consumers' troubles with online video may be subsiding — at least for Comcast customers. Comcast and Netflix appear to have resolved …

More: gist.github.com, BGR, DSLreports, Ars Technica, The Verge, SlashGear and Engadget

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Netflix packets being dropped every day because Verizon wants more money — Verizon wants to be paid by consumers and Cogent, but Cogent refuses to pay. — The battle over who should pay to carry Netflix traffic is heating up again, and one of the main players blames Verizon's greed …

More: iMore, CNNMoney.com, Gizmodo, PC Magazine and Geek.com. See also Mediagazer

Bloomberg:

Roku Said to Be Weighing Initial Public Offering in U.S. in 2014 — Roku Inc., the maker of set-top boxes that connect TVs to the Internet, is weighing an initial public offering in the U.S. this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. — A decision to move ahead hasn't been made …

More: VentureBeat, SiliconANGLE and Gigaom. Tweets: @pkafka. See also Mediagazer

Lee Hutchinson / Ars Technica:

Harvard supercomputing cluster misused to mine Dogecoins, perpetrator banned from using computer facilities — Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to produce dumb cryptocurrency — Love of money can cause people to do unwise things—like stealing time on your university's resident supercomputer to mine crypto-coins.

More: Harvard News, The Register, Wired, The Verge and SlashGear

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Here's An Actual 3D Indoor Map Of A Room Captured With Google's Project Tango Phone — We broke the news yesterday that Google was producing a prototype 3D sensing smartphone called Project Tango. We also broke down the capabilities of the vision processor inside the device and talked about what it means for the future of phones.

More: Droid Life, Digital Photography Review, IntoMobile, SlashGear, The Verge and Engadget

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

LinkedIn Finally Lets You Block Other Members — LinkedIn has at last added a long-requested feature with the introduction of member blocking. This adds a new privacy control to the service, which lets you restrict access to your profile, direct interactions, and network activity …

More: The Verge, Computerworld, Engadget and WebProNews

Brad Linder / Liliputing:

Geeksphone Revolution Android/Firefox phone launches for $300 — Spanish phone maker Geeksphone is now taking orders for the Geeksphone Revolution, a phone designed to run either Google Android or the open source version of Firefox OS, also called Boot to Gecko.

More: The Next Web, GSMArena.com, PhoneDog.com and TechCrunch

Chris Williams / The Register:

Apple releases iOS 7.0.6 and 6.1.6 updates with SSL/TLS security fix — Update your iThings: Apple splats scary SSL snooping bug in iOS — Encrypted connections vulnerable to tampering, putting millions at risk — Apple has issued updates for its mobile operating system iOS to patch …

More: Apple, 9to5Mac, SecurityWeek, ZDNet, AppleInsider, The Next Web, Gotta Be Mobile, TechnoBuffalo and MobileSyrup.com. Tweets: @matthew_d_green

Kevin Fitchard / Gigaom:

Sprint launches Wi-Fi calling, turning the Galaxy Mega, S4 Mini into IP phones — In the next few weeks, Sprint customers with a Samsung Galaxy Mega or a Galaxy S4 Mini will get an over-the-air software update that will turn their devices into IP phones - at least when they're connected to Wi-Fi networks.

More: The Verge, Engadget and IntoMobile

Bloomberg:

Verizon completes $130B buyout of Vodafone's stake in Verizon Wireless — Verizon Sale Cuts Vodafone Value by Half to $100 Billion — Vodafone Group Plc (VOD) completes the biggest sale of the past decade today, leaving the wireless carrier about half the size it was …

More: CNET, Gigaom, The Verge, Businessweek, PC World, ZDNet, ValueWalk, Wall Street Journal, The Droid Guy, VentureBeat, App Advice and Engadget

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Tests Mobile “Highlights”, A Cheat Sheet To Your Friends' Lives — Facebook said there were just big fixes in its 7.0 iOS update it released yesterday, but actually there's a big new feature it's testing called Highlights. Inside the People tab you'll see Highlights including friends' Life Events …

More: The Next Web and Apple

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Airbnb hosts must install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors by end of 2014 — Hosts can request free detectors, first-aid kits, and safety information cards — As Airbnb's housing rental service continues to grow in popularity, the company wants to ensure that all guests have a safe stay.

More: The Airbnb Blog, TechCrunch, CNET, Gigaom and The Technology Chronicles

Laura Northrup / Consumerist:

Fitbit Voluntarily Recalls Rash-Inducing Force Wristbands — Since the first reports of contact dermatitis caused by Fitbit Force movement trackers surfaced on the company's forums (and gained publicity when Consumerist broke the story last month) customers have asked that the company recall the trackers.

Richard Lai / Engadget:

Opera's Sponsored Web Pass gives you free mobile internet if you watch an ad — Did you know that people like free stuff? Opera knows, which is why it's now launching an ad-supported version of its Web Pass platform. Mobile operators can now easily take advantage of this tool …

More: Opera Software, The Next Web, SlashGear and ZDNet

Ashlee Vance / Businessweek:

Willow Garage, rare privately funded Silicon Valley robotics research lab, shuts down — Willow Garage's Last Days — In 2006, Scott Hassan, a prolific software engineer, started a research lab dedicated to robotics called Willow Garage. Since then, he's funded the lab with about $20 million …

More: SlashGear, SiliconBeat and Gigaom

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