Techmeme
March 20, 2014, 7:25 AM

Top News

Mike Isaac / Re/code:
As Messaging Wars Escalate, Social App Tango Raises $280 Million  —  Social startup Tango announced Thursday that it had raised a massive $280 million Series D round of venture funding, the latest significant move among a handful of high-profile apps all vying to own the mobile messaging space.
Parmy Olson / Forbes:
Exclusive: Alibaba Sinks $215 Million Into Messaging App Tango, Valuing It At More Than $1 Billion  —  China's Alibaba is the latest Internet giant to make a bet on the messaging space, and it's a big one.  The company is spending $250 million for a minority stake in the messaging and free-calling app Tango, the startup revealed today.
Ryan Mac / Forbes:
Accel Partners Raises New Funds Totaling Over $1 Billion As Facebook Investor Jim Breyer Reduces Role  —  Accel Partners, a leading venture capital and growth equity firm, has raised two new funds totaling $1.475 billion as one of its most prominent figures looks to decrease his role.
More: Wall Street JournalTweets: @forbes
Dan Primack / Fortune:
Exclusive: Jim Breyer reducing role at Accel Partners  —  Early Facebook investor Jim Breyer plans to spend more time investing personal capital, and less at the VC firm where he has spent the past 27 years.  —  FORTUNE — Jim Breyer of Accel Partners is one of the most successful venture capitalists …
David Pierce / The Verge:
The story of Motorola's smartwatch from the man who designed it  —  The Moto 360 is a breathtaking design — here's how it came to be  —  Eventually they just made a watch.  —  Motorola design chief Jim Wicks and his team had spent a year and a half designing the device that would ultimately become …
More: Gizmodo, IntoMobile and BGR
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
In-depth with Android Wear, Google's quantum leap of a smartwatch OS  —  We take a look at how Android Wear works, and even manage to break some stuff.  —  Yesterday, Google announced Android Wear, its wearable device platform for smartwatches.  Android Wear is a shrunken-down …
More: LAPTOP MagazineTweets: @jyarow
eMarketer:
Driven by Facebook and Google, Mobile Ad Market Soars 105% in 2013  —  Mobile ad spending on pace to reach $31.45 billion this year  —  Last year, global mobile ad spending increased 105.0% to total $17.96 billion, according to new figures from eMarketer.  In 2014, mobile is on pace …
Martin Beck / Marketing Land:
Google Search Can Now Take Photos, Videos, On Your Android Phone  —  So you want to take a quick photo or video with your Android phone?  It just got a bit easier, at least for those who like to tell their phone what to do.  —  Google updated its Android Search app today …
Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
Yahoo launches Games Network platform for developers, new Classic Games site for Android, iOS, and the Web  —  Yahoo today announced a renewed push into games with the launch of its Yahoo Games Network platform and its Yahoo Classic Games site.  The company says it already has more improvements …
Nick Summers / The Next Web:
PlayStation 4 update to add rich video editor, 720p Twitch streaming, HDCP off option, and more  —  The Xbox One has already received a few firmware updates and it would seem the PlayStation 4 is about to follow suit.  —  Sony today detailed an upcoming patch for its new console …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Want More Privacy In Your App?  Wickr Resells Its Encryption, Self-Destructing Tech To Other Apps  —  Wickr, one of the wave of messaging apps built on the idea of private, encrypted and self-destructing data, has vowed never to make money off its users — with its app remaining free …
Phil Goldstein / FierceWireless:
Huawei backtracks, won't release a dual-OS Android, Windows Phone smartphone  —  Huawei said it has no plans to release a dual-OS smartphone running Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone and Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android, contradicting earlier statements from a Huawei executive.
Joseph Marks / Nextgov:
White House Releases Climate Data Set, Challenges Developers to Use It  —  The Obama administration opened up a trove of climate change data on Wednesday as part of its larger drive to open up government data.  —  The data housed at Data.gov/climate will be contributed by NASA …
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
Official: Court's sign-off for queries on Americans' data would be impractical  —  A senior government lawyer said Wednesday that the high volume of searches that the National Security Agency makes of a database that holds Americans' and foreigners' communications would make court approval for queries involving Americans impractical.
Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
MP3Tunes Founder Michael Robertson Found Liable for Copyright Infringement  —  A jury finds that the once-popular website willfully blinded itself to thousands of songs being stolen.  —  On Wednesday, a jury in a New York federal courtroom found MP3Tunes founder Michael Robertson liable …
More: Reuters and BloombergTweets: @ericgoldman
Jay Hathaway / Gawker:
Dong Nguyen says Flappy Bird will return to the App Store, but not soon  —  Enjoy Your Life While You Can, Because Flappy Bird is Coming Back  —  The most addictive, dangerous new drug of 2014 is about to come back on the market.  Game developer Dong Nguyen has announced that his hit game Flappy Bird …
Chris Velazco / Engadget:
Quirky and GE cook up a smarter, prettier air conditioner  —  Quirky is more than just bendy power strips these days — recently, it's been pushing its vision of the connected home thanks to a multi-million dollar partnership with GE.  So far their deal has yielded stuff like intelligent egg trays …

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