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March 20, 2014, 9:40 AM
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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.
Levi Pulkkinen / Seattle PI:
Ex-Microsoft employee charged with passing journalist trade secrets  —  Prosecutors: Angry worker sent blogger Windows 8 code, internal documents  —  Workers removing the products from the stage after the Microsoft Windows 8 and Surface event in New York, Oct. 25, 2012.
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 …
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 Magazine.  Tweets: @jyarow
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 …
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 …
Stephanie M. Lee / The Technology Chronicles:
Augmedix raises $3.2 million to bring Google Glass into doctor's office  —  Augmedix, one of several start-ups developing ways to use Google Glass in health care, said Wednesday it has raised $3.2 million in venture capital funding.  —  The announcement comes on an especially busy …
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 …
Katherine Rosman / Wall Street Journal:
Fitbit Now Faces a Class-Action Suit in Rash Fallout  —  A month after Fitbit issued a recall of its fitness-tracking bracelet following complaints of blisters and rashes, the startup now faces its first lawsuit.  —  The suit, filed on Monday in the Superior Court of California in the County of San Diego …
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: The Register, Reuters and Bloomberg.  Tweets: @ericgoldman
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.
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 …
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.
Daisuke Wakabayashi / Wall Street Journal:
US VCs invested $848M in consumer electronics hardware startups in 2013, up from $442M in 2012  —  Venture Money Flows Into Hardware Startups  —  From Jawbone to Roku, U.S. Investors Pump $848 Million Into Consumer-Electronics Makers  —  A hardware startup is still hard, but it is getting a little easier.
Tweets: @wsjd
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 …

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From Mediagazer

Reuters:
Independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta plans to shut down after 30+ years, following pressure from Russian authorities and the persecution of its reporters

Bruce Gil / Gizmodo:
Fan fiction site AO3 says it will be offline for two to four weeks after a security incident; it hosts over 18M works and has 11M registered users

Selome Hailu / Variety:
Sources: Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine lays off about 30 employees, roughly 50% of its staff, as it focuses on film and TV projects and its book club brand

More News

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
EA investigating alleged hack using its website to steal Apple IDs
Rachel King / ZDNet:
Icahn's latest tip: eBay should sell 20 percent of PayPal via IPO

Earlier Picks

Ben Gilbert / Engadget:
Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 now available by subscription for $19, headed to OS X and more
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
The second Oculus Rift developer kit includes higher resolution panels, peripheral camera for position tracking, ships in July for $350
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