Techmeme: Exclusive: Disney to buy YouTube network Maker Studios for $500 million (Ronald Grover/Reuters)

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March 24, 2014, 11:05 PM

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Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Box Files For $250M IPO On Full-Year Revenue Of $124M, Net Loss Of $168M — The Box S-1 is out at last. The cloud storage company is looking to raise up $250 million in the flotation. That sum is less than its competitor Dropbox recently raised from the private markets.

More: Box, Inc., Gigaom, Re/code, The Register, Mercury News, CNNMoney.com, PC World, ZDNet, Wall Street Journal, The Technology Chronicles, ReadWrite, PandoDaily, The Verge, bizjournals, Business Insider, Gigaom, Fortune, The Next Web, Tech Trader Daily, The Next Web, VentureBeat, GeekWire, Wall Street Journal, ZDNet and SiliconBeat

Tweets: @boxhq, @levie, @davidu, @dfjjosh, @davidu, @rmac18, @parmy, @mattlynley, @sama, @katie_roof, @om, @amir and @evelynrusli

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Hotshot CEO Aaron Levie Will Only Own 4.1% Of Box When It IPOs, Investor DFJ Owns 25.5% — Box CEO Aaron Levie is credited with bringing sexy back to enterprise startups, but the big surprise in Box's S-1 IPO document filed today is that Levie only owns 4.1 percent of the company.

More: Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @joshconstine, @dgildeh and @sacca

Ronald Grover / Reuters:

Exclusive: Disney to buy YouTube network Maker Studios for $500 million — (Reuters) - The Walt Disney Co has agreed to buy Maker Studios for $500 million, becoming a major online video distributor through the purchase of one of YouTube's largest networks, according to a person familiar with the deal.

More: Both Sides of the Table, Re/code, TechCrunch, Variety, Engadget, Bloomberg, Gigaom, 9to5Google and Tubefilter

Tweets: @pmarca, @msuster, @makerstudios, @hunterwalk, @johnpaczkowski and @steepdecline

See also Mediagazer

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Apple's iTunes Radio Adds NPR News Channel — When iTunes Radio launched last fall, the service was designed for music fans (and music labels). Now it is branching out: National Public Radio is adding the first news channel to Apple's audio streaming service, with more on the way.

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Coursera Brings In Longtime Yale President Rick Levin as CEO — Coursera, the massive-open-online-course provider with the most funding and the most students in the space, is shaking up its leadership. — The company has named Rick Levin, formerly president of Yale University for two decades, as CEO.

More: VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal, bizjournals, EdSurge, Yale Alumni Magazine, New Haven Independent and Inc.com. Tweets: @robreich

Zeljka Zorz / Help Net Security:

10,000 GitHub users inadvertently reveal their AWS secret access keys — GitHub developers who are also Amazon Web Services users are advised to check the code they made public on their project pages and to delete secret access keys for their AWS account they may have posted inadvertently.

More: iTnews.com.au, Inquirer and Beyond Search

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Tumblr Gets More Secure With Addition Of Two-Factor Authentication — Tumblr today added a very important security feature to its service, with the addition of two-factor authentication - an option available within the blogging service's “Settings” section as of now.

More: Tumblr Staff, ZDNet, Business Insider, Engadget, gHacks Technology News, iMore, The Next Web and Pocket-lint. Thanks:@alex

Siobhan Gorman / Wall Street Journal:

Bill Would Remove Phone Database From NSA — Agency No Longer Would Store Records but Request Them From Phone Firms — WASHINGTON—Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee are set to unveil Tuesday a proposal overhauling the National Security Agency's phone-records program by requiring searches …

More: New York Times, The Next Web, The Verge, Guardian and VentureBeat

Tweets: @astepanovich, @occupymolokai, @gorman_siobhan, @emptywheel and @digiphile

Taylor Soper / GeekWire:

Seattle-area taxi association sues Uber for ‘unlawful and deceptive business practice’ — The Western Washington Taxi Cab Operators Association is suing Uber, the app-based transportation company, for operating illegally in Seattle and King County. The lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court …

Thanks:@toddbishop

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

Dell acquires StatSoft, adds analytics to software stack — Summary: StatSoft's flagship software is Statistica Enterprise, which filters and analyzes data from multiple repositories. — Dell on Monday said it acquired StatSoft, a company that specializes in analytics and data visualization software.

More: Direct2Dell, ITworld.com, VentureBeat, WebProNews, eWeek, SiliconANGLE and SlashGear

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft to rebrand ‘Windows Azure’ as ‘Microsoft Azure’ — Summary: Microsoft will rebrand its cloud platform from ‘Windows Azure’ to ‘Microsoft Azure’ as part of the company's push to emphasize its cross-platform services prowess. — Microsoft will announce its rebranding of its …

More: Forbes, The Register, TechCrunch, ReadWrite, eWeek, VentureBeat, WinBeta and Softpedia News

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Google Now arrives in Chrome for Windows and Mac — Google Now has finally arrived on the desktop. Google today announced Google Now is being pushed to the Chrome stable channel for Windows and Mac “starting today and rolling out over the next few weeks.”

More: Google Chrome, NEWS.com.au, Google Chrome, Mashable, The Verge, Engadget, Digital Trends, MacRumors, Lifehacker, Search Engine Land, Ars Technica and Electronista

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Malicious apps can hose Android phones, erase data, researchers warn — Security researchers said they have uncovered bugs in Google's Android operating system that could allow malicious apps to send vulnerable devices into a spiral of endlessly looping crashes and possibly delete all data stored on them.

More: TrendLabs Security …, The Register, Computerworld and Inquirer

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Google's new Photowall app turns your Chromecast-connected TV into an interactive photo frame — Adding to the capabilities of the Chromecast HDMI streaming stick, Google is out with a new app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users called Photowall that lets you turn your Chromecast-connected TV into a live, interactive photo frame.

Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:

Google Deal With Luxottica Will Bring Glass to Ray-Ban, Oakley — Google Inc. has won a powerful ally in its fight to make Google Glass cool. — Italian eyewear maker Luxottica Group SpA, owner of the Ray-Ban and Oakley sunglass brands, said Monday it had agreed to design …

More: Google Glass, #EXPLORE, Engadget, The Verge, TechCrunch, TechHive, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Business Insider, The Next Web, Gigaom, TechnoBuffalo, Phandroid, Android Central, Ubergizmo and Pocket-lint

Tweets: @joshgreenman, @caseynewton and @luxottica

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Justice Department lands first ever convictions against mobile app pirates — Two men accused of operating a popular Android piracy website have pleaded guilty to charges filed by the Department of Justice. It's the first time the US government has secured convictions for the distribution of counterfeit smartphone apps.

More: The United States Department …, Ars Technica, Mashable and TheHill

Eric Mack / Forbes:

National Bitcoin Alternative Auroracoin Launches To Save Iceland's Economy — As many of you read this, all the good people of Iceland will have just become about 30 Auroracoin richer, which translates to nearly $350 if current prices hold. — Auroracoin is among the first serious attempts …

More: Bitcoin Magazine, International Business Times, Motherboard, NBC News, CoinDesk and Daily Dot. Thanks:@ericcmack

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Mozilla Appoints JavaScript Creator Brendan Eich As Its New CEO — Last April, Mozilla announced that Gary Kovacs was stepping down as the organization's CEO and that it would start looking for a replacement. At the time, Jay Sullivan took over as acting CEO in the midst of a number of leadership changes at Mozilla.

More: The Mozilla Blog, Brendan Eich, CNET, Wall Street Journal, ZDNet, Mitchell's Blog, BetaNews, InfoWorld, Engadget, PC Magazine, eWeek, BrowserNative, The Register, VentureBeat and Electronista

Reuters:

Grubhub's IPO could value online food delivery firm at $1.72 bln — (Reuters) - GrubHub Inc said it expects to price its initial public offering of 7.03 million shares at $20-$22 per share, valuing the largest U.S. online food delivery services provider at up to $1.72 billion.

More: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Forbes, The Wire and Los Angeles Times

Wall Street Journal:

Pinterest preparing for Q2 launch of paid promoted pins with select marketers — Pinterest makes play for advertising sales with artful ‘promoted pins’ — Digital scrapbooking site Pinterest is preparing to launch ad sales in the second quarter with a bold pitch.

More: Marketing Land, VentureBeat and SlashGear. Thanks:@malliegator

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Basecamp Becomes Latest Victim Of DDoS Attackers Attempting To Extort Money From Tech Companies — Basecamp, makers of the popular online project management software of the same name (which as of this February became the company's main focus) was hit with a distributed denial-of-service attack …

More: gist.github.com, Signal vs. Noise, Ars Technica, The Register, Help Net Security, Computerworld, The Next Web and Gizmodo

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