Techmeme: Facebook Explores Anonymity Features (Mike Isaac/Re/code)

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April 3, 2014, 9:00 PM

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Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Mozilla Co-Founder Brendan Eich Resigns as CEO, Leaves Foundation Board — Brendan Eich, the well-known techie who has gotten swept up in a controversy about his support of California's anti-gay marriage law Proposition 8, is resigning as CEO of for-profit Mozilla Corporation and also from the board …

Brendan Eich:

Brendan Eich on leaving Mozilla, taking a break and what's next — The Next Mission — Slides for the brief talk that I gave at a Harvard seminar on privacy and user data organized by John Taysom last week. — My talk was really more about the “network problem” than the “protocol problem”.

More: Scripting News. Tweets: @tekriot, @joshuahoover, @frankjonen, @dianargergel, @ljharb, @davewiner, @caseynewton, @nikmd23, @rachaelbl and @trevinwax

Amir Efrati / The Information:

Google mulls offering wireless voice and data services in Fiber markets, talked with Sprint, Verizon about buying, reselling network access — Google Weighs a Plunge into Mobile Phone Services — After thrusting itself into competition with U.S. cable operators, Google is inching closer to competing with wireless carriers, too.

More: The Verge, DSLreports, Android Central, bizjournals, Engadget, TechSpot, BGR, Gigaom Research, Gigaom, Gizmodo UK, Gotta Be Mobile, Phandroid, AndroidGuys, Gizmodo, The Droid Guy, LAPTOP Magazine and 9to5Google. Tweets: @amir

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft open sourcing more developer tech: .NET Compiler Platform, C#, Visual Basic, more — Microsoft open sources more of its .Net technologies — Summary: From the truth-is- stranger-than-fiction files, Microsoft — along with its mobile-dev tool partner Xamarin …

More: Ars Technica, The Next Web, InfoWorld, The Official Microsoft Blog, ReadWrite, GeekWire, eWeek, MSDN Blogs and TechCrunch. Tweets: @ldignan

Associated Press:

US govt secretly created “Cuban Twitter” to stir unrest, sought funding from Jack Dorsey — US secretly created “Cuban Twitter” to stir unrest — WASHINGTON (AP) — In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a U.S. government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches on a secret plan …

More: Computerworld, Telegraph, Forbes, PandoDaily and Engadget

Tweets: @katrinanation and @tbridis

See also Mediagazer

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Speech Recognition Pioneer Novauris Bought By Apple, Team Now Works On Siri — Apple quietly acquired an automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology company called Novauris Technologies, which grew out of Dragon Systems R&D U.K. Ltd., the British research subsidiary of Dragon Systems, a well-known voice dictation pioneer.

More: BGR, VentureBeat, iMore, Bloomberg, AppleInsider, Gotta Be Mobile, LAPTOP Magazine, Pocketnow, MacRumors, Re/code, iPhone Hacks, iDownloadBlog.com and 9to5Mac

Apple:

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference Kicks Off June 2 at Moscone West in San Francisco — Developers Can Apply for WWDC Tickets Starting Today — Apple® today announced that it will hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) June 2 through June 6 at San Francisco's Moscone West.

More: Computerworld, CNN, Kirkville, iMore, Wired, Softpedia News, I4U News, GeekWire, Global Nerdy, Ubergizmo, HotHardware.com News, The Register, ZDNet, Inquirer, The Mac Observer, Ars Technica, App Advice and InvestorPlace

Tweets: @markgurman and @markgurman

Carol E. Lee / Wall Street Journal:

White House calls Samsung out on Ortiz's Selfie With Obama — Samsung Called Out on Ortiz's Selfie With Obama — The White House is pushing back against Samsung Electronics Co. for its promotion of a selfie that Red Sox slugger David Ortiz took with President Barack Obama earlier this week.

More: CBS Boston, Marketing Land, Ars Technica, The Boston Globe, iPhone Hacks, The Next Web, PC Magazine, The Hill, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, GlobalPost, EURweb, The Droid Guy, The Boston Globe, The Inquisitr News, 1250 AM WTMA, AppleInsider and Ubergizmo. Tweets: @anildash

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Microsoft says Office iPad apps hit 12 million downloads a week after release — After announcing the release of the Office for iPad apps late last month, Microsoft announced today that the separate Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for iPad have collectively reached 12 million downloads a week after release.

More: AppleInsider, Engadget, Cult of Mac, VentureBeat, BGR, Ubergizmo, Gotta Be Mobile, Seattle Times blogs, Pocketnow, TechnoBuffalo and iDownloadBlog.com. Tweets: @office

Seth Weintraub / 9to5Google:

Google plans significant overhaul of many of its native and web apps in 'Google 2.0′/wearable push — Yesterday we got a look at a beta version of the upcoming Gmail app for Android which includes new Travel, Purchases, and Finance categories in addition to the Social, Promotions …

More: PC World. Tweets: @stevesi and @pkedrosky. Thanks:@justinkahnmusic

Russell Holly / Geek.com:

Google is testing new inbox tabs, snooze and pinning features for messages in Gmail for Android

More: BGR, TechCrunch, The Verge, Android Police, Android Central, TechSpot, Business Insider, Marketing Land, AndroidGuys and iPhone Hacks

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Nest Halts Sales Of Protect Smoke Alarm Over Safety Concerns About ‘Wave To Dismiss’ Feature — Nest CEO Tony Fadell has just issued a notice recommending users disable the Protect smoke alarm's ‘wave to dismiss’ feature. In testing, it was discovered that people could accidentally trigger the dismiss feature, delaying a smoke alarm.

More: Nest Labs, BBC, New York Times, The Technology Chronicles, Computerworld, BetaNews, Wall Street Journal, 9to5Google, Gigaom, GeekWire, iMore, Gizmodo, The Verge, Business Insider, The Next Web, MacRumors, Engadget, Android Central and Phandroid. Tweets: @olivercameron

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

Facebook Explores Anonymity Features — Facebook spent years defining what it means to have an online identity. Now with the surge in popularity of anonymous social apps, Facebook may be spending next few figuring out how to deal with the complete opposite case.

More: Business Insider

Mike Beasley / 9to5Mac:

iOS 7 bug allows anyone to disable Find My iPhone and bypass Activation Lock without a password — Starting with iOS 7, deleting an iCloud account or restoring a device requires Find My iPhone to be disabled. Find My iPhone, in turn, requires the user to enter the password for the Apple ID attached to the iCloud account.

More: Gotta Be Mobile, Gizmodo UK, Examiner, Pocketnow, TechSpot and Softpedia News

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Twitter's Vine Introduces Direct Video Messaging — Twitter's Vine has introduced a feature that allows you to message other users directly via video. This adds both a direct messaging channel and video clips to its messages, a big addition to Twitter's video app.

More: Vine, Marketing Land, VentureBeat, Re/code, Gizmodo, The Next Web, The Verge, Wired and WebProNews

Tweets: @joshconstine and @bartekd

Jenna Wortham / New York Times:

Imgur, the Image-Sharing Site, Raises $40 Million From Andreessen Horowitz — If you spend any measurable amount of time on the Internet, you've likely visited — or at least looked at — an image hosted on Imgur (pronounced “image-er"). — The photo-sharing service is extremely popular …

More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Re/code, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Guardian, Los Angeles Times, PandoDaily, The Technology Chronicles and PE Hub Blog. See also Mediagazer

David Ruddock / Android Police:

[Rumor] “Android Silver” May Be Google's Attempt To Finally Provide A Premium Android Sale And Support Experience — If there's one thing we hear time and again about Android, it's the F word: fragmentation. While it's largely just an annoying word used to get under the skin of Android fans …

More: Gizchina.com, BGR, TechnoBuffalo and Business Insider. Tweets: @benedictevans

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Facebook paid 330 security researchers $1.5M in 2013; adds Instagram, Parse, Atlas, Onavo to Bug Bounty program — Facebook today announced it paid out $1.5 million to 330 security researchers around the world in 2013 as part of its bug bounty program, which launched back in August 2011.

More: Facebook, Inside Facebook, The Register, Re/code and Bloomberg

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Gina Bianchini's MightyBell, a social network for small groups, opens to the public — MightyBell Now Tolls For All — The group software space is getting hot. Between Google Groups, Facebook Groups, Yammer, Convo, Asana, newcomer Slack and more, a loose or tight-knit organization …

More: Re/code, Fortune, Gigaom Research and The Next Web

Blair Hanley Frank / GeekWire:

Azure updates: 99.95% DB uptime, SQL DBs up to 500GBs, load management on sites, more — Microsoft announces broad swath of new features for Azure — SAN FRANCISCO - There are some big new features afoot for Microsoft Azure. As a part of the company's Build developer conference …

More: TechCrunch, PC World, Ars Technica and ReadWrite

David Meyer / Gigaom:

European Parliament passes strong net neutrality law, along with major roaming reforms — European fans of the open internet can breathe a sigh of relief: the European parliament has passed a major package of telecoms law reform, complete with amendments that properly define and protect net neutrality.

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

Jaunt Raises $6.8 Million for Virtual Reality Movies — Facebook and Sony are betting that games will be the first wave of virtual reality content, but that the uses for the technology will eventually broaden. Even before the Oculus Rift or Project Morpheus has had a chance with consumers …

More: Engadget, Gizmodo, PC World, Computerworld and TechCrunch

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Dropbox Promotes Sujay Jaswa to Financial Chief Ahead of IPO — Online-storage startup Dropbox Inc. has finally named a chief financial officer, a pivotal step towards planning its initial public offering. — The company has promoted Sujay Jaswa, a vice president who already ran …

Brooke Crothers / CNET:

Intel outs 64-bit KitKat Android, ‘Braswell’ chip for Chromebooks — Intel is touting a future system-on-a-chip for low-cost PCs and tablets and a 64-bit version of Android 4.4. — Toshiba's Chromebook uses a low-cost Intel Celeron processor. Intel's upcoming Braswell chip could find its way into future Chromebooks.

More: Tech2, PC World and Geeky Gadgets

James Robinson / PandoDaily:

Indiegogo edits support document claiming to catch “all cases of fraud” after clamor on dubious Healbe campaign — After Pando shows clear evidence of fraud, Indiegogo responds by... deleting anti-fraud guarantee — What's the right thing to do if your crowdfunding platform guarantees …

Martin Bryant / The Next Web:

IFTTT now works with iOS push notifications and looks great on the iPad — If you're a user of popular personal productivity service IFTTT (If This Then That) who also has an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, maybe you've wished that you could use iOS push notifications in your recipes.

More: 9to5Mac, Macworld, AppleInsider, Lifehacker, iMore, TechCrunch, MacStories and Cult of Mac

Jacob Gershman / Wall Street Journal:

In bid to trademark “Glass”, Google faces objections from USPTO — Cracks in Google's Bid to Trademark ‘Glass’ — Google Inc. is trying to register the word “Glass” as a trademark for its computer-powered glasses. But so far, the company and the U.S. trademark office aren't seeing eye to eye.

More: 9to5Google. Tweets: @sggrc

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