Techmeme
April 14, 2014, 4:40 PM

Top News

Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Windows Phone 8.1 review: a magnificent smartphone platform  —  It's a 0.1 update that feels like a 2.0 update.  —  For the growing number of Windows Phone users, Windows Phone 8 was a frustrating release.  The major difference between Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8 was invisible to end users …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview now available to download  —  Windows Phone 8.1 now available to download  —  After 18 months since the last major Windows Phone update, Microsoft is finally releasing Windows Phone 8.1 to developers today.  The software maker detailed the update …
Wall Street Journal:
Google buys Titan Aerospace, the maker of high-altitude drones Facebook was considering  —  Google Buys Drone Maker Courted by Facebook  —  Internet Giant to Acquire Titan Aerospace  —  Google Inc. said Monday it agreed to buy Titan Aerospace, a startup maker of high-altitude drones …
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
Google considering giving a boost in its search-engine results to websites that use encryption  —  Google May Push Sites to Use Encryption  —  A powerful voice at Google wants websites to be more secure.  —  In a move that experts say could make it harder to spy on Web users …
Ina Fried / Re/code:
Early internal document reveals Android was initially designed without touchscreen support  —  Here's What Android Looked Like Before the iPhone  —  One of the more interesting documents that came to light during the Apple-Samsung document last week was an early internal Google document …
Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:
Facebook is reportedly prepping an e-money service, and is close to getting approval in Ireland  —  Facebook wants to be more than a social network — it is planning to facilitate financial services in the form of electronic money and remittances, the Financial Times reports (as spotted first by Benedict Evans).
Kwame Opam / The Verge:
Heartbleed bug responsible for theft of 900 Canadian tax ID numbers  —  Canada's taxpayers may be the first victims of the Heartbleed bug that put the web on high alert last week.  According to the Canada Revenue Agency, 900 social insurance numbers (SINs) were stolen by hackers exploiting the security vulnerability.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
UPDATED: Relativity Offers Up to $1.1 Billion for Maker Studios, In Move to Outflank Disney  —  Maker Studios is in the center of a bidding war: Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity Media has staged a surprise late-hour plan to acquire the YouTube multichannel network operator for up to $1.1 billion in stock …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Netflix streaming speeds on Comcast jump 65 percent after controversial deal  —  Netflix customers on Comcast are already seeing the benefits of a controversial pact between the streaming service and cable provider.  Comcast jumped five spots in Netflix's ranking of ISP performance for the month of March.
Nick Wingfield / New York Times:
A profile of Benchmark venture capitalist Richard Barton  —  The Art of ‘Something From Nothing’  —  SEATTLE — Entrepreneurs are lucky to have one big score.  Richard Barton has had a string of them, by repeatedly asking the same simple question: What piece of marketplace information do people crave and don't have?
Jeremy Kirk / PC World:
Akamai admits its OpenSSL patch was faulty, reissues keys  —  Akamai Technologies, whose network handles up to 30 percent of all Internet traffic, said Sunday a researcher found a fault in custom code that the company thought shielded most of its customers from the Heartbleed bug.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Did Microsoft just kill its anti-Google ‘Scroogled’ campaign?  —  Summary: A Microsoft Corporate Vice President claims Microsoft is ‘done’ with its ‘Scroogled’ campaign.  But is the company really Scroogled out?  —  Has Microsoft quietly done away with its anti-Google “Scroogled” campaign?
More: 9to5Google and Yabbly
Dan Primack / Fortune:
Exclusive: Kleiner Perkins raising $1.2 billion for new funds  —  Kleiner Perkins raising new early-stage and digital growth funds.  —  FORTUNE — Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers last week unveiled its new fundraising plans, at a meeting of the venture capital firm's limited partners.
Tweets: @shaig
Ben Popper / The Verge:
How Cool Planet founder Mike Cheiky convinced Silicon Valley to invest in his shoddy science  —  The inventor of everything  —  How an egotistical genius convinced Silicon Valley to invest hundreds of millions in his shoddy science  —  It's a sunny morning in Camarillo, California …
More: Gigaom
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
T-Mobile is sorry for charging “greedy, predatory” fees, will (mostly) stop  —  T-Mobile charges for extra data on 500MB plans, but it's not an “overage” fee.  —  T-Mobile US CEO John Legere today said that data overage fees are greedy and predatory and that the company plans to stop charging them.

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