Techmeme: Microsoft, Google form Ethernet consortium for datacenter networks (Charlie Osborne/ZDNet)

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July 2, 2014, 6:15 PM

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R. Jai Krishna / Wall Street Journal:

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg apologizes for poorly communicating controversial News Feed study: “We never meant to upset you” — Sandberg: Facebook Study Was ‘Poorly Communicated’ — Facebook 's psychological experiment on nearly 700,000 unwitting users was communicated “poorly …

James Ball / Guardian:

EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google — Publishers must fight back against this indirect challenge to press freedom, which allows articles to be ‘disappeared’. Editorial decisions belong with them, not Google — When you Google someone from within the EU …

More: BBC News, Marketing Land, PC Magazine, Techdirt, Forbes and BGR

Tweets: @beschizza, @alexstamos, @jeffjohnroberts, @freedomofpress and @marklittlenews

See also Mediagazer

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook acquires video ad tech startup LiveRail for $400-500M, plans to keep it running — Facebook Acquires LiveRail To Serve Video Ads Everywhere, Improve Its Own — Facebook has just bought video ad tech startup LiveRail, which connects marketers to publishers on web and mobile …

More: Facebook, LiveRail, VatorNews, Business Insider, PC Magazine, Marketing Land, AllFacebook, Wall Street Journal, Re/code, Gigaom, VentureBeat, ZDNet, Inside Facebook, AdExchanger, TechnoBuffalo, Beet.TV, bizjournals and WebProNews

Tweets: @mikeisaac, @joshconstine and @joshconstine

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Developer preview test for Android L's Project Volta shows promise, 2 hours or 35% more battery life on Nexus 5 — Examining Project Volta: We put Android L through our battery test — For each Android release, Google likes to have a “Project” that picks an area of weakness and focuses on tuning the whole OS to fix it.

More: Geek.com, TechSpot, ExtremeTech, BGR, Gigaom, Android Beat, Geeky Gadgets, TechnoBuffalo, Redmond Pie, SlashGear, Business Insider and Android Police

Soma Somasegar / MSDN Blogs:

Microsoft acquires SyntaxTree, creator of UnityVS plugin for Visual Studio — Game developers build the apps that hundreds of millions of users play every day across a wide variety of devices, from Xbox and Windows to iOS, Android and the Web. Games are the most popular application type …

More: PC World, eWeek, TechCrunch, GeekWire, The Next Web, ZDNet, WinBeta and Neowin. Tweets: @lordned

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft seeks Office for Android testers as it readies tablet version — Touch-friendly Office Android apps coming before Windows version — Microsoft may have released a basic Office app for Android phones almost a year ago, but the company is now building a suite designed specifically for Android tablets.

More: Computerworld, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, PC Magazine, Gigaom, SlashGear, TechSpot, Engadget, 9to5Google, Phandroid, Ubergizmo, Electronista, PC World and Pocketnow

Kif Leswing / Gigaom:

Google announces the first 100 Project Ara beta testers — It appears Google's ambitious modular phone experiment is moving into the next phase. At Google's I/O developer conference, the Advanced Technology and Projects team was able to boot a Project Ara device in public for the first time …

More: 9to5Google, The Next Web, Dan Makoski, TechnoBuffalo, Techaeris and Android Central

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Does A “Summer Cleaning,” Shuts Down Its Xobni Acquisition, Plus Other Under-Performing Products — Yahoo's spring cleanings have extended into the summer months, the company announced today, detailing a series of product changes and closures, many of which are nearly obsolete, obscure, or just unpopular.

More: Yahoo, Fortune, VentureBeat, PC World, The Next Web and Search Engine Land

Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:

Investor Tim Draper wins auction for 29,655 bitcoins seized from Silk Road, partners with Vaurum to leverage the pool as a liquidity source in emerging markets — Famed investor Tim Draper wins auction of Silk Road's 29,655 bitcoins — Draper to partner with Vaurum, which offers “secure storage solutions” to banks.

More: New York Times, The Register, PC Magazine, Medium, Gigaom, CoinDesk, Forbes, Re/code, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Wired, PandoDaily, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, NEWSBTC and On Bitcoin. Tweets: @adamdraper

Joon Ian Wong / CoinDesk:

Coinbase Announces High-Security ‘Vault’ Bitcoin Accounts — Called ‘Vault’, the new account was designed in response to demand for a more secure type of wallet from Coinbase's growing customer base of institutions and wealthy individuals, according to company CEO Brian Armstrong, who explained:

More: The Coinbase Blog, TechCrunch and NEWSBTC

Mariella Moon / Engadget:

Chumby's smart alarm clock relaunches with 1,000 apps — Remember Chumby? You probably haven't heard much about the snuggly tiny computer/smart alarm clock since its makers' company disbanded, but now it's back from its semi-retired state. Its current owner, Blue Octy LLC …

More: Geeky Gadgets, Liliputing, Connectedly and The Verge

Tweets: @gigastacey and @chumby

Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:

Microsoft, Google form Ethernet consortium for datacenter networks — Summary: Microsoft, Google and other firms have come together to form the 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium with the aim of improving cloud datacenter networks. — Charlie Osborne — Five tech giants, including Google and Microsoft …

More: Data Center Knowledge, EnterpriseTech, Inquirer, TechSpot, FierceCIO News, The Register and eWeek

David Katzmaier / CNET:

Samsung to end plasma TV production this year — Following in the footsteps of Panasonic, Samsung says it will end production of plasma display panels by the end of this year. — The Samsung PNF8500 is the last great plasma TV. — Sarah Tew/CNET — Samsung SDI has announced …

More: Reuters, Engadget, Tech Times, The Verge and SlashGear

Tweets: @wirecutter and @dkatzmaier

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

Nvidia preparing a Shield Tablet successor to its Android game console — The Shield Tablet looks set to be a hybrid 2-in-1 device that will show off the power of the Tegra K1 chip — Best known for designing graphics chips and mobile processors, Nvidia set out on a bold new course …

More: Ars Technica, LAPTOP Magazine, 9to5Google, Phandroid, CNET, Pocketnow, Engadget, Electronista, AndroidGuys and Pocket-lint

TechCrunch:

Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don't Store Personal Data In Russia — The Russian government has moved one step closer towards a “China-like” approach towards Internet services. — Last night, the Russian State Duma (parliament) passed the first bill requiring that the personal data …

More: Gigaom, The Voice of Russia, News, Neowin, theWHIR.com, Geek.com, Geeky Gadgets, VentureBeat and Ubergizmo

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

An Upper Limit For Apps? New Data Suggests Consumers Only Use Around Two Dozen Apps Per Month — There are now well over a million mobile applications in both Google Play and the iTunes App Store alike, and growth of those app marketplaces shows no sign of slowing down.

More: Internet2Go, Business Insider, asymco.com, PadGadget, ZDNet, MacDailyNews and 9to5Mac

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft and Canon cross license mobile, imaging patents — Summary: Microsoft and Canon are cross licensing their respective mobile and digital imaging patent portfolios. — Microsoft and Canon announced a cross-licensing patent agreement on July 2 which involves an undisclosed number …

More: Microsoft Corporation, The Register, Softpedia News, Tech Times, Electronista, Pocketnow, Windows Phone Central, SlashGear and WinBeta

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers raises $1.2B: $450M for flagship early-stage fund, $750M for digital growth fund — Exclusive: Kleiner Perkins raises $1.2 billion — Kleiner Perkins has no trouble raising a pair of new venture capital funds. Venerable venture capital firm Kleiner …

More: bizjournals and VentureBeat

Hitesh Arora / NDTV Gadgets:

Google Discontinues SMS for Hangouts; Might Integrate Google Voice Soon — Google on Monday has updated that it is discontinuing SMS for Google Hangouts feature for Web from July 2. Up till now the feature was available for India, Pakistan, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Congo and many other countries from Africa and Asia.

More: Google Operating System, Gizmodo, The Next Web, Droid Life, Google Operating System, AndroidGuys and Gigaom

Dawn Chmielewski / Re/code:

Samsung shuts down its Video and Media Hub, transfers users' accounts to M-Go — M-Go to Take Over Samsung's Movie Business — Samsung Electronics has discovered that making great screens and delivering great on-screen entertainment require different skills.

More: Variety, Gigaom, FierceOnlineVideo News and Ubergizmo

Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:

First 10K units of Oculus Rift DK2 should be arriving week of July 14 — With 45,000 Pre-Orders, The New Oculus Rift Will Start Arriving Around July 14th — Back in March, the second generation of Oculus' work-in-progress virtual reality headset went up for pre-order for $350.

More: PC World, Electronista, SlashGear and Engadget

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

Microsoft joins the AllSeen Alliance as it ramps up connected device efforts — The AllSeen Alliance, the organization pushing for the AllJoyn open standard for connected devices, has netted Microsoft as a member. Microsoft joins members such as Haier, Sears, LG, Panasonic …

More: Reuters, ZDNet, PC World, eWeek, Computerworld, Inquirer, ReadWrite, DailyFinance.com and Windows Phone Central

Martin Beck / Marketing Land:

Facebook Touts 1 Billion App Links Served, Adds Support For Mobile App Ads — Facebook's App Link program, an open-source, cross-platform standard for linking on mobile devices, has been widely adopted since the program was introduced on April 30 at the F8 Developers conference.

More: Facebook Developers

Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon resists FTC request to tighten in-app purchase policy for children — Amazon Resisting FTC on Policy Change for In-App Purchases — Amazon-FTC Dispute Is Over Limiting Children's Purchases — Amazon.com Inc. is bucking a request from the Federal Trade Commission that it tighten …

More: Ars Technica, USA Today, The Verge, GeekWire, Android Central and TIME

Juliette Garside / Guardian:

Study: 19% of top 100K most visited websites are blocked by Britain's adult content filters — Internet filters blocking one in five most-popular websites — Jezebel and Guido Fawkes sites among those blocked by at least one mobile or fixed line service provider in UK, campaigners say

More: PandoDaily, TorrentFreak, BetaNews, The Independent, Forbes, Wired.co.uk, Telegraph and Inquirer

Cindy Cohn / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Flawed Oversight Board Report Endorses General Warrants — The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) issued a legally flawed and factually incomplete report late Tuesday that endorses Section 702 surveillance. Hiding behind the “complexity” of the technology …

More: Computerworld, Reuters, Daily Dot, Alexander B. Howard, Softpedia News, Re/code, The Verge and Techdirt

Julian Hattem / The Hill:

Federal privacy watchdog finds NSA programs targeting foreigners are effective, legal and show “no trace” of “illegitimate activity”

More: Ars Technica, SiliconBeat, Just Security and Forbes

Tweets: @granick and @the_intercept

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