Techmeme: Google X project to collect anonymous genetic and molecular info from thousands to aid in detecting diseases earlier (Alistair Barr/Wall Street Journal)

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July 25, 2014, 5:25 AM

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Amazon:

Amazon.com Announces Second Quarter Sales up 23% to $19.34 Billion — Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2014. — Operating cash flow increased 18% to $5.33 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $4.53 billion …

More: Business Insider, TechSpot, Network World, VentureBeat, The Verge, The Register, Android Central, TechCrunch, New York Times, Re/code, WebProNews, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, ZDNet, Tech Trader Daily and Ars Technica. Tweets: @jbrodkin

Dan Frommer / Quartz:

Amazon's cloud price war with Google is starting to hurt — The numbers: Mixed, as always. Amazon sales grew in the double-digits for the 52nd quarter in a row. Revenue increased 23% year-over-year to $19.3 billion. Operating loss reached $15 million, down from a $79 million operating profit a year ago.

More: Businessweek, Wall Street Journal and Gigaom

Tweets: @firstadopter, @shiraovide and @carmencrincoli

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Amazon Drops 5% After Missing In Q2 With In-Line Sales Of $19.34B, Larger Than Expected Loss Of $0.27

More: USA Today, Forbes, Fortune, GeekWire, TIME, Guardian and Electronista

Tweets: @martinvars and @kylezink

See also Mediagazer

Faryaab S. / SamMobile:

Exclusive: Samsung Gear VR setup walkthrough, First look at Gear VR Manager — A few weeks ago, we exclusively confirmed the existence of Samsung's upcoming virtual reality headset, the Gear VR, and revealed some new information about it and posted a render of the actual device.

More: Droid Life, TechCrunch, Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo, GSMArena Blog, Gotta Be Mobile, The Droid Guy, Pocketnow, Android Central, Gizmodo UK and Canadianreviewer.com

Ian Sherr / CNET:

Facebook's Oculus teaming with Samsung for mobile virtual reality push

More: TechnoBuffalo, TechCrunch, Gizmodo UK and 9to5Google

Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:

Google X project to collect anonymous genetic and molecular info from thousands to aid in detecting diseases earlier — Google to Collect Data to Define Healthy Human — Baseline Study to Try to Create Picture From the Project's Findings — Google Inc. has embarked on what may be its most ambitious …

More: Gigaom, The Next Web, The Verge, 9to5Google, Business Insider and Engadget. Tweets: @tonyromm

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Facebook and Uber Discuss Integration of Car Service Into Messenger — Mark Zuckerberg must be looking to Asia for inspiration for the kind of platform Facebook Messenger could become. — Here's one idea: An integration with popular car-hailing service Uber that would be beneficial to both companies and, presumably, their users.

More: bgr.in, VentureBeat, TruTowerTruTower, VatorNews, SlashGear, Pocket-lint, The Verge, Gizmodo UK, WebProNews and The Next Web

Tweets: @delrey, @dmac1 and @marshallk

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Google's $1B purchase of Twitch confirmed — joins YouTube for new video empire — Google has reached a deal to buy game livestreaming firm Twitch for $1 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter. — Citing unnamed sources, Variety said back in May that Google had made an all-cash offer …

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft moves Yammer under Office 365; Co-founder David Sacks is out — Summary: Microsoft is fine-tuning further its Office businesses and is moving Yammer under Office 365. Yammer Co-founder David Sacks is leaving Microsoft. — Ever since Microsoft bought enterprise social-networking vendor Yammer …

More: VatorNews, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, Business Insider, GeekWire, The Register and ReadWrite. Tweets: @davidsacks

iFixit:

Amazon Fire Phone Teardown — Amazon has finally released its flagship phone, and we're ready. It's teardown time. We're going to burn this place to the ground with Amazon's new Fire Phone. Step 1 — Amazon Fire Phone Teardown Before we jump out of the frying pan and into the Fire Phone …

More: The Register, GSMArena Blog, CNET, SlashGear and Android Central

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Instagram's “Bolt” Leak Could Be A New Facebook App Or An App Install Ad Test — Some Instagram users are reporting having briefly seen a banner advertisement within the Instagram application which pointed to a new app called “Bolt,” described as a “one tap photo messaging” app.

More: The Verge, TechShout, TechnoBuffalo, Mashable, Business Insider, PC Magazine, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, iPhone Hacks, SocialTimes, Pocket-lint, Cult of Mac, SlashGear, 9to5Google, Engadget, App Advice, WebProNews and POPSUGAR

Seth Porges / Forbes:

Hotel Wi-Fi Test ranks hotels by expected Wi-Fi speeds from crowdsourced data — Need A Hotel With Fast Wi-Fi? This Site Has You Covered — Hotel Wi-Fi connections can be a big black mystery box. There are those without Wi-Fi, those that charge you extra for it …

More: The Next Web, Hotel WiFi Speed Test, TravelPulse, Laughing Squid and Business Insider. Tweets: @garrytan

Bloomberg:

Zillow seeking to acquire Trulia for up to $2 billion, combining the two most-visited US real estate sites — Zillow Said to Be Seeking to Buy Rival Real-Estate Site Trulia — Zillow Inc. is seeking to acquire rival Trulia Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said …

More: CNBC, Fortune, MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal and Business Insider

Tweets: @bloombergdeals, @stalingrad_poor and @emilychangtv

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

How Hackers Hid a Money-Mining Botnet in the Clouds of Amazon and Others — Hackers have long used malware to enslave armies of unwitting PCs, but security researchers Rob Ragan and Oscar Salazar had a different thought: Why steal computing resources from innocent victims when there's …

More: The Register. Tweets: @pirateorg

Politico:

President Barack Obama to issue executive order on drone privacy — President Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order to develop privacy guidelines for commercial drones operating in U.S. airspace, POLITICO has learned. — The order would put the National Telecommunications …

More: GeekWire, TechCrunch, Ubergizmo, VentureBeat, SlashGear, Gigaom, ReadWrite and The Verge. Thanks:@ericengleman

Tracy Chou / Pinterest engineering blog:

Pinterest releases diversity report: global employees are 60% male, 50% Caucasian, 42% Asian — Diversity and Inclusion at Pinterest — Last October, I posed the question: “Where are the numbers?”. It was a call to action for the tech industry to share metrics on diversity in the workplace.

More: CNET, PC Magazine, TechCrunch, The Next Web, ReadWrite and Business Insider

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Pirate Bay Launches Mobile Site, Teases More Expansions — One of The Pirate Bay's strengths has been its resilience. No matter how hard the movie and music industries try, the site remains operational. — Over the years the Pirate Bay site has undergone many changes to make it harder to shut down.

More: The Guardian, Softpedia News, New York Times, The Register, Plagiarism Today and VentureBeat. See also Mediagazer

Stephan Doerner / Wall Street Journal:

Germany's Rocket Internet looking to raise up to $4.7B in IPO on Frankfurt Stock Exchange — Germany's Rocket Internet Eyes Possible Frankfurt IPO — Company Looking to Raise Up to $4.71 Billion, People Familiar With Matter Say — BERLIN—Rocket Internet AG, a German company …

Tweets: @pmarca and @jonrussell

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Comixology users can now download DRM-free backups of some comics — Maybe Amazon's purchase of Comixology isn't the worst thing to ever happen after all. Comic book readers on iOS have been fuming over the loss of in-app purchases following the company's acquisition …

More: Gizmodo, CNET, Boing Boing, AppleInsider and VentureBeat

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

Google has granted over 50% of “Right to be Forgotten” requests, over 100,000 links from 91,000 people — Google Grants Majority of ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Requests — Statistics Come as 91,000 People Request Removal of Some Search Results for Their Names

More: Reuters and Bloomberg

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft delivers OneNote for Amazon Fire Phone, Kindle Fire tablets — Summary: Microsoft is making its OneNote note-taking app available for free for the Fire Phone and Kindle Fire tablets through Amazon's Appstore for Android. — On the heels of announcing Skype for Amazon's Fire Phone …

More: Office Blogs, CITEworld, AndroidHeadlines.com, Geeky Gadgets, BetaNews, SuperSite for Windows, CNET, PC World and TechCrunch

John Cook / GeekWire:

Redfin settles stock dispute ‘peaceably’ with founder and former CTO, in run-up to possible IPO — A bitter stock dispute between Redfin and two of the company's earliest employees has ended in a settlement agreement, terms of which are not being disclosed.

Thanks:@toddbishop

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