Techmeme
July 30, 2014, 6:00 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Snapchat Said in Funding Talks With Alibaba at $10 Billion  —  Snapchat Inc., the company that makes a mobile application for disappearing photo messages, is in talks with investors including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA) for a round of financing that may value the company at $10 billion, people with knowledge of the situation said.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Heads rolling at Beats as Apple eliminating redundant positions, Ian Rogers & Trent Reznor to stay on  —  As Apple's acquisition of Beats Electronics and Beats Music nears completion this financial quarter, the Cupertino and Santa Monica, California-based companies have begun work …
Maria Kiselyova / Reuters:
Russia wants access to Apple and SAP source code to see if their products are used for spying  —  Russia wants Apple, SAP to cooperate against foreign spying  —  * Apple, SAP guard their source code closely  —  * Russian, Western relations strained over Ukraine
Ryan Knutson / Wall Street Journal:
Virgin Mobile intros customizable prepaid smartphone plans with options for unlimited data on certain services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest  —  Sprint Will Sell a $12 Wireless Plan that Only Connects to Facebook or Twitter  —  For about $12, Sprint will soon let subscribers buy …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Hangouts Now Works Without Google+ Account, Becomes Part Of Google Apps For Business And Gets SLA  —  Say what you want about Google+, but it incubated two great products at Google: Hangouts for video meetings and Google+ Photos.  While Photos is still deeply integrated with the social network …
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Yelp Swings To Profitability In Strong Q2 With $88.8M In Revenue, EPS Of $0.04  —  Today after the bell Yelp reported its second-quarter financial performance, including revenue of $88.79 million, and a profit of $0.04 per share.  The company had net income of $2.7 million in the period, up from a $878,000 loss in the year-ago quarter.
Eduard Kovacs / SecurityWeek:
Tor Warns of Attack Attempting to Deanonymize Users  —  The Tor Project has disclosed details of an attack which appeared to be an attempt to deanonymize users of the popular anonymity network.  —  According to Tor Project Leader Roger Dingledine, the attack was detected on July 4 …
Derrick Harris / Gigaom:
Twitter acquires deep learning startup Madbits  —  Twitter has acquired Madbits, a deep-learning-based computer vision startup founded by proteges of Facebook AI director Yann LeCun.  It's the latest in a spate of deep learning and computer vision acquisitions that also includes Google, Yahoo, Dropbox and Pinterest.
Mike Futter / Game Informer:
Sony: EA Access Doesn't ‘Represent Good Value To The PlayStation Gamer’  —  Following EA's announcement of the company's new subscription program, Access, we were curious about it being tied only to Xbox One.  We reached out to Sony for clarification, and it seems like PlayStation 4 owners shouldn't hold their breath for the program.
Kara Swisher / Re/code:
Interim No More: Rob Glaser Named Permanent CEO of RealNetworks  —  Rob Glaser, who founded RealNetworks in 1994 and served as its CEO until 2010, has been named permanent CEO of the Seattle-based digital media company.  He has been interim CEO for the last two years, trying to turn around RealNetworks …
More: GeekWire
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
FreedomPop's free data and voice are now available on tablets  —  Many people can't really justify buying a cellular-equipped tablet — why pay for more data when your phone probably does the trick?  FreedomPop is undoubtedly aware of that thriftiness, as it just started offering its namesake free service on tablets.
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Apple TV overhaul not expected to debut until 2015  —  A new report from The Information published today discussing the next generation of Apple TV says the new set-top box won't be ready for prime time until at least 2015.  This expectancy timeline aligns with previous 9to5Mac reporting on the Apple TV development progress.
Joe Belfiore / Windows Phone Blog:
Windows Phone 8.1 Update expands Cortana to new countries, adds “Live” folders on start screen, and more  —  Windows Phone 8.1 Update brings Cortana to new markets + new features  —  Back in April, you heard me talk about how we believe Windows Phone 8.1 is the world's …
Sam Byford / The Verge:
‘Mario Kart 8’ fails to stem growing Nintendo losses  —  2.82 million copies sold, but most to existing Wii U owners  —  Nintendo made an operating loss of ¥9.47 billion ($92.7 million) in its first quarter of 2014, with the launch of Mario Kart 8 sparking a bump in Wii U hardware sales …

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András Neltz / Kotaku:

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