Techmeme: Alibaba Invests $120M in Mobile Gaming Co. Kabam at Valuation More Than $1 Billion (Lizette Chapman/Wall Street Journal)

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August 1, 2014, 12:50 AM

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Andy Greenberg / Wired:

Security researchers say USB security is fundamentally broken; hard-to-detect malware in the firmware can take over Macs/PCs, no easy fix — Why the Security of USB Is Fundamentally Broken — Computer users pass around USB sticks like silicon business cards.

More: Security Research Labs, ExtremeTech, Ars Technica, Engadget, BGR, CrackBerry.com, Slate, PC Magazine, Tech Times, Cult of Mac, VentureBeat, 9to5Google, Help Net Security, TechSpot, Reuters and The Verge. Tweets: @pmarca. Thanks:@wiredmike

Dan Rayburn / StreamingMediaBlog.com:

Apple's CDN Now Live: Has Paid Deals With ISPs, Massive Capacity In Place — Since last year, Apple's been hard at work building out their own CDN and now those efforts are paying off. Recently, Apple's CDN has gone live in the U.S. and Europe and the company is now delivering some of their own content, directly to consumers.

More: Gigaom, MacRumors, Light Reading, Macworld, MacDailyNews, VentureBeat, Cult of Mac, Engadget, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Verge, Business Insider, AppleInsider, iLounge, iMore, App Advice and Electronista. Tweets: @chrismessina. Thanks:@danrayburn

eBay Inc.:

eBay employee demographics: globally, 42% female; in US, 61% white, 24% Asian, 7% black, 5% Hispanic — Building A Stronger, Better, More Diverse eBay — Commerce is global, and so is eBay Inc. Every day, our eBay and PayPal platforms serve tens of millions of merchants and consumers in virtually every country in the world.

More: VentureBeat, CNET, TechCrunch, Re/code, Bloomberg, USA Today and Business Insider. Tweets: @wadhwa

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Timeful, The Khosla And Kleiner Backed Time Management App, Launches On iOS — For months now, there's been a stealthy buzz around a startup called Timeful. Attracting a nearly $7 million pre-launch Series A round from the likes of Khosla Ventures, Data Collective, and Kleiner Perkins certainly seemed …

More: Re/code, The Next Web, VentureBeat, TUAW, MacRumors, Inside Mobile Apps, Fortune, BGR and PC Magazine

Larry Neumeister / Associated Press:

NY judge, ruling against Microsoft, says US warrant can access email stored in Ireland — NEW YORK — A judge has ruled against Microsoft Corp., saying U.S. law enforcement can force the company to turn over emails it stores in Ireland. — Loretta Preska, a federal judge in New York …

More: Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, GeekWire, Reuters, Ars Technica, eWeek, CNET, TechCrunch, Techdirt, ZDNet, New York Times, Re/code, Bloomberg, RT, The Register, Gigaom and MarketWatch

Lizette Chapman / Wall Street Journal:

Alibaba Invests $120M in Mobile Gaming Co. Kabam at Valuation More Than $1 Billion … Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is backing another California startup, announcing a $120 million strategic investment in gaming company Kabam Inc. and a partnership to publish and distribute its free-to-play mobile games.

More: VentureBeat, Gigaom, Tech in Asia, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Kabam, Reuters and Re/code. Tweets: @howardlindzon

Brett Douville / Happion Labs GameDevBlog:

Launching an indie game on Xbox One cost one developer $5K — Making A Shoestring Budget Game For The Xbox One — Just last month Happion Labs launched Sixty Second Shooter Prime for the Xbox One through their ID@Xbox program. — Now, I'm one of the cheapest game developers I know.

More: Eurogamer.net, VideoGamer.com, Kotaku, Joystiq, destructoid, Tech Times and Engadget

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple Stores to finally begin iPhone 5s display replacements on August 4th — Apple will finally begin offering iPhone 5s screen replacements in its official U.S. and Canada retail stores in the coming days, according to several sources. Apple Store Genius Bars are said to have begun taking delivery …

More: IntoMobile, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, InvestorPlace, TechnoBuffalo, Gotta Be Mobile and App Advice. Thanks:@apollozac

Louise Radnofsky / Wall Street Journal:

Poorly Managed HealthCare.gov Construction Cost $840 Million, Watchdog Finds — Government Accountability Office Says Risks Remain Without Improved Oversight at Health Agency — The federal agency in charge of building the HealthCare.gov insurance website suffered from poor management …

More: U.S. Government …, CBS News, Washington Times, The Hill, TIME, Townhall.com, Politico, NBC News, Kaiser Health News, Washington Post, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Andreessen Horowitz, FierceGovernmentIT, Federal Computer Week, Mashable, VentureBeat and Nextgov

Wall Street Journal:

French telecom Iliad has made a $15 billion offer for T-Mobile US — France's Iliad Makes Bid for T-Mobile US — Bid Counters Earlier Offer From Sprint Corp. — French upstart telecommunications company Iliad SA has made an offer for T-Mobile US Inc., in a bold bid to counter an offer …

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Microsoft releases Office for iPad update with PDF exporting, presenter view, third party fonts, more — Earlier this week Microsoft introduced an updated version of its OneNote app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and today new versions of its Office for iPad suite have been released.

More: Office Blogs, AppleTell, AppleInsider, PadGadget, VentureBeat, ZDNet, GeekWire, iMore, The Next Web, WinBeta, Engadget, MacRumors, Ars Technica and MacNN

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

Wikipedia goes fully native on iOS and now lets you edit articles too — As one of the biggest brands on the Web, Wikipedia needs little introduction. — The world's biggest online encyclopedia is available across a multitude of platforms, including desktop and mobile.

More: Wikimedia blog, iMore, CNET, Engadget, Softpedia News, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac and Fast Company

David Meyer / Gigaom:

Wunderlist becomes a platform, aiming to be “the home of all the world's lists” — Wunderlist 3 is a faster, slicker, more collaboration-friendly iteration of the popular productivity app. But it's also the first step in a strategic shift for Berlin's 6Wunderkinder. — Wunderlist 3 is out.

More: Wunderlist, Tech.eu, TechCrunch, Silicon Allee News, App Advice, iMore, TUAW, Lifehacker, The Next Web and Engadget

Brad Molen / Engadget:

With Qi wireless charging, you'll soon be able to charge your device from a short distance — It's becoming more and more common to find mobile devices with wireless charging capability, either as a built-in feature or integrated into third-party cases. Progress has been somewhat hampered …

More: Pocketnow and Ars Technica

Mark Scott / New York Times:

Google Details Problems With Handling Right to Be Forgotten Requests — LONDON - Google says complying with Europe's so-called right to be forgotten ruling is getting complicated. — In a lengthy response to questions from the region's data regulators, the search giant …

More: Wall Street Journal, CNET, Computerworld, PC Magazine, VentureBeat and The Verge

Mark Mazzetti / New York Times:

C.I.A. Admits Penetrating Senate Intelligence Computers — WASHINGTON — An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has found that its officers improperly penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its report on the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program.

Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:

Twitter Acquires Password Security Startup Mitro, Open Sources Its Product — Twitter is acquiring a small password security startup called Mitro for its New York office. Mitro built a way that multiple people can share or control passwords to a single account.

More: Mitro Labs, Electronic Frontier Foundation, PC World, CNET, The Next Web, ZDNet and VentureBeat. Tweets: @joshconstine

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

LinkedIn Beats The Street In Q2 On Sales Of $534M, EPS Of $0.51 — With social networks Facebook and Twitter handily beating analyst estimates for Q2 earnings, LinkedIn today reported its Q2 results and showed that rising tides are lifting its boat, too. Revenue for the second quarter …

More: LinkedIn, Business Insider, Fortune, AdExchanger, WebProNews, Bloomberg, CNET, VatorNews, USA Today and Tech Trader Daily

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook's Slingshot introduces ‘reactions-to-reactions’, for photo, video, or text replies to reactions — Facebook Slingshot's First Update Makes It Conversational With Reactions To Reactions — Facebook's standalone photosharing app Slingshot is sidestepping its core …

More: Slingshot Blog, AllFacebook, Engadget, CNET, Betabeat, AppleInsider, SlashGear, Daily Dot, Mashable, The Next Web, 9to5Mac, iClarified and Inside Facebook

Mike Derezin / LinkedIn Sales Solutions Blog:

LinkedIn iterates on its Sales Navigator tool, releases it as a standalone SaaS product — Empowering Social Sellers with LinkedIn's New Sales Navigator — Social media and the ubiquity of data have fundamentally changed the way products and services are bought and sold.

More: TechCrunch, Forbes, AdAge, VentureBeat, ZDNet and Mashable

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