Techmeme: FireChat updated with permanent, unique usernames, preventing impersonation and confusion (Carmel DeAmicis/Gigaom)

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August 25, 2014, 2:20 PM

Top News

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon to Buy Video Site Twitch for More Than $1 Billion — Amazon has agreed to acquire Twitch, a live-streaming service for videogame players, for more than $1 billion, according to a person who has been briefed on the matter.

More: The Verge. Tweets: @stevekovach and @jessicalessin

Eric P. Newcomer / The Information:

Amazon has been in late-stage talks to acquire video game streaming site Twitch — Amazon Nears Deal to Acquire Twitch — Amazon.com has been in late-stage talks to acquire video site Twitch, according to two people familiar with the matter, after reports that Google had virtually sealed a deal to acquire the site for $1 billion.

More: Ars Technica, Engadget, VentureBeat, 9to5Google, The Next Web, Gizmodo, GeekWire, Android Police, Business Insider, Seeking Alpha, WebProNews and Polygon

Facebook:

Facebook will reduce “click-baiting” headlines and links shared in photo captions in News Feed — News Feed FYI: Click-baiting — Today we're announcing some improvements to News Feed to help people find the posts and links from publishers that are most interesting and relevant …

More: Gigaom, Marketing Land, GeekWire, Gizmodo, The Next Web, Re/code, Inside Facebook, BuzzFeed, Ubergizmo, Fortune and Mashable. Tweets: @dannysullivan

Harry McCracken / Fast Company:

TiVo Introduces A $50 Over-The-Air DVR For The Post-Aereo Era — In June, the U.S. Supreme Court killed the Aereo service—which used banks of tiny antennas and a cloud-based DVR to let people redirect over-the-air TV to all their Net-connected devices—by ruling that it violated Federal copyright law.

More: CNET, TechCrunch, Engadget, Multichannel News, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Bloomberg, TIME, Variety, Liliputing and SlashGear

Tweets: @davezatz and @robpegoraro

Li-Wei Lee / Google Drive Blog:

Google releases new Slides app for iOS, updates Sheets and Docs with direct Office file edit — Your iPhone & iPad are ready to get to work with new apps for Docs, Sheets, & Slides — You suddenly remember you need to add “buy milk” to your grocery list, but don't have a pen or paper in sight.

More: 9to5Mac, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, The Next Web, iMore, MacRumors, Google Enterprise Blog, iPhone in Canada Blog and iDownloadBlog.com

Craig Timberg / Washington Post:

Companies like Verint monitor cellular communications, offer governments surveillance systems that track callers without carriers' knowledge — For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe — Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across …

More: Engadget. Tweets: @manhack and @drudge_report. Thanks:@srikardr

Tim Peterson / AdAge:

Yahoo rolls out its native ad network to other publishers, including Vox Media's SB Nation — Here Is Yahoo's Native Ad Network — Content Recommendation Box on Vox Media, CBS Interactive Sites Includes Yahoo's Ads — Yahoo's content recommendation box places its native ads on others' sites.

More: SiliconBeat, VentureBeat, WebProNews, Wall Street Journal and Business Insider

Ryan Gallagher / The Intercept:

NSA providing records of 850B calls, locations, emails, and internet chats to 23 US agencies with a Google-like ICREACH search engine — The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google — The National Security Agency is secretly providing data to nearly …

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Aim of Amazon's in-store payment system may be to allow brick and mortar shops to sell on Amazon's online store — Here's How Amazon Might Take Over Brick-and-Mortar Retail — The recent launch of Amazon's in-store credit card reader and checkout software was one of Jeff Bezos's …

More: Android Police, VentureBeat and WebProNews

Tweets: @delrey and @mdudas

Jonathan Vanian / Gigaom:

VMware plays nice with OpenStack, unveils a VMware-powered data-center-in-a-box — At this year's VMworld event, the virtualization giant plans to announce a new service that makes OpenStack more compatible with VMware tools and VMware-loaded data centers as well as a new appliance manufactured …

More: eWeek, VentureBeat, The Register, Computerworld, Wall Street Journal, OStatic blogs, Bloomberg, Forbes and ZDNet

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Mozilla is launching its first Firefox OS smartphone in India this week — Slowly but surely, Mozilla is pushing its Firefox OS mobile operating system into new markets. Although the nonprofit had already discussed its approach for India, today it announced it will be launching its first smartphone in the region this week.

More: The Mozilla Blog, Gigaom, Computerworld, IntoMobile, Geeky Gadgets, Bloomberg, FierceWireless and BetaNews

Carmel DeAmicis / Gigaom:

FireChat updated with permanent, unique usernames, preventing impersonation and confusion — Firechat's new update makes it easier for Burners to chat their friends in the WiFi-less desert — FireChat's — the group chatting application that works without cell service …

More: Gizmodo

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