Techmeme: Leaked Sony emails show Snapchat acquired QR scanning company Scan for $50M and AddLive for $30M, negotiated with Vevo for music partnership (Josh Constine/TechCrunch)

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December 17, 2014, 12:45 PM

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Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Leaked Sony emails show Snapchat acquired QR scanning company Scan for $50M and AddLive for $30M, negotiated with Vevo for music partnership — Snapchat Plans Music Feature, Acquired QR Scan.me For $50M And Vergence Eyeglass Cam For $15M, — Leaked emails from the Sony Pictures hack …

More: The Verge, USA Today, Ubergizmo, Business Insider and The Tech Portal

Tweets: @joshconstine, @jonrussell and @mikeisaac

Business Insider:

Emails from Sony Hack show Snapchat quietly acquired Google-Glass like startup Vergence Labs for $15M in early 2014

More: Business Insider, Engadget, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, The Verge, VatorNews and Gigaom

Tweets: @joshconstine, @ajs and @mikeisaac

Sam Biddle / Valleywag:

Sony hack confirms Snapchat turned down over $3B from Facebook last year, based on emails between Sony Ent. CEO Michael Lynton and Malcolm Gladwell

More: Guardian, Business Insider and SiliconANGLE

Tweets: @samfbiddle, @mikeisaac, @om and @ow

Hugh Langley / TechRadar.com:

Netflix: offline viewing is ‘never going to happen’ — Well damn … For some time now, services like BBC iPlayer and 4oD have offered the ability to download shows for offline viewing, yet Netflix hasn't — And despite the pleas of the masses (or maybe it's just us) …

More: The Verge, PC World, TechCrunch, MacRumors, Engadget, Business Insider, Ubergizmo and SlashGear. Tweets: @sievertmike

Shane Dingman / Globe and Mail:

BlackBerry Classic review: old-fashioned phone that won't please traditionalists or new users — Review: BlackBerry Classic is a trip back in time — The BlackBerry Classic is a curmudgeonly phone. — That's not entirely pejorative: a curmudgeon can be a beloved figure with a kind of …

More: CNET, Inside BlackBerry, Tech Trader Daily, BetaNews, Ars Technica, Inquirer, InfoWorld, Engadget, New York Times, CNET, The Next Web, Re/code, ABC News, CNBC and MobileSyrup.com. Tweets: @jbrodkin

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

BlackBerry officially launches Classic, with full QWERTY keyboard and physical navigation keys — BlackBerry officially launches the Classic, a smartphone for yesterday — A full QWERTY keyboard and physical navigation keys round out the Classic's throwback design

More: Gizmodo, Guardian and BGR

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar opens Creator Preview for YouTube rival Vessel to lure stars; $2.99/month service includes ads, offers up to $50 CPM for creators — Former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar Pulls Back the Curtain on Vessel, His YouTube Rival — Six years ago Jason Kilar made a big splash in Web video when he launched Hulu.

More: Gizmodo, New York Times, The Next Web, TechCrunch, The Verge, Vessel Blog, Wall Street Journal and Tubefilter

Tweets: @nathanchubbard, @rolfewinkler, @pkafka, @stevekovach and @pkafka

See also Mediagazer

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

Twitter And Foursquare Are Partnering To Improve Location In Tweets — Twitter wants to start surfacing information for users that's relevant and interesting, not just timely. And the company believes adding a location layer to its platform could be part of the solution.

More: CNET, Marketing Land, Gigaom, memeburn, Gizmodo, WebProNews, The Verge and Engadget. Tweets: @mathewi

Ben Thompson / stratechery:

Wearables, Bitcoin, or messaging may underpin the next consumer computing epoch, after the PC, internet, and mobile — The State of Consumer Technology at the End of 2014 — While the modern computing era in many respects began with the IBM System/360 mainframe and further expanded with the minicomputer …

More: AVC. Tweets: @tuckershouse

David Meyer / Gigaom:

Sony previews smart glasses module that can be attached to existing glasses, targets sports and work use cases — Sony's smart glass uses regular glasses, aims for sports and work — Sony Single-Lens Display Module — Sony Single-Lens Display Module — Sony has announced its own take on the smart glass concept.

More: Sony Global, Digital Trends, Android Police, PC Magazine, The Verge, BGR, Electronista, Business Insider, CNET, Beyond Search, SiliconANGLE, SlashGear, Computerworld, SlashGear, The Next Web, Ubergizmo, Engadget and Gizmodo

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:

Chinese Search Engine Baidu Confirms Strategic Investment In Uber, May Add Ride Requests — It's official: Chinese Internet giant Baidu has confirmed that it is Uber's latest investor, as TechCrunch reported last week. — The companies did not disclose the amount of the investment.

More: Bloomberg, Uber Blog, Variety, The Tech Portal, Forbes, Tech in Asia, Business Insider, Fortune and Reuters

Reuters:

Uber faces tough rivals, regulatory glare in China

More: Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat and e27

Andrew Binstock / Dr. Dobb's:

Dr. Dobb's to stop producing content at year end due to decline in ad revenue despite 10M+ page views this year — Farewell, Dr. Dobb's — This year, our website will deliver almost 10.3 million page views, which is an unprecedented number for Dr. Dobb's. It's up from 9 million last year and 8 million three years ago.

More: The Register and bit-tech.net. Tweets: @mattrosoff, @klintron, @pkellner, @markrussinovich, @jsundmanus, @jhmcintyre, @bodil, @mattrosoff, @thurrott, @mathewi and @marypcbuk

Mike Shields / Wall Street Journal:

21st Century Fox to Acquire Ad Tech Firm TrueX for $200 Million — 21st Century Fox Inc. has agreed to acquire the online advertising technology company TrueX Media, people familiar with the matter said. — 21st Century Fox is paying a sum approaching $200 million for TrueX, said a person familiar with the deal.

More: TechCrunch, Broadcasting & Cable, Variety, New York Times, VideoInk and Business Wire. See also Mediagazer

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft's Xim app now shares photos to Apple TV, Chomecast, and Xbox One — Microsoft's Xim photo sharing app debuted in October from the company's research labs, and today it's getting a big update. Available across Windows Phone, iOS, and Android, the latest version of Xim lets …

More: Gizmodo, 9to5Google and 9to5Mac

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Brandwatch buys top-influencer analytics firm PeerIndex — Brandwatch, the maker of technology for acquiring social intelligence, has purchased PeerIndex, an analytics firm that finds and measures social influencers. — Above: Giles Palmer, CEO of Brandwatch.

More: TechCrunch, PE Hub Blog, The Next Web, Business Insider and Tech.eu

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

Google to close Freebase June 2015, will migrate data and APIs to Wikidata — Google To Close Freebase, Which Helped Feed Its Knowledge Graph — Google is shutting down Freebase, its open source repository of facts that, in part, helps power the Google Knowledge Graph.

More: Freebase - Google+, Gigaom, VentureBeat and Search Engine Roundtable

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Google Takes Play Music's Songza-Powered Playlists Abroad, First Stop UK — With catalogues of unlimited music on streaming services so extensive these days that we never quite know what to listen to first, playlists have become one of the key ways that music fans use services like Soundcloud.

More: Android Police, Android Authority, Engadget, Android Central, 9to5Google and The Next Web

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Launch Center Pro makers debut Group Text+ and Email+ for iOS — Contrast, the makers of the popular iOS automation app Launch Center Pro, released two new apps today that hope to “speed up tedious tasks on iOS.” Group Text+ and Email+ each include features that make texting (iMessage and SMS) …

More: Gotta Be Mobile, Lifehacker, iPhone Hacks, iPhone in Canada Blog, TUAW, O'Grady's PowerPage and iPhone Hacks

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Netflix's streaming app now available on Dish's Hopper DVR in first big pay-TV partnership — Netflix now on Dish's Hopper in first big pay-TV partnership — Subscribers to Dish's satellite TV service can now access Netflix right on their set-top box, the companies announced on Wednesday.

More: The Verge, Press Release, TIME, Engadget, TheStreet.com, Variety, Multichannel News, Ubergizmo, HD Report, WebProNews and Mashable. See also Mediagazer

Vikas SN / MediaNama:

OnePlus sales halted in India after Micromax complaint over Cyanogen exclusivity — OnePlus India sales stopped by Delhi HC after Micromax complains — Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus has been stopped from shipping or selling its smartphones in India, just a fortnight after its launch in the country, reports Mint.

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