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January 15, 2015, 10:45 PM

Top News

BBC:

Google Glass to become an independent division reporting to Tony Fadell; Glass Explorer Program shutting down; production of device in current form to end — Google calls end to Glass programme but says kit is not dead — Google is ending its experimental Google Glass programme, the BBC has learned.

Jared Newman / TechHive:

Xiaomi announces $30 Mi Box Mini, a media streamer the size of a phone charger, with pre-orders open in China on Jan. 20, shipping late Jan. — Xiaomi's Mi Box Mini is a media streamer the size of a phone charger — With the $30 Mi Box Mini, Xiaomi has managed to stuff …

More: Digital Trends, PhoneDog.com, Gizmodo, TechnoBuffalo, Android Authority, Business Insider, Liliputing, Ubergizmo, Engadget, SlashGear, bgr.in and AndroidHeadlines.com

Richard Lai / Engadget:

Xiaomi takes on iPhone 6 Plus with 5.7" 1080p Mi Note phablet launching January 27 for $370; $530 Mi Note Pro with 2560x1440 display coming in March

Jason Koebler / Motherboard:

Mt. Gox CEO Denies Silk Road Involvement: ‘I Am Not Dread Pirate Roberts’ — Mark Karpeles, the CEO of Mt. Gox—which was once the world's most popular Bitcoin exchange—has denied any involvement in Silk Road and has told Motherboard that he's not Dread Pirate Roberts, the man who allegedly ran the site.

More: The Verge, Gawker and TechCrunch

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

DHS suspected Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles may have been Silk Road's mastermind, Dread Pirate Roberts

More: Ars Technica, CoinDesk, Bloomberg, The Verge, Inside Bitcoins and Business Insider

Stephen O'Grady / tecosystems:

Apple's Swift rises from 58th in Q3 '14 to 22nd in Q1 '15 in Redmonk's language ranking list that uses Github and Stack Overflow data — The RedMonk Programming Language Rankings: January 2015 — With two quarters having passed since our last snapshot, it's time to update our programming language rankings.

More: Wired, AppleInsider, iMore, The Next Web, MacNN, ReadWrite, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, MacDailyNews and The Loop

David Meyer / GigaOm:

Be My Eyes app harnesses volunteers to help sight-impaired people — The Danish developer Robocat, which I've previously covered for its Thermodo thermometer dongle, has fully launched a new app that could be of great use to visually-impaired people. — Robocat built the open-source …

More: The Next Web, cphpost.dk, Laughing Squid, Quartz, iMore and TUAW

Steven Johns / Neowin:

Moving the Steam folder on Linux is causing users' entire file systems to be deleted — Users of Steam on GNU/Linux are reporting that attempting to move the Steam folder - something that the GNU/Linux Steam installer doesn't allow you to set at the time of installation - is leading to everything being deleted recursively from root.

More: GitHub

Brendan Klinkenberg / BuzzFeed:

South Carolina Orders Uber To Stop Operations — The latest regulatory battle facing the ride-hailing giant. — http://blog.uber.com — Uber's increasingly bitter fight to operate in states across the country worsened today, as South Carolina issued an order to cease and desist all operations in the state.

More: The Verge and Gigaom

Phil Goldstein / FierceWireless:

T-Mobile launches new ‘Simply Prepaid’ plans, starting at $40/month with 1 GB of LTE — T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) launched new prepaid plans under its “Simply Prepaid” banner starting at $40 per month. The new plans come several months after T-Mobile launched the “Simply Prepaid” …

More: T-Mobile Newsroom, Wireless Week, Gigaom, Lifehacker, Geeky Gadgets, PhoneDog.com, Consumerist, Ubergizmo, Droid Life, CNET, TechnoBuffalo, TmoNews, 9to5Google, SlashGear, AndroidHeadlines.com and Finextra Research news. Tweets: @dannysullivan

Dan Levine / Reuters:

Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe settle US poaching lawsuit for $415M — Apple, Google settle U.S. poaching lawsuit for $415 million — SAN FRANCISCO - Four Silicon Valley companies including Apple Inc and Google Inc agreed to pay $415 million to resolve an antitrust class action lawsuit …

More: VentureBeat, The Verge, CNET, Associated Press, bizjournals, App Advice and USA Today

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

KeySweeper, a USB charger that sniffs, decrypts, logs, and transmits keystrokes of some Microsoft wireless keyboards can be built for $10 — Meet KeySweeper, the $10 USB charger that steals MS keyboard strokes — It sounds like the stuff of a James Bond flick or something described …

More: Samy Kamkar, VentureBeat, Threatpost, Security Affairs, Telegraph, Neowin, SlashGear, Business Insider, Network World, Schneier on Security, Hackaday and TechCrunch

Irene Klotz / Reuters:

OneWeb secures funding from Virgin Group and Qualcomm to build and fly 648 Internet satellites — Virgin, Qualcomm to invest in Internet-via-satellite venture — (Reuters) - Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Qualcomm Inc will invest in a venture to build and fly a constellation …

More: Wall Street Journal, Gigaom, Associated Press, Telegraph, Via Satellite, thedigitalship.com, NBC News, Forbes and Pocket-lint

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Twitch launches free music library for video game streamers — Game streaming platform Twitch is trying to solve a problem that has plagued it for months: how can you enforce copyright laws without limiting what players can do on the service? Today, the Amazon-owned company is launching …

More: The Official Twitch Blog, Ars Technica, Engadget, VentureBeat, Electronista, PC Gamer, PC World, Geeky Gadgets, GeekWire, Shacknews, TechCrunch, Mashable, The Next Web, Wall Street Journal, Joystiq, Polygon and destructoid. See also Mediagazer

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

Google Knowledge Graph Now Showing Social Profiles For Brands — In November, Google began adding links to other social networks, outside of just Google+, within the knowledge graph box - but only for personalities such as famous actors, political figures and bands.

More: WebProNews, 9to5Google, Marketing Land, The Next Web and Zineb Ait Bahajji

James Ball / Guardian:

Newly uncovered US cybersecurity report finds encryption vital to protect private data, and is at odds with David Cameron's proposal — Secret US cybersecurity report: encryption vital to protect private data — Newly uncovered Snowden document contrasts with British PM's vow to crack down on encrypted messaging after Paris attacks

More: Ars Technica and The Hill

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Maker Studios Looks Beyond YouTube As It Announces Exclusive Content Deal With Vimeo — Vimeo and Maker Studios are announcing a partnership that will bring new videos from the Disney-acquired content network (that's Maker Studios) to the IAC-owned streaming video service (that's Vimeo) for an exclusive time window.

More: The Next Web, CNBC, Union Gazette, Chinatopix, TheStreet.com, International Business Times, LaughingPlace.com, TIME, New Media Rockstars and Deadline. See also Mediagazer

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Shutterstock acquires photo agency Rex Features for $33M & music service PremiumBeat for $32M — Shutterstock Acquires Rex Features And PremiumBeat — Stock imagery, video and music service Shutterstock today announced that it has acquired Rex Features, Europe's largest independent photo press agency …

More: PR Newswire, Resource Magazine, StreetInsider.com, hypebot, PetaPixel and VentureBeat. See also Mediagazer

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Mobile Industry Generated $3.3 Trillion Last Year, Created 11 Million Jobs — A new study finds that the mobile industry last year produced more than $3.3 trillion in revenue. — That breaks down to more than $400 for every man, woman and child on earth. So everyone must be feeling a little wealthier, right?

More: www.bcgperspectives.com and Associated Press

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:

Neo Technology, a graph database company, raises $20M Series C led by Creandum — Neo Technology Bags $20M As Graph Databases Get Hot — Neo Technology, developers of the neo4j graph database have been growing steadily, and investors have noticed, rewarding them with a $20M Series C pay day.

More: VatorNews, VentureBeat, Forbes, Yahoo! Finance, bizjournals, PE Hub Blog, PandoDaily, Gigaom, SiliconANGLE, Neo4j Graph Database and silicontap.com

Carmel DeAmicis / Gigaom:

Instacart quietly changed its primary revenue model from delivery fees and product markups to grocer fees — On the way to $220M in funding, Instacart quietly changed its business model — Kaitlin Myers a shopper for Instacart studies her smart phone as she shops for a customer at Whole Foods in Denver on October 28, 2014.

More: Slate. Thanks:@bizcarson

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