Techmeme: Obama calls for bipartisan effort on cybersecurity legislation in State of the Union address (Cory Bennett/The Hill)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

January 21, 2015, 2:54 AM

Top News

Facebook:

Facebook to reduce distribution of deliberately false or misleading posts in News Feed, characterized by hoax-busting comments and high removal rate by sharers — News Feed FYI: Showing Fewer Hoaxes — The goal of News Feed is to catch up with your friends and find the things that matter to you.

Cooper Quintin / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

HealthCare.gov Sends Personal Data to Dozens of Tracking Websites — The Associated Press reports that healthcare.gov-the flagship site of the Affordable Care Act, where millions of Americans have signed up to receive health care-is quietly sending personal health information to a number of third party websites.

More: Computerworld, Associated Press, RT, PandoDaily and The Daily Caller. Tweets: @yuris

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Netflix Q4 earnings beat estimates with $1.48B in revenue and $0.75 EPS; now has 39.11M US subscribers and 18.28M more globally — Netflix Says Its Subscribers Love the Shows It Makes — So It's Going to Make a Lot More — A quick look at Netflix's Q4 numbers: $1.48 billion and earnings …

More: Business Insider, TechCrunch, TechCrunch, USA Today, Hollywood Reporter, ZDNet, VentureBeat, CNET, GeekWire, WebProNews and bizjournals. Tweets: @kenli729. See also Mediagazer

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Netflix wants to complete its global expansion within two years, expanding to 200 countries

More: TechCrunch. Tweets: @jank0. See also Mediagazer

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

First Windows 10 mobile preview, due in February, key to Microsoft's OneCore vision — Summary:Microsoft will show off Windows 10 mobile and touch-first Office for Windows at its January 21 Windows 10 event, but the first mobile preview isn't likely until February.

Alan Yuhas / Guardian:

White House breaks own State of the Union embargo for online audience — Obama administration posts full text of president's speech before its own media embargo in unprecedented decision targeting internet-savvy readers — The White House posted the entire text of President Obama's 2015 State …

Cory Bennett / The Hill:

Obama calls for bipartisan effort on cybersecurity legislation in State of the Union address

More: The Register and Variety

Bloomberg:

Samsung Said to Drop Qualcomm Chip From Next Galaxy Smartphone — Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) will use its own microprocessors in the next version of the Galaxy S smartphone, dropping its use of a Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) chip that overheated during the Korean company's testing, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Tweets: @puiwingtam

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

SpaceX confirms $1B funding round, with participation from Google and Fidelity — SpaceX Raises $1 Billion In New Funding From Google And Fidelity — SpaceX, the space exploration startup helmed by ex-PayPal founder Elon Musk, has confirmed that it has raised $1 billion in new funding …

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Chrome 40 for iOS arrives with Material Design, Handoff support to your default browser on OS X — Google today released Chrome 40 for iOS. You can download the new version now directly from Apple's App Store. — The first change you'll notice in version 40.0.2214.61 is the implementation of Google's Material Design mantra.

More: Chrome Releases, Google Chrome Releases, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, iMore, AnandTech, Gigaom, PC World, AppleInsider, 9to5Google, SlashGear, MobileSyrup.com, The Next Web, 9to5Google and iDownloadBlog.com

Alex Ben Block / Hollywood Reporter:

Overstock.com to launch video on demand and video streaming services in mid 2015 — Overstock.com Taking On Amazon With VOD, Streaming Services — MIAMI BEACH — Overstock.com, which says it is second only to Amazon in retail sales on the web, plans to launch VOD and streaming services …

More: SiliconBeat, Variety, TechnoBuffalo, Digital Trends, Wall Street Journal, GeekWire, The Digital Reader, TechSpot, PandoDaily, Business Insider, TIME and WebProNews. See also Mediagazer

Bloomberg:

Shazam raises $30M at a valuation of over $1B, has over 100M monthly active mobile users — Shazam Music App Valued at More Than $1 Billion in New Funding — Shazam Entertainment Ltd. raised $30 million in a new financing that values the music-finding application at more than $1 billion.

More: Fox Business and Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @startupljackson

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

LastPass Launches A Native Password Manager For Mac Offering Quick Search, Security Checks And Offline Access — Longtime password management software company LastPass is rolling out a new, native Mac application this morning, which will offer users more native integration on OS X …

More: The LastPass Blog, ZDNet, Mashable, TUAW, iMore, Digital Trends, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Lifehacker and MacNN

Kurt Wagner / Re/code:

Snapchat Revenue Boss Mike Randall Departs After Seven Months — Snapchat's revenue boss Mike Randall has left the company, seven months after joining the messaging startup. — Randall, who was hired away from Facebook in June 2014, departed last week. — “We thank Mike for his many contributions …

More: Wall Street Journal, Gigaom and Digital Music News

Eric Tucker / Associated Press:

Justice Department reaches $134K settlement with woman who DEA agents impersonated on Facebook — US settles case over fake Facebook page — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has reached a $134,000 settlement with a New York woman after federal drug agents used information …

More: Ars Technica, Gizmodo, The Hill, Albany Times Union, NBC News, The Verge and Gigaom

Bloomberg:

Online travel agent Orbitz is exploring a sale, drawing interest from private equity funds and other Internet companies — Orbitz Is Exploring a Sale, Drawing Buyout Interest — Orbitz Worldwide Inc. (OWW), the online travel agent that runs Orbitz.com and Cheaptickets.com, is exploring a sale …

More: Tech Trader Daily, Fortune, PE Hub Blog, Seeking Alpha and Business Insider

Sarah Buhr / TechCrunch:

Startup L. Jackson Speaks Out About Diversity, Cool Products, And All The People He's Not — Anonymous Twitter persona Startup L. Jackson has captured a large following in the tech community due to his biting commentary on Silicon Valley culture and regular startup advice.

Tweets: @jonrussell, @4strngz, @ryanlawler, @davemcclure and @semil

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

Google, Apple, Microsoft, Khan Academy, and others sign pledge to protect K-12 student privacy — Google, Khan Academy join in student privacy pledge — Google has signed on to a pledge promising not to sell ads on its products designed for schools. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

More: AppleInsider, Future of Privacy, Digital Education and Wall Street Journal

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Shopify:

Shopify's new AI commerce stack — Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.

Zoho:

Connecting, collaborating, and growing: Zoho Mail 2025 wrap-up — Your inbox has been home to a lot this year—quick updates, long threads, approvals, reminders, and the occasional late-night draft you weren't sure about.

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

BG2 Pod:

AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean

Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.

Subscribe to BG2 Pod.

Great Chat:

The stories we told ourselves in 2025

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Grit:

How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Lenny's Podcast:

The coming AI security crisis (and what to do about it) | Sander Schulhoff

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Big Technology Podcast:

OpenAI's Potential, Google's Speedy Model, Copilot Hits Turbulence

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:54 AM ET, January 21, 2015.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.