Techmeme: Ulbricht Confessed to Running Silk Road, His College Friend Testifies (Andy Greenberg/Wired)

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January 23, 2015, 11:45 AM

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Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Box opens at over $20 per share, 44% above IPO price, giving it a valuation of around $2.5B — Box Skyrockets 50% To More Than $21 Per Share In First Minutes As A Public Company — Bam. — Today Box opened at around $20.50, far above its $14 IPO price, giving the company a valuation of around $2.5 billion.

More: Reuters, ZDNet, PandoDaily, GeekWire, Gigaom, VentureBeat, Forbes, The Next Web, Wall Street Journal and Business Insider

Tweets: @tim_cook, @monkbent, @hunterwalk and @levie

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple targets Watch battery life of 2.5 hours heavy use and 3.5 hours standard use; pure standby battery life likely to be 2-3 days; CPU said to be A5-caliber — Apple targets for Apple Watch battery life revealed, A5-caliber CPU inside — Although Apple has said that the Apple Watch …

New York Times:

Winklevoss Twins Aim to Take Bitcoin Mainstream With a Regulated Exchange — Bitcoin, the virtual currency that was once the talk of the financial world, has been taking a beating over the last year with the price tumbling downward. — Now two of the biggest boosters of the virtual currency …

More: Gemini, PandoDaily, BBC, SiliconANGLE, The Next Web, NEWSBTC, Coin Fire, CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph.Com News, PYMNTS.com and Reuters. Tweets: @tylerwinklevoss

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Apple HomeKit incompatible with home automation accessories not licensed as MFi products that connect over WiFi, like Nest Thermostat — Apple details HomeKit compatibility with competing home automation platforms, rules out rival Wi-Fi gear — Apple will allow its upcoming Siri-controlled …

More: SlashGear, Electronista and iLounge. Thanks:@justinkahnmusic

Dennis Schaal / Skift:

Expedia Acquires Travelocity for $280 Million — The Roaming Gnome, Travelocity's mascot, takes part in the company's 16th birthday festivities at its Southlake, Texas headquarters. Max Faulkner / Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT) — Skift Take: Expedia is expected to retain the Travelocity brand.

More: GeekWire, Wall Street Journal, bizjournals, StreetInsider.com and Tnooz

Tweets: @skift and @rafat

Fortune:

Cover story on the rise of unicorns: 80+ private companies achieve valuations of at least $1B — The Age of Unicorns — Stewart Butterfield had one objective when he set out to raise money for his startup last fall: a billion dollars or nothing. If he couldn't reach a $1 billion valuation for Slack …

More: Fortune, Gawker, Business Insider, bizjournals and Sramana Mitra

Tweets: @sifter, @danprimack, @trengriffin, @shaig and @davewiner

Andreessen Horowitz:

Andreessen Horowitz explains 16 tech trends of interest including VR and machine learning — 16 Things — We don't invest in themes; we invest in special founders with breakthrough ideas. Which means we don't make investments based on a pre-existing thesis about a category.

More: VentureBeat, Business Insider and Mattermark

Tweets: @valaafshar and @cdixon

Roger Cheng / CNET:

Verizon: Don't expect us to offer a data rollover plan — Verizon CFO Fran Shammo says the carrier won't be following AT&T and T-Mobile's lead. — Don't hold your breath for Verizon Wireless to counter AT&T and T-Mobile with a data rollover program. — That's according to Verizon Chief …

More: PC World, Politico, Verizon, BGR, Electronista, Mercury News, Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo, Droid Life, SlashGear, Digital Trends, PhoneDog.com, The Verge and USA Today. Tweets: @dannysullivan

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

Ulbricht Confessed to Running Silk Road, His College Friend Testifies — In this courtroom sketch, defendant Ross Ulbricht listens to proceedings from the defense table during opening arguments in his criminal trial in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015. Elizabeth Wlliams/AP

More: Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNET, Ars Technica and Hit & Run

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Bill and Melinda Gates annual letter: How the smartphone will lift up the world — Fifteen years after starting their foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates released their 2015 annual letter overnight, laying out their goals for the next 15 years and explaining their “big bet” — that …

More: Backchannel, Wired, Gates Notes, Business Insider, textually.org, CoinTelegraph.Com News, Business Insider, US News, Guardian, Agenda, TechSpot, Mashable, Entrepreneur and Politico

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Hutchison Says It's In Exclusive Negotiations To Buy UK's O2 For Up To £10.25B — Today, Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa released a statement saying that it is in exclusive negotiations with Telefonica to acquire mobile carrier O2 in the UK, offering to pay up to £10.25 billion ($15.3 billion, €13.5 billion ).

Tim Higgins / Bloomberg:

Tim Cook's compensation doubled to $9.22M in 2014; retail executive Angela Ahrendts received $73.4M — Apple's Cook Gets $9.22 Million in Pay as Stock Reaches High — Apple Inc. (AAPL) Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook received compensation valued at $9.22 million last year …

More: bizjournals, ABC News, VentureBeat, Re/code, Guardian, MacNN, TechCrunch, AppleInsider, MacDailyNews, VentureBeat, iDownloadBlog.com, 9to5Mac, MacRumors and Seeking Alpha

Reuters:

Obama quietly abandoned proposal to put phone metadata collected by NSA under non-governmental control — Obama abandons telephone data spying reform proposal: U.S. officials — (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's administration has quietly abandoned a proposal it had been considering …

More: Techdirt

John McDermott / Digiday:

Sources: Snapchat's Discover feature will include content created by newly hired media team — Inside Snapchat's original media ambitions — Snapchat wants to be more than just a distribution channel for other media companies; it's planning on becoming a publisher itself.

More: Engadget, The Verge, SiliconANGLE, Gigaom and Marketing Land. Tweets: @dmac1. Thanks:@rbilton. See also Mediagazer

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