Techmeme: Spectra Wireless and Microsoft launch first commercial broadband network using TV white space, in Ghana (Vlad Dudau/Neowin)

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January 29, 2015, 10:30 AM

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Julia White / The Official Microsoft Blog:

Microsoft launches Office for Android tablets, new Outlook mail apps for iOS and Android — Office everywhere: More great news for Office on iOS and Android — Last week, we saw the new experiences coming with Windows 10, including how Office universal apps for Windows 10 will deliver …

More: Office Blogs, GeekWire, Ars Technica, Telegraph, PC World, Engadget, SiliconANGLE, iMore, ZDNet, Reuters, Android Authority, SlashGear, The Verge, Gigaom, TechCrunch, Ubergizmo, Android Central, VentureBeat, Gizmodo UK and bit-tech.net. Tweets: @julwhite

Office Blogs:

New Outlook for iOS and Android integrates email, calendar, contacts, and files, supports Office 365, iCloud, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail — A deeper look at Outlook for iOS and Android — Today, we announced the release of Outlook for iOS and a preview of Outlook for Android.

Dawn Chmielewski / Re/code:

Samsung sold 71-75M smartphones in the holiday quarter, on par with Apple's 74.5M iPhone sales — Apple and Samsung in Dead Heat for Smartphone Dominance — Apple, which years ago ceded the top spot in the global smartphone market to rival Samsung, appears to have pulled into a dead heat.

Youkyung Lee / Associated Press:

Samsung Electronics' Q4 earnings down 27% to $4.9B, beating estimates on strength of component business — Samsung's 4Q profit drops but beats forecast — SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday its quarterly earnings dropped smaller-than-expected 27 percent …

Paul Mozur / New York Times:

New regulations in China require source code, audits, and backdoors from companies working with banks, alarming Western tech firms — New Rules in China Upset Western Tech Companies — HONG KONG — The Chinese government has adopted new regulations requiring companies that sell computer equipment …

More: 9to5Mac, PC World, Gigaom, MacDailyNews, iDownloadBlog.com, Ars Technica, Business Insider, Electronista, Patently Apple, Ubergizmo and AppleInsider. Tweets: @amir

Tony Romm / Politico:

White House privacy bill empowers FTC to levy steep fines on privacy violators, strengthen oversight of data brokers — White House preps expansive online privacy bill — The White House is preparing to send a sweeping online privacy proposal to Congress that would restrict how companies …

More: Washington Post and Gigaom. Tweets: @counternotions, @juliaangwin and @tonyromm

Travis Green / Google Commerce:

Now available in the UK: Send and request money right from Gmail — Since we announced Send Money in Gmail, paying back your friends has never been so simple, whether you're chipping in for lunch or reimbursing your housemate for your share of the rent. Today, we're excited to make this feature available for Gmail users in the UK.

More: TechCrunch, Business Insider, Engadget, TechnoBuffalo, The Next Web, Ubergizmo, Electronista, Android Central and NFC World+

Lulu Yilun Chen / Bloomberg Business:

Alibaba Q3 net income fell 28% to $964M, misses estimates as Jack Ma invests in apps, shares fall 8% in pre-market trading — Alibaba Profit Misses Estimates as Jack Ma Boosts App Spending — Don't Miss Out — … (Bloomberg) — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. posted profit …

More: VentureBeat, New York Times, Fortune, TechCrunch, Reuters, CNBC and Wall Street Journal

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Tumblr Takes On Medium With Upgrades To Its Writing Interface And More — Starting today, Tumblr is rolling out a series of updates to its online blogging platform designed to make the service more attractive and useful for content creators, and specifically for those writing long-form content.

More: Tumblr Staff, Digital Trends, The Verge, Fast Company, The Next Web and SlashGear. Tweets: @joshconstine

Mark Hachman / PC World:

Microsoft adds smart search of document text and photos with OCR in OneDrive for web and iPad — Microsoft OneDrive adds super-intelligent searching of document text, photos — Microsoft just made it easier to upload more photos and files to its OneDrive cloud service.

More: OneDrive Blog, VentureBeat, The Next Web, SlashGear, The Verge, Engadget, The Fire Hose, iMore, Ubergizmo, Neowin, Windows Central, iClarified, BetaNews and WinBeta

Garett Sloane / Adweek:

Facebook mobile ad revenue accounts for 69% of total ad revenue in Q4, up from 53% Q4 2013; 1.19B mobile MAUs — Facebook Just Shared Insane Q4 Mobile Numbers and Ad Sales — Its smartphone promos alone did $2.5 billion — Facebook's mobile sales continue to skyrocket …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Facebook video views hit 3B per day, up from 1B daily views in September 2014

More: Bloomberg Business, The Equity Kicker and Electronista. Tweets: @sarahfrier

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Beats Estimates In Q4 With $3.85B Revenue, User Growth Up To 2.9% QOQ To Hit 1.39B

More: Wall Street Journal, BIA/Kelsey, PC World, Seeking Alpha, GeekWire, bizjournals, Agence France-Presse, Engadget and TheStreet.com

Joseph Bernstein / BuzzFeed:

Peeing My Way Around New York City With Airpnp, The App For Bathroom Emergencies — Airpnp is the worst-designed app I've ever used. It's also the most profound. — Justine Zwiebel/BuzzFeed News — My bladder is the Murphy's Law of organs. — It's not that it's small, exactly; rather, it's disagreeable; neurotic.

Tweets: @jmbooyah, @jaredbkeller, @msamandalewis, @katyawachtel and @jbasher

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Armed With A Push-Bike And $25 Million, Europe Beckons For Premium Take-Out Service Deliveroo — “I was actually the first delivery driver, I still do deliveries for 4 hours a week,” Deliveroo CEO and co-founder William Shu tells me during a call. “I don't do it on the scooter anymore, I do it on the bicycle.

More: Wall Street Journal, Telegraph, Techworld.com and VentureBeat. Tweets: @fdestin. Thanks:@sohear

Alden Kroll / Steam Community:

Valve has paid out $57M+ to 1.5K creators across 75 countries through Steam Workshop since 2011; announces curated workshops for non-Valve games — Content Creators Earn Over $50M Through Steam Workshop, Can Now Earn Money in More Games — When we launched the Workshop late in 2011 …

More: Engadget, VentureBeat, SiliconANGLE, Polygon, GamePolitics blogs, Gamasutra and destructoid. Tweets: @pentadact

Michael Sippey / Medium:

Snapchat's Discover feature for news could also function more broadly as an app platform — theory: snapchat launched an app platform — And then go through the list of capabilities they can bring... - Interaction? Check. You may not have all the tools of Swift or Java at your disposal …

Tweets: @sippey. See also Mediagazer

Vlad Dudau / Neowin:

Spectra Wireless and Microsoft launch first commercial broadband network using TV white space, in Ghana — Microsoft launches first TV white space network in Africa — Microsoft, partnering with Spectra Wireless has launched the first network that utilizes TV white spaces to bring internet in new markets.

More: ITWeb Africa and allAfrica.com

Jon Russell / TechCrunch:

LG's Annual Profit Doubles To $475M After Shipping 59.1M Smartphones In 2014 — Samsung may be stumbling after posting its lowest annual profit for three years. The same can't be said for fellow Korean company LG, which just revealed that it posted an improved $475 million profit for 2014 …

More: LG Newsroom, 9to5Google, Ubergizmo, memeburn, Android Central, Engadget and SlashGear

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

App Annie 2014 Index: Google Play saw 60% more downloads than iOS App Store, but App Store generated about 70% more in revenue — Google Play Downloads Are Growing Faster, but Apple Is Still Winning the Money Race — 2014 was a big year for Android apps and games; Google Play outpaced Apple's App Store …

More: App Annie Blog, The Register, Business Insider, GSMArena Blog, TechCrunch, Guardian, AppleInsider and Gigaom

Tweets: @dujkan and @mdudas

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