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Techmeme
February 3, 2016, 12:00 PM
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Top News

Harry Shum / The Official Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft acquires SwiftKey, promises to continue developing its Android and iOS apps  —  Microsoft acquires SwiftKey in support of re-inventing productivity ambition  —  I'm pleased to announce that Microsoft has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SwiftKey, whose highly rated …
Financial Times:
Sources: Microsoft paid $250M for SwiftKey, maker of an AI-powered predictive keyboard for smartphones and tablets  —  Microsoft in $250m artificial intelligence keyboards deal  —  Microsoft is paying around $250m to acquire London-based Swiftkey, maker of a predictive keyboard powered …
Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon plans to open “300 to 400” brick-and-mortar bookstores, according to CEO of mall operator General Growth Properties  —  Amazon Plans Hundreds of Brick-and-Mortar Bookstores, Mall CEO Says  —  The Seattle company plans as many as 400 bookstores, according to the chief executive of General Growth Properties
Lauren Goode / The Verge:
Fitbit launches Alta, a fashionable bracelet-like activity tracker, for $130, shipping in March  —  Fitbit puts fashion first with Alta, its newest activity tracker  —  Fitbit's unveiling of the new, not-exactly-attractive Blaze fitness watch last month was met with mixed reactions and a sinking stock price.
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:
Yahoo announces 15% staff cut, will close 5 overseas offices as part of “aggressive strategic plan”, $1.27B in quarterly revenue, up 1.5% YoY, beating estimates  —  Yahoo to lay off 15% of its workforce as part of ‘aggressive strategic plan’  —  Yahoo (YHOO) announced plans today …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Comcast says gigabit cable Internet service launching in Atlanta, Nashville early this year, with Chicago, Detroit, and Miami in following months  —  Comcast 2Gbps fiber available to 18M homes; gigabit cable coming soon  —  Atlanta and Nashville get gigabit cable first; Chicago, Detroit, and Miami next.
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Source: iPhone 7 will be similar in design to iPhone 6, but will have a flush rear camera, and no antenna bands on back  —  First Details on iPhone 7 Design: Flush Rear Camera, No Antenna Bands Across the Back  —  Apple's iPhone 7 isn't expected to launch until the usual September timeframe …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Torrents Time lets anyone launch their own web version of Popcorn Time  —  Popcorn Time, an app for streaming video torrents, just got a new web version: Popcorn Time Online.  Unlike other attempts to bring Popcorn Time into the browser, this one is powered by a tool called Torrents Time …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Amazon is adding Alexa to the original Fire TV and Fire TV Stick  —  Amazon brought Alexa to the TV with its second-generation Fire TV set-top box, and now, a few months later, the company is also doing the same for owners of its original box.  Starting today and continuing “over the next few weeks …
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
HTC Cards $101M Loss In Q4 2015, Its Third Successive Quarter In The Red  —  HTC's (financial) struggle is real.  The Taiwanese tech firm endured another rough quarter of business after it posted a NT$3.4 billion ($101 million) net loss for Q4 2015.  Total revenue came in at NT$25.7 billion …
TechCrunch:
Twitter now lets logged out mobile visitors see full conversations, not just individual tweets, brings the redesigned homepage to 23 new countries  —  Twitter Starts Taking Its Logged-Out Users Seriously  —  Twitter announced two updates today that should make it easier to use for logged-out users …
Husain Sumra / MacRumors:
Apple Acquired Firmware Security Company LegbaCore Last November  —  Apple acquired firmware security company LegbaCore in November 2015, according to security researcher Trammell Hudson, who revealed the acquisition in his presentation at the 32C3 conference in December.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:00 PM ET, February 3, 2016.

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From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

More News

Matt Day / The Seattle Times:
Microsoft recalls AC power cords for Surface Pro devices sold before March 15, 2015

Earlier Picks

Brendan Klinkenberg / BuzzFeed:
Sources: YouTube working toward live 360-degree video broadcasting, meeting with camera manufacturers
Travis Kalanick / Uber Global:
Uber announces major rebranding with icons designed to reflect regional colors and patterns, as well as a new logotype
Pavel Alpeyev / Bloomberg Business:
Nintendo quarterly profit down 36% as Wii U and 3DS sales drop; first smartphone game on track for March release
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