Techmeme: Inside the “anti-Uber alliance” and how Grab (formerly GrabTaxi) is fighting for dominance in Southeast Asia's ride-hailing market (Johana Bhuiyan/BuzzFeed)

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February 8, 2016, 7:25 AM

Top News

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Twitter's algorithmic timeline is like expanded version of “while you were away” feature, according to users testing it; opt-out is available — Here's how Twitter's new algorithmic timeline is going to work — Twitter went into an uproar Friday after a BuzzFeed report …

Jack Dorsey / @jack:

Jack Dorsey responds to #RIPTwitter, links Twitter's identity with real-time, doesn't deny an algorithmic feed but says there was no plan to launch next week — Hello Twitter! Regarding #RIPTwitter: I want you all to know we're always listening. We never planned to reorder timelines next week.

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:

Sources: Google to release Gear VR-like headset this year compatible with a broad range of smartphones, embed VR technology into Android OS — Google pushes further into world of virtual reality — Google is developing a new virtual-reality headset for smartphones, and adding extra support …

More: The Verge, BGR, Daily Mail, Computerworld, Digital Trends, Tech Times, CNET, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, GamesIndustry.biz, Engadget, PhoneDog.com, Mashable, Silicon Republic, Ubergizmo, Business Insider, 9to5Google, Pocketnow, VRFocus, VRScout, Fone Arena and ZDNet. Tweets: @abatalion

Danny Sullivan / Marketing Land:

Hashtags included in 45% of Super Bowl ads; Facebook or Twitter mentioned in only 5% of ads — Hashtags In Super Bowl Ads Dropped Slightly To 45% In 2016 — As with last year, social networks were rarely mentioned, with Twitter and Facebook tied in our count.

More: iPhone Hacks, SiliconANGLE, CNET and Re/code. Tweets: @chrismessina. Thanks:@dannysullivan

James Vincent / The Verge:

Facebook's Free Basics service has been banned in India — Facebook's free-but-restricted internet service, Free Basics, has been banned in India after the country's national telecoms regulator ruled that the program and others like it infringe the principles of net neutrality.

More: BBC, VentureBeat, Guardian, Business Insider, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, The Next Web, NDTV News and Wired.co.uk

Chris Velazco / Engadget:

Canonical announces first Ubuntu tablet, the BQ Aquaris M10, features Convergence, letting it act like PC when connected to keyboard, mouse, display, on sale Q2 — Ubuntu's first tablet doubles as a desktop, goes on sale in Q2 — Remember that time Spanish device maker BQ started promoting a new …

More: Ubuntu Insights, The Verge, The Register, The Next Web, ZDNet, CNET, PCWorld, Liliputing, TechnoBuffalo and Geek.com

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Amazon and other retailers should stop selling cheap USB-C cables with faulty wiring that can damage laptops, and instead demand certification for these cables — USB-C cables are playing Russian Roulette with your laptop — Over the past year or so, one of the biggest tech stories …

More: Amazon.com, MyBroadband, Benson Leung, The Register, Engadget, Android Authority, AppleInsider, Laptop Mag, FierceCIO News, Tech Insider and CNET. Tweets: @tha_rami

Glyn Moody / Ars Technica UK:

GCHQ's data-mining techniques revealed in new Snowden leak — Shhh! Top Secret—don't pass it on... (credit: GCHQ) — A “Data Mining Research Problem Book” marked “top secret strap 1” has been leaked that details some of the key techniques used by GCHQ to sift through the huge volumes …

More: Boing Boing, Motherboard, iTnews and Conspicuous Chatter. Tweets: @thegrugq

Mark Suster / Fortune:

Upfront survey of VCs: 91% expect valuations do go down in the first half of 2016, 62% say their portfolios are cutting costs — The State of Venture Capital — There are a lot of data points that one can use to get a sense of the venture capital markets, including the number of startup financings and the level of VC fundraising.

More: Silicon Republic and SlideShare. Tweets: @davemcclure and @davepell

Johana Bhuiyan / BuzzFeed:

Inside the “anti-Uber alliance” and how Grab (formerly GrabTaxi) is fighting for dominance in Southeast Asia's ride-hailing market — Grab, Uber, And The Battle For Southeast Asia — Grab (formerly GrabTaxi) is battling Uber in a little-talked-about but densely populated market and winning — for the moment, anyway.

Tweets: @buzzfeedben. Thanks:@fwd

Justin Lynch / Motherboard:

The tragedy of Ethiopia's internet: an instrument of surveillance, and only 3.7% have access — The Tragedy of Ethiopia's Internet — Nafkot Nega thinks journalists are terrorists. When I visited him and his mother, Serkalem Fassil, at their tiny apartment in the outskirts of Washington …

Tweets: @lpolgreen, @smith_jeffreyt, @sallyhayd, @thebanderson, @ilana_u and @pschwartzstein

Sarah Tavel:

“Uber for X” services must be more convenient than incumbents and more importantly, cheaper — Taking the wrong lesson from Uber — The last few years, it's become cliche for startups to describe themselves as “Uber for X”. With Uber as the north star, the mobile phone became the …

Tweets: @joshelman

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