Techmeme: Ancestry.com Agrees to $1.6 Billion Takeover (Ryan Dezember/Wall Street Journal)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

October 22, 2012, 12:50 PM

Top News

Steve Clayton / TechNet Blogs:

Exclusive video: Bill Gates on Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Surface — I often tell people I've got one of the best jobs at Microsoft; I get the opportunity to meet and talk with the people here who brew the special sauce that is Microsoft. Last week I got to meet and talk with the guy who first created the sauce.

More: TechCrunch, CNET, Business Insider, Engadget, VentureBeat, Seattle Times, SlashGear, Mashable!, Softpedia News, PSFK, The Verge, The Next Web, WMPoweruser and Neowin. Thanks:@stevecla

Jay Greene / CNET:

Steven Sinofsky: Microsoft's controversial Mr. Windows 8 — The software giant asked the exec to deliver a new, quality operating system and do it on time. This week, we'll find out if his sharp elbows and turf fighting were worth it. — Two years ago, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie …

More: ZDNet, Business Insider, Seattle Times, Reuters, The Verge, Business Insider, Neowin, Softpedia News, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and BuzzFeed. Tweets: @akula

The Korea Times:

Samsung Display to terminate Apple deal — Samsung Display said Monday that it will terminate its contract with Apple and no longer supply liquid crystal display (LCD) panels to its long time partner. — The news comes as speculation is mounting over a rift between the two firms …

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Android apps used by millions vulnerable to password, e-mail theft — By exploiting inadequate SSL protections in an anti-virus app, researchers were able to force it to download a malicious virus signature. — Fahl et al. — Android applications downloaded by as many as 185 million users …

More: CNET, VentureBeat, Computerworld, Softpedia News, AndroidOS.in, The Register, Android Community, BBC, Gizmodo and PhoneArena

Ryan Dezember / Wall Street Journal:

Ancestry.com Agrees to $1.6 Billion Takeover — Genealogy website Ancestry.com Inc. has agreed to be acquired by an investor group led by European private-equity firm Permira for about $1.6 billion, or $32 a share, according to people familiar with the deal.

More: SiliconANGLE, CNET, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, The Next Web and Mashable!. Tweets: @rafat

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Skype for Windows 8 launches on October 26th (hands-on preview) — Backend changes prepare Microsoft's communications service for the future — After months of teasing a Windows 8 style version of Skype, Microsoft is finally delivering it on October 26th.

More: The Big Blog, BetaNews, GeekWire, Inquirer, Ars Technica, CNET, LAPTOP Magazine, Seattle Times, ZDNet, BGR, The Next Web, Engadget, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, TechSpot, PhoneArena, Neowin, Pocket-lint, SlashGear, Geeky-Gadgets and Mashable!

Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:

Apple Sees Schools Buoying Tablet Lead With IPad in Class — Julie Garcia handed Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPads to students in her seventh-grade pre-algebra class on a recent morning before showing the pupils how to use the tablet to graph data, hunt for correlations and record how-to videos.

More: 9to5Mac, Business Insider, MacRumors, CNET, iDownloadBlog.com, TUAW, everythingiCafe, TechCrunch, PhoneArena, SlashGear and WebProNews

Mark King / Guardian:

Amazon wipes customer's Kindle and deletes account with no explanation — Kindle user had her account deleted because it had ties to ‘previous abuses of company policy’, but the online retailer blanked all follow-up enquiries — An Amazon Kindle user has had her account wiped and all her paid …

More: Techdirt, digitaltrends.com, Boing Boing, Martin Bekkelund, Joe Wikert's Publishing …, Forbes and Geekosystem

Cotton Delo / AdAge:

Twitter Hires Agency Relations Chief From Google — Matt Derella Formerly Oversaw the Relationship Between Publicis and Google — Twitter is signaling to agencies that it's all grown up and ready to service them the way the likes of Google and AOL do. — The company has hired a new director …

More: TechCrunch, The Next Web and AllThingsD

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

The Secret Behind Pinterest's Growth Was Marketing, Not Engineering, Says CEO Ben Silbermann — Pinterest, which CEO Ben Silbermann describes as a tool that helps people find inspiration, is now the third-largest source of referral traffic on the Internet. — But growth wasn't easy for the company …

More: Business Insider and christine's brain. Tweets: @joelrgoldman, @triketora and @stkonrath

Ryo Takano / AJW by The Asahi Shimbun:

Tokyo court rejects Samsung's request for iPhone injunction — Asahi Asia Antenna - — Samsung Electronics Co. has suffered a setback in its worldwide legal battle with Apple Inc. over alleged patent violations after a Tokyo court rejected its request for injunction to stop iPhone sales in Japan.

More: CNET, The Japan Daily Press, The Next Web, AppleInsider, TUAW, The Register, Mashable!, Patently Apple, FOSS Patents, Engadget, Android Authority, Macgasm, PhoneArena and Sammy Hub

Mat Smith / Engadget:

LG announces Windows 8 12-inch slider laptop hybrid and all-in-one PC (updated) — Windows 8 imminent launch continues to draw out even more devices in almost every permutation imaginable. LG's up next, with its collection ranging from a familiar-looking V325 all-in-one PC, through to a slider PC with tablet skills.

More: Pocket-lint, Neowin, Inquirer, Mashable!, Electronista, The Verge, SlashGear and Digits

Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal:

Tweets Spawn Ad Campaigns — Chatter on Social-Media Sites Gives Marketers Direction for Commercials — The newest member of Samsung Mobile's Mad Men team: Twitter. — Samsung's latest television ad, which mocks Apple Inc.'s new iPhone, is striking a chord with consumers …

More: Betabeat and BuzzFeed. Tweets: @sebprovencher and @timoreilly

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.

Cape:

Most carriers track everything. Cape doesn't. — Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more. Switch today and get 29% off for life.

Zoho:

Zoho Mail Admin Console: A complete overview — You just got added as an admin for your company's Zoho Mail account. Someone from IT sends you a link, you log in, and there it is, a full console with everything …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce 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

Grit:

Ex-Twitter CEO on Why AI Needs a New Internet | Parag Agrawal

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

Subscribe to Grit.

Lenny's Podcast:

Anthropic's first technical PM on token maxing, the jagged edge, and living in the future | Dianne Penn

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:

What Happens If AI Fails?, Subprime Data Center Crisis, How Bad Can SpaceX Get?

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.

Hard Fork:

OpenAI Models Go Rogue + Kimi K3 Freakout + A.I. Superforecasting

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin

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 12:50 PM ET, October 22, 2012.

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.