The Inside Story of the Moto X: The Reason Google Bought Motorola  —  THE PHONE THAT REVEALS WHY GOOGLE BOUGHT MOTOROLA  —  lmost exactly two years ago, Google announced its purchase of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.  It was the company's biggest deal ever, far exceeding previous big buys …

Exclusive: Apple Recently Acquired Low-Energy Chipmaker Passif  —  As the smartphone wars heat up, Apple has acquired a key technology in the arms race.  —  The company in recent months purchased Silicon Valley-based wireless chip developer, Passif Semiconductor, according to people briefed on the deal.

Can Marissa Mayer Save Yahoo?  —  Marissa Mayer is sitting in URLs, the Yahoo! (YHOO) cafeteria, making the case for the future of a company that almost everyone in Silicon Valley views as doomed.  Employees swarm around her, assembling rows of chairs for the afternoon's FYI …

Employer Tipped Off Police To Pressure Cooker And Backpack Searches, Not Google  —  In what might be Medium's first widespread Twitter moment, music writer Michele Catalano used the platform to blog details of an unexpected visit to her home yesterday, from six men she identifies as members of the “joint terrorism task force.”

FBI Taps Hacker Tactics to Spy on Suspects  —  Law-Enforcement Officials Expand Use of Tools Such as Spyware as People Under Investigation ‘Go Dark,’ Evading Wiretaps  —  Law-enforcement officials in the U.S. are expanding the use of tools routinely used by computer hackers to gather information …

Apple Notifying Former MobileMe Customers of Impending iCloud Storage Downgrade  —  In 2011, when iCloud replaced MobileMe, Apple gave paying MobileMe customers an additional 20GB of iCloud storage as a thank you for their purchase.  That storage was to be discontinued in September of 2012 …

LinkedIn Beats Again as Revenue Jumps to $364 Million  —  Another earnings season, another beat from the Internet company that can seemingly do no financial wrong.  —  LinkedIn reported second-quarter earnings results on Thursday, with earnings per share of 38 cents on revenue of $364 million.

BBM For Android/iOS Betas Rolling Out In The Beta Zone  —  It seems that BlackBerry are moving forward with the cross-platform version of BBM as we have learned that there are a small number of users that are getting the chance to test out the Android, and iOS versions of BBM.

Amazon Experiments With Its Own Take On Pinterest Called “Amazon Collections”  —  Amazon has quietly launched its own direct challenger to Pinterest with the debut of a feature called “Amazon Collections.”  It's a more attractive, image-heavy website where consumers can save …

HootSuite Raises $165M Series B Round From Insight, Accel And OMERS To Go Large On Enterprise Social Media Monitoring  —  It was a little over a year ago when we reported that Vancouver-based HootSuite, the platform that lets enterprises manage social media accounts, was raising a $50 million round at a $500 million valuation.

Google Launches Real-Time API For Analytics In Invite-Only Beta  —  Google today launched the beta of its real-time API for Analytics that will finally allow developers to programmatically take action based on the real-time data they get from Google's service.

Apple Stores Suffer From Sameness  —  With No Head of Retail for 10 Months, iPhone Meccas Lose Some Luster Apple Inc.'s AAPL +0.92% search for a new head of its retail stores is dragging into its 10th month, and the effects are showing: The company recently reported its first drop in store sales in at least four years.