Techmeme
September 26, 2013, 9:20 AM

Top News

TechCrunch:
EBay's PayPal Acquires Payments Gateway Braintree For $800M In Cash  —  Ebay's PayPal has acquired Chicago-based payments gateway Braintree, in an all-cash deal worth $800 million.  We had originally reported that Braintree was on the block, with Square and PayPal both in acquisition talks for the company.
Reuters:
T-Mobile US will no longer stock BlackBerry in stores  —  (Reuters) - T-Mobile US Inc, the No. 4 U.S. wireless service provider, plans to stop carrying BlackBerry Ltd smartphones in its stores and instead ship the devices directly, according to an executive for the company.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Hopster Promises Netflix for Kids, and No One Else  —  If you're a certain kind of parent, then you know that Netflix is a pretty excellent babysitter.  But Netflix, and rival services like Amazon's Instant Prime, have lots of movies and TV shows that aren't aimed at kids.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
JustFab Raises Another $40M Led By Hong Kong's Shining Capital To Take Its Fashion Subscription Commerce Model To Asia And Beyond  —  Hot on the heels of its merger with rival ShoeDazzle (yes, pun intended), subscription-based fashion commerce site JustFab, now with 35 million users …
Eric Chemi / Businessweek:
Listen Up Apple Haters: iPhone Sales Eclipse Microsoft and Amazon  —  Apple CEO Tim Cook has taken plenty of flack for running a company that is supposedly well past its glory days—and the iPhone smartphone franchise is sometimes dismissed as a spent force, losing ground to other more innovative brands like Android and Samsung.
More: 9to5Mac and MacDailyNews.  Tweets: @ferrotv
David Meyer / GigaOM:
Seriously, Samsung?  Sorry, European roamers, but the new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked  —  I really thought the days of region-locking were dying with the DVD, but it seems I was wrong - Samsung has decided to revive the odious practice with its Galaxy Note 3 smartphone.
Guardian:
NSA reform bill to trim back US surveillance unveiled in Congress  —  Ron Wyden says Snowden disclosures have ‘caused a sea change’ and announces most comprehensive package so far  —  Four senators at the vanguard of bipartisan efforts to rein in US government spying programs announced …
Michael Lee / ZDNet:
Google Hangouts/GTalk glitch sends chats to wrong recipients  —  Summary: [UPDATE] Be careful what you say over Google's instant messenger, as they may be sent to the wrong person.  Google has acknowledged an issue and is looking into it.  —  Michael Lee  —  [UPDATE] Google's Hangouts …
Danny Hakim / New York Times:
Tech Giants Fear Spread of Patent Wars to Europe  —  LONDON — The technology industry is expanding its fight against patent trolls to Europe.  —  In the United States, technology companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft have spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars …
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple Uses Bluetooth LE To Enable Apple TV ‘Touch To Set Up’ Via iOS 7 Devices  —  Apple is leveraging the Bluetooth LE technology that it has been building into every iPhone since the iPhone 4S to enable automatic setup of an Apple TV 3G.  Just touch a device running iOS 7 to a newer Apple set-top box …
Larry Seltzer / ZDNet:
Google tightening SSL security in Chrome  —  Summary: Always a leader in advancing SSL security, Google will be flagging certificates that don't meet the Baseline Requirements of the CA/Browser Forum, and adding requirements for Certificate Transparency.  —  In a post to the CA/Browser Forum …
Parmy Olson / Forbes:
Duolingo Takes Online Teaching To The Next Level, By Crowd Sourcing New Languages  —  Duolingo's founders Luis Von Ahn and Severin Hacker; photo via Duolingo  —  The makers of language-learning software Rosetta Stone should take heed: the crowd is coming.  —  Duolingo, a free …
Tweets: @forbestech.  Thanks:@parmy
Cade Metz / Wired:
The Second Coming of Java: A Relic Returns to Rule Web  —  Biz Stone called it “one of the most special days in the history of Twitter.”  And as it turned out, it was also a notable day for Java, a relic of the 1990s that is once again remaking the internet.
Tweets: @aows and @sampullara
Ryan Gallagher / Ars Technica:
Meet the machines that steal your phone's data  —  The National Security Agency's spying tactics are being intensely scrutinized following the recent leaks of secret documents.  However, the NSA isn't the only US government agency using controversial surveillance methods.
Tweets: @csoghoian
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Amazon brings MP3 purchasing to its Cloud Player for PC app  —  The Mac version is still only promised to be coming soon, but Amazon has today delivered a fairly big update to its Cloud Player for PC application.  It now boasts an integrated MP3 store, which will let you browse …
Stephanie Mlot / PC Magazine:
Pebble Selects AT&T as Exclusive Smartwatch Carrier  —  AT&T has inked a deal with Pebble to serve as the smartwatch's exclusive carrier.  —  After breaking Kickstarter records last year by earning $10 million, the watch this summer landed in Best Buy stores and became available online at getpebble.com.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft left alone with Windows RT as Dell drops XPS 10 tablet  —  Microsoft appears to be the only company still selling a Windows RT-based tablet.  Dell's XPS 10 is now listed as unavailable, following a price drop for the past few months.  While the company won't comment …

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