Techmeme: China approves plans to lift 13-year ban on the sale of video game consoles (Kaylene Hong/The Next Web)

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September 27, 2013, 1:05 PM

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Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Is Ford's Alan Mulally Now in the Lead to Be New CEO of Microsoft? — According to sources close to the situation, Ford CEO Alan Mulally has vaulted to the forefront of the candidates to become the new CEO of Microsoft. — Earlier this month, the well-known leader of the car maker categorically denied …

More: Pocket-lint, StrictlyVC, SiliconANGLE, VG247, TheStreet.com, Softpedia News, I4U News, LiveSide.net, InfoWorld, PC Magazine, GeekWire, GamesIndustry International, SlashGear, GigaOM, Business Insider and Tech Trader Daily

Wall Street Journal:

John Thompson, the Man Picking Microsoft's Next CEO — John Thompson, Lead Independent Director, Vows Not to Be ‘Pawn’ for Gates — Plenty of people wanted to buttonhole Steve Ballmer last week after what was probably his final analysts meeting as Microsoft Corp.'s chief executive.

More: Digits. See also Mediagazer

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Ballmer bids tearful farewell to Microsoft, promises it will ‘deliver the next big thing’ — Microsoft's Steve Ballmer bid farewell to employees today at his final company meeting as CEO. After announcing his intentions to retire within the next 12 months, Ballmer's speech today was clearly an emotional moment for him personally.

More: SiliconBeat, Betabeat, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, ZDNet, BBC, The Register, Business Insider, GigaOM, Gizmodo UK, MacDailyNews, The Next Web, GeekWire, Digits, MSDN Blogs, memeburn, The Atlantic Wire and Datamation.com

Tweets: @ftrain and @tomwarren

Thanks:@jimmyjonesboy

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Intel Pushes Internet TV Launch to 2014 as It Seeks Partners: Source — Netflix among potential partners with desired ‘synergies’ the chipmaker has approached — Intel's launch of an over-the-top TV service that would compete with cable and satellite giants will be delayed until 2014 …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Intel Looking for Help from Amazon or Samsung to Keep Its Web TV Project Alive — Intel executives, who have promised to launch a Web-based pay TV service by the end of 2013, are now looking for a strategic backer to help them fund and distribute the service. If they don't find one soon, it's possible the project will be scrapped.

More: PC Magazine, Business Insider, SiliconANGLE, Mashable, The Tech Report, InvestorPlace, GigaOM, Bloomberg, Softpedia News, PC Pro, Engadget, SlashGear, The Verge and Digits

Tweets: @counternotions, @stevecheney, @trengriffin and @tcarmody

See also Mediagazer

Bloomberg:

HTC to Sell Back Stake in Beats Electronics for $265 Million — HTC Corp. (2498), the Taiwanese smartphone vendor whose stock has plunged 90 percent since 2011, is selling its remaining stake in headphone maker Beats Electronics LLC for $265 million. — HTC will close the sale …

More: DealBook, Engadget, The Verge, AllThingsD, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, GigaOM, Android Beat, The Straits Times, Macgasm and hypebot

David Meyer / GigaOM:

Samsung: We don't region-lock our phones (apart from when you first activate them) — Samsung shed further light on its region-locking policies on Friday, explaining that the locks only affect users the first time they activate the handset. The manufacturer also said the locks apply …

More: ZDNet, Inquirer, Yahoo! News, Guardian, The Register, Softpedia News and TechHive. Tweets: @gigaom

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

China approves plans to lift 13-year ban on the sale of video game consoles — China has officially approved plans to lift a 13-year ban on the sales of video game consoles in the country, heralding in a huge market for game console developers such as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.

More: Wall Street Journal, Tech in Asia, Benzinga, Softpedia News, PC World, The Verge, SlashGear, Polygon and WebProNews

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft expanding Office's reach with ‘Reader’ for Windows 8 and ‘Lens’ for Windows Phone — Microsoft is building another Office Windows 8-style application. Sources familiar with Microsoft's Office plans have revealed to The Verge that the app, codenamed Office Reader …

More: ZDNet, WinBeta, Electronista, Pureinfotech Newsletter and The Next Web

Chris Velazco / TechCrunch:

BlackBerry Reports $1.6B In Revenue And A $965M Loss In Q2 2014 — Things have been looking awfully bleak for BlackBerry lately, and today the company revealed just how rough things have gotten in its newest earnings release. In fiscal Q2 2014, BlackBerry raked in a measly $1.6 billion in revenue …

More: Marketwired, Reuters, BGR, Computerworld, ZDNet, AllThingsD, Wall Street Journal, CNET, Engadget, Globe and Mail, MobileSyrup.com, Electronista and AllThingsD

Joan Lowy / Associated Press:

As expected, FAA panel recommends easing ban on electronic devices during takeoff and landing — Panel backs easing electronic device use on planes … WASHINGTON (AP) — A Federal Aviation Administration advisory committee recommended Thursday that airline passengers be allowed to use smartphones …

More: The Switch, The Verge, SlashGear, MacRumors, Engadget, Android Community, I4U News, PhoneArena, Gotta Be Mobile, iDownloadBlog.com, Pocket-lint, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, Electronista, iLounge, Boing Boing and Gizmodo UK

Tweets: @rafat and @rafat

Katherine Rushton / Telegraph:

Candy Crush creator King files for IPO in America — King, the British computer games maker behind Candy Crush Saga, has quietly filed documents for an initial public offering in the US, expected to value the firm at more than $5bn. — It is understood that King will float on the Nasdaq exchange …

More: Businessweek, The Verge, BGR, VentureBeat, CNET, GigaOM, Valleywag, Gizmodo UK, Forbes, GamesIndustry International, Mashable, Mobile Entertainment, Polygon, GeekWire, Business Insider and VG247

Tweets: @cjoh, @reformedbroker, @d_blomquist, @laurenlyster and @telegraph

Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:

Unmasking the trolls: FTC announces investigation into “patent assertion entities” — The Federal Trade Commission on Friday called for public comments on a proposed investigation into approximately 25 “patent assertion entities,” — more commonly known as patent trolls — and how they affect innovation and competition.

More: Federal Trade Commission, New York Times and InfoWorld

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:

U.S. officials dodge questions on scope of surveillance — U.S. officials declined to directly answer lawmakers' questions on Thursday about the full scope of the National Security Agency's collection of Americans' data, including whether it has ever sought to acquire large volumes of cellphone location information or other records.

More: New York Times. Tweets: @csoghoian. See also Mediagazer

Paul Thurrott / WindowsITPro:

Delta to Distribute Surface 2 to Pilots — Original plan was to use the Nokia Windows RT tablet — Delta will distribute Microsoft Surface 2 tablets to its pilots and not Nokia's “Sirius” tablet as originally planned. The move comes in the wake of a deal to distribute Nokia Lumia 820 smart phones …

More: Examiner, Windows Phone Central and WinBeta

Zachary Lutz / Engadget:

Twitter focuses on photos in embedded tweets — Some say that a picture is worth 1,000 words, but regardless of how you do the math, it's fair to say that a good photo can say a lot more than 140 characters. With that in mind, Twitter is giving greater emphasis to photos within tweets …

More: blog.twitter.com, VentureBeat, Mashable, The Next Web and WebProNews

Tom Cheredar / VentureBeat:

Born of Reddit, Imgur now dwarfs the ‘front page of the Internet’ with 100M unique visitors a month — Community image-sharing website Imgur announced that it had reached a new traffic milestone today, with the site now pulling in over 100 million unique visitors per month.

More: GigaOM, The Imgur Blog, gHacks Technology News, memeburn, TechCrunch, TechHive, WebProNews, Betabeat and Business Insider

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Good Eggs Nabs $8.5 Million from Sequoia and Others for Local Farm-to-Fridge Effort (Video) — Good Eggs, the local farm-to-fridge local grocery delivery startup, has nabbed $8.5 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, which it will use to expand its sustainable food service to more cities.

More: TechCrunch, bizjournals and VentureBeat

Tweets: @sequoia_capital and @schreier

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

PayPal's David Marcus: Braintree Keeps Its Brand And Ops Intact; Venmo Will Be Used For Big P2P Push — Today's news that eBay's PayPal is buying Braintree for $800 million in cash will open the door to Braintree taking its developer-focused payments platform to more markets and with more services.

More: Forbes, ReadWrite, internetretailer.com and Best Engaging Communities

David Marcus / PayPal:

Why We've Agreed to Acquire Braintree

More: Blogtree, IntoMobile, VentureBeat, ReadWrite, PC Magazine, VatorNews, Pulse 2.0, TechCrunch and ReadWrite

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

Google unveils search updates for mobile, new Page Rank algorithm, and Knowledge Graph comparisons — This week, Google marks its 15-year anniversary and the team brought members of the media to the original Google House to talk about the future of the company.

Robert Hof / Forbes:

Meet Hummingbird: Google Just Revamped Search To Answer Your Long Questions Better

More: Google Operating System, NYT Bits, Search Engine Land, AllThingsD, PC Magazine, The Register, iPhone, Wired.co.uk, memeburn, App Advice, WebProNews and Yahoo! News

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