Techmeme: Google's Hopes of EU Settlement Suffer Blow (Vanessa Mock/Wall Street Journal)

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December 13, 2013, 1:15 AM

Top News

Michael Sippey / Twitter Blog:

Reverting the changes to block functionality — Earlier today, we made a change to the way the “block” function of Twitter works. We have decided to revert the change after receiving feedback from many users - we never want to introduce features at the cost of users feeling less safe.

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Twitter Reverts Changes To Blocking Functionality After Strong Negative User Feedback — Update: Twitter has reverted the changes to blocking functionality that it made earlier today. After the changes, an outpouring of negative user feedback appeared on Twitter, blogs and other services.

More: hypatia dot ca, Ars Technica, ReadWrite, Los Angeles Times, The Verge, CNET, iMore, Business Insider, The Wire and Medium

Tweets: @anildash and @glennf

Instagram Blog:

Introducing Instagram Direct — Today, we're excited to bring you Instagram Direct, a new way to send photo and video messages to friends. Over the past three years, the Instagram community has grown to over 150 million people capturing and sharing moments all around the globe.

More: Computerworld, Fortune, TechCrunch, Gigaom, Forbes, Examiner, Ausdroid, everwas, NBCNews, Digits, PadGadget, PandoDaily, AllFacebook, IntoMobile, POPSUGAR, The Technology Chronicles, SlashGear, Droid Life, SocialTimes, VentureBeat, Business Insider, MacRumors, The Verge, Marketing Pilgrim, PC Magazine, Tnooz, Inside Facebook and Consumerist

Tweets: @peterrojas, @jwherrman, @pkafka, @emilysteel and @aripap

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Instagram announces Instagram Direct for private photo, video, and text messaging

More: Computerworld, The Switch, San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes, Inside Mobile Apps, NYT Bits, Ars Technica, Softpedia News, Gigaom, ABC News, Engadget, Gizmodo, The Register, iMore and PC World

Tweets: @austincarr, @erinbury, @anildash, @danprimack, @zpower, @pkafka and @mikeisaac

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

With Private Messaging, Instagram and Twitter Continue Their Arms Race

More: TechCrunch, Slate, stratechery and PandoDaily

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers — Ever wonder why most e-mail clients hide images by default? The reason for the “display images” button is because images in an e-mail must be loaded from a third-party server. For promotional e-mails and spam …

More: Gmail Blog, Gigaom, BetaNews, Consumerist, TechCrunch and iDownloadBlog.com

Tweets: @nikcub, @rakeshlobster, @rozzie, @john_moyle_, @neerav, @hdmoore, @oroup, @steveklabnik, @netik and @jedbickford

Andrea Peterson / The Switch:

No, Gmail's tweak won't stop e-mail marketers from knowing if you open their e-mail — Google announced a change to the way that Gmail handles images Thursday. Traditionally, when an e-mail contains an image, e-mail software would fetch the image from a server operated by the mail sender.

More: Wired, MailChimp Email Marketing Blog, Ars Technica, The Next Web, Zettasphere and Computerworld

Tweets: @randfish and @r

Marguerite Reardon / CNET:

FCC votes 3-2 to lift technical ban on in-flight cellphone use — The Federal Communications Commission took the first step toward removing regulations that ban phone calls while in flight. But FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler emphasized that the Department of Transportation …

More: The Register, Computerworld, Engadget, PhoneArena and SlashGear. Tweets: @emilydreyfuss

Kevin Robillard / Politico:

Anthony Foxx: DOT will consider banning cell phone calls on planes

More: MacRumors, Associated Press and Business Insider. Tweets: @breakingnews

Bloomberg:

Microsoft Said to Consider Qualcomm's Mollenkopf for CEO Job — Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s board is considering Qualcomm Inc. Chief Operating Officer Steve Mollenkopf among candidates to replace Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, said people familiar with the matter.

More: GeekWire, Engadget, Pocket-lint, Business Insider, TechnoBuffalo and Tech Trader Daily. Tweets: @jyarow

Vanessa Mock / Wall Street Journal:

Google's Hopes of EU Settlement Suffer Blow — BRUSSELS— Google Inc. 's hopes of settling its high-profile antitrust case in the European Union suffered a setback as rivals and consumer groups blasted its latest proposal for resolving the EU's competition concerns.

More: BGR, FairSearch.org, FairSearch.org, WebProNews and Times LIVE. Tweets: @dannysullivan

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Oculus VR raises $75M from web browser inventor Marc Andreessen's VC firm to launch virtual reality goggles — Virtual reality goggle maker has raised a massive round of $75 million from Netscape founder Marc Andreessen's Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm to create a consumer version of its product.

More: The Verge, Ars Technica, Engadget, Business Insider, VG247 and Polygon

Tweets: @francoislaberge and @capnsmak

Electronista:

Dell reveals new partnerships with Dropbox, Microsoft, Google, Red Hat — Dropbox for Business to be offered to Dell enterprise customers — Dell has announced a number of new partnerships it has formed with other companies at its Dell World event in Austin today.

More: Eucalyptus News, Dropbox for Business Blog, Dell, AllThingsD, Computerworld, eWeek and TechCrunch

Deborah Gage / Digits:

Dell's Venture Arm Expands Investments With $300 Million Fund

More: PE Hub Blog, PC World, VentureBeat and Direct2Dell

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft schedules BUILD 2014 developer conference for April 2nd — Microsoft is returning to San Francisco next year to host its BUILD developer conference. The software giant briefly revealed the dates for BUILD 2014 today, before pulling them from its news site.

More: eWeek, ZDNet, TechCrunch and Softpedia News. Tweets: @tomwarren

Bloomberg:

Google Said to Mull Designing Chips in Threat to Intel — Google Inc. (GOOG) is considering designing its own server processors using technology from ARM Holdings Plc (ARM), a move that could threaten Intel Corp. (INTC)'s market dominance, said a person with knowledge of the matter.

More: 9to5Google, Ars Technica, CNET, Tech Trader Daily and Gigaom. Tweets: @howardlindzon

Alistair Barr / USA Today:

Amazon said to launch Pantry to take on Costco, Sam's — Pantry is set to launch in 2014 and will let Amazon Prime members buy consumer packages goods that will be shipping in a set sized box with a maximum weight limit, sources say. — SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com is working …

More: The Verge, Seeking Alpha and GeekWire

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

YouTube expands live streaming to all channels, adds option to directly launch a Google+ Hangout On Air — YouTube today announced it is expanding its live streaming service to all YouTube channels. The Google-owned company now only has two requirements: your account must be verified and it has to be in good standing.

More: YouTube Creator Blog, CNET, Engadget, The Verge, TechnoBuffalo, TechCrunch and WebProNews

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

Chromecast can now stream videos and music from Google Play's website — Google has been adding more and more ways to play content on a Chromecast, and today it's giving the media streamer a new trick: the ability to stream Google Play music and videos straight from the web.

More: Google Play, Android Central, Gigaom and The Next Web

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

Fleksy wants to become your new iOS keyboard, everywhere — Can a software keyboard startup succeed where others failed? — In 2007, early iPhone users had a problem. They wanted to take a snippet of text from one place to another, and their phones wouldn't let them do it.

More: TechCrunch, Engadget, MobileSyrup.com, Ubergizmo, iDownloadBlog.com, MobileBurn.com, AppleInsider, AppShopper.com, MacRumors, Geeky Gadgets, MacStories, 9to5Mac, The Next Web, MacNN and iMore

Gerry Smith / The Huffington Post:

How Stolen Smartphones End Up In The Hands Of Colombian Cartels — This article is part of a Huffington Post series exploring the global underground trade in stolen smartphones. Previous stories in the series can be found here. — BOGOTA, Colombia — In the capital of a country notorious …

Tweets: @georgegascon and @kimbhasin. Thanks:@dino_grandoni

Leo Kelion / BBC:

Bots now ‘account for 61% of web traffic’ — The study suggests humans only account for 38.5% of internet traffic — If you are visiting this page the chances are that you are not a human, at least according to research. — A study by Incapsula suggests 61.5% of all website traffic is now generated by bots.

More: TechCrunch, Nextgov, VentureBeat and CNET

Tweets: @gollmann and @wadhwa

Joseph Czikk / BetaKit:

Toronto's Bitstrips Raises $3 Million After Users Created Over 30 Million Avatars — The resounding message from an update (in comic strip form I might add) from Bitstrips is that once the Toronto-based startup released their mobile app, the growth they experienced was both unexpectedly big and even overwhelming.

More: TechCrunch, The Next Web, Globe and Mail, iPhone in Canada Blog, Inside Mobile Apps, Valleywag, PE Hub Blog, WebProNews and Business Insider. Thanks:@jdubilicious

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