Techmeme: TiVo co-founders about to release new TV streaming box called QPlay (Janko Roettgers/Gigaom)

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December 18, 2013, 1:20 AM

Top News

Serenity Caldwell / Macworld:

Apple adds gifting options to the iBookstore — If it's digital books your family and friends love to read, Apple has a gift for them and for you. After long being the company's sole online store without gifting options, the iBookstore now allows you to send ebooks to your friends and family.

More: The Next Web, GeekWire, App Advice, Engadget, 9to5Mac, MacNN, iMore, iPhone Hacks, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone in Canada Blog, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Cult of Mac, everythingiCafe and TUAW

Guardian:

Tech firms push back against White House efforts to divert NSA meeting — Dominic Rushe in New York and Paul Lewis in Washington — The top leaders from the world's biggest technology companies pressed their case for reform of the National Security Agency's controversial surveillance operations …

More: Politico, Washington Post, Sunlight Foundation Blog, USA Today, Reuters, 9to5Mac, Wall Street Journal, The Verge, iDownloadBlog.com, Bloomberg, Inc.com, Business Insider, iPhone Hacks, PC Magazine, Cult of Mac and SlashGear. Tweets: @dellcam

Matthew M. Aid / Politico:

Review panel will reportedly recommend sweeping changes to NSA's electronic surveillance operations but allow some controversial programs to continue

Amit Singhal / The Official Google Blog:

2013 in Search: Heroes, tragedies and the Harlem Shake — Every day, around the world, we search. We want to find out more about our heroes, explore far-away destinations, or settle a dinner table dispute between friends. And sometimes we just search to find out how many calories are in an avocado.

Sean Hollister / The Verge:

LG announces Chromebase, a Chrome OS all-in-one computer — Google's Chrome OS is typically found in inexpensive Chromebook laptops, and occasionally a Chromebox desktop as well. At next month's Consumer Electronics Show, however, LG will put it into a desktop computer monitor.

More: LG Newsroom, Ars Technica, CNET, The Next Web, ZDNet, 9to5Google, Android Community, SlashGear, Electronista and Ubergizmo

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

TiVo co-founders about to release new TV streaming box called QPlay — TiVo co-founders Michael Ramsay and Jim Barton are about to release a new TV companion device that aims to combine video discovery and curation with smart TV functionality. Dave Zatz recently spotted an FCC filing …

More: Digital Trends and Digital Media Wire

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Apple Requiring All App Submissions To Be Optimized For iOS 7 By Feb 1st — Apple is requiring developers to optimize all app submissions for iOS 7 by February 1st, 2014, according to a new posting on its developer portal. That includes new apps and updates to existing apps.

More: MacRumors, Ars Technica, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, iMore, The Next Web, everythingiCafe, iDownloadBlog.com, App Advice, The Mac Observer and IntoMobile

Jamie Hinks / ITProPortal:

Universal laptop charger standard coming in 2014 — A new universal laptop charger standard that promises to cut down on e-waste has been published in the hope that it firms will choose to adopt it. — The International Electrotechnical Commission [IEC] Technical Specification 62700 …

More: IEC, TechWeekEurope UK, Crave, V3.co.uk, The Verge and Softpedia News

Andy / TorrentFreak:

Torrent Site Uploader Ordered to Pay $652,000 For Sharing One Movie — In 2011, popular private BitTorrent tracker Swebits announced it would close down, just a week after one of its users was arrested. — The then 25-year-old was a moderator and uploader and between April 2008 …

More: Plagiarism Today. Tweets: @xor and @brokep

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Microsoft Director Says CEO Choice Will Not Be Made Until Early 2014 — Microsoft director John Thompson, who leads CEO search — John Thompson, the Microsoft director who is leading the search for a CEO to replace outgoing leader Steve Ballmer, said today in a blog post that the board will not make its choice until early next year.

Dara Kerr / CNET:

Meg Whitman's salary bumped from a buck to $1.5 million — Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman appears to be getting a big reward for working to make the company more efficient. — The company's board has decided to up her salary from a mere $1 to $1.5 million, according to a HP filing …

More: The Register and Computerworld

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

PayPal acquires mobile platform provider StackMob so developers can build more payment-friendly apps — PayPal is showing that it's serious about supporting developers. Today, the company announced that it has acquired mobile platform StackMob in a move that will bolster its efforts …

More: PayPal, TechCrunch, SiliconBeat, StackMob, Forbes, Gigaom, VatorNews, ZDNet and VentureBeat

Derrick Harris / Gigaom:

Amazon's streaming data service, Kinesis, is now available — Kinesis, the streaming data service that Amazon Web Services announced in November, is now publicly available. The service is comparable in theory to popular open source technologies such as Apache Storm, only Kinesis brings …

More: ZDNet, TechCrunch, InfoWorld, Amazon.com, Cloud Pro and Lastest ITProPortal news

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Samsung wants a retrial of the November retrial in its first U.S. patent litigation with Apple — Last month a federal jury in the Northern District of California awarded Apple $290 million in damages for Samsung's infringement of 13 of the 28 products accused in this first litigation between these parties …

More: BGR, TUAW, PhoneArena, AndroidHeadlines.com, TechnoBuffalo, Android Community, Cult of Mac and iDownloadBlog.com

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Acquires PeerCDN As It Builds Out Its Content Strategy — Content delivery network provider PeerCDN has been acquired by Yahoo, the company has informed TechCrunch, in a deal the terms of which were not disclosed. The startup revealed its project earlier this year …

More: AdExchanger, VatorNews and CNET. Tweets: @peercdn. Thanks:@mjburnsy

Michael Hiltzik / Los Angeles Times:

Uber upholds capitalism, (possibly) learns downside of price gouging — Travis Kalanick, chief executive of Uber Technologies: Let the people walk! (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg / December 16, 2013) — The ride-sharing firm Uber takes great pride in hewing rigorously to libertarian, let-the-market-decide business principles.

More: Valleywag, PandoDaily, Wired, Valleywag, NYT Bits, Business Insider, New York Magazine and Inc.com

Tweets: @nacin and @calebgarling

Seung Min Kim / Politico:

White House chooses former Microsoft Office VP Kurt DelBene to lead HealthCare.gov overhaul — White House to tap Microsoft exec to fix Obamacare site — The White House is tapping the private sector for its next point man to fix the troubled Obamacare website.

More: HHS.gov, Microsoft Corporation, The Official Microsoft Blog, The Verge, The Register, eWeek, Daily Dot, Computerworld, Wonkblog, Geek News Central, GeekWire, VentureBeat, Business Insider, CNET and AllThingsD

Richard Lawler / Engadget:

Roku 3 finally snags an official YouTube app, support for additional models is on the way — The lack of a YouTube app has been a massive hole in the content lineup of Roku's otherwise well-rounded media streamers, but no more. YouTube just announced that Roku 3 players in the US, Canada …

More: The Official Roku Blog, YouTube Blog, Digital Trends, VentureBeat, CNET, PC Magazine, TechHive, IntoMobile, 9to5Google, The Verge, Gizmodo, Gigaom, The Next Web and BetaNews. See also Mediagazer

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Sailthru Raises $20M Round To Personalize Email Marketing And More — Marketing personalization startup Sailthru is announcing that it has raised $20 million in Series C funding. — Less than a year has passed since the company raised its $19 million Series B, and founder and CEO Neil Capel …

More: AdExchanger, Forbes, AllThingsD, PE Hub Blog and VentureBeat. Tweets: @bgurley

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Meta Unveils Meta Pro, Its $3,000 AR Glasses Now Available For Pre-Order — Augmented reality startup Meta has spent the past few years making prototypes of wearable devices featuring see-through optics and a wide variety of sensor arrays. Now it's starting production on its first generation …

More: CNET, Forbes, Engadget, Al Jazeera America, SlashGear, LAPTOP Magazine and Gigaom

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Continuing Its Public Content Push, Facebook Acquires SportStream — Twitter may still be synonymous with real-time, in-the-moment discussion. But that's hardly stopping Facebook from moving in on the territory. — Natch, Facebook announced on Tuesday it had acquired SportStream …

More: Facebook, ZDNet, Sportstream and The Next Web. See also Mediagazer

Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

Samsung taps ex-Apple retail designer for possible Galaxy stores — Samsung may have something new in store for its battle with Apple: A new take on the retail store itself. Former Apple Store designer Tim Gudgel is a new Samsung employee according to The Information (subscription required) …

More: The Information, AppleInsider, MacDailyNews, iPhone Hacks, TechnoBuffalo, AndroidHeadlines.com, ZDNet, Electronista, Android Community, pocketnow.com and SlashGear. Tweets: @lessien

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