Techmeme: Airbnb Tops 10 Million Guests Since Launch, Now Has 550,000 Properties Worldwide (Ryan Lawler/TechCrunch)

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December 19, 2013, 5:15 PM

Top News

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission:

SEC Charges Microsoft Senior Manager and Friend With Insider Trading in Advance of Company News — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a senior portfolio manager at Microsoft Corporation and his friend and business partner with insider trading ahead of company announcements.

More: The Seattle Times, The Verge, ZDNet, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Gigaom, WebProNews, Forbes and SlashGear

Tweets: @bdsams, @jyarow and @markgurman

David Pierce / The Verge:

Up close and personal with the new Mac Pro (hands-on) — It's been talked about and endlessly dissected. It's either the future of professional computing or an overpriced, undersized trash can. It's the new Mac Pro, it's on sale starting today, and I've finally had a chance to hold it in my own two hands.

More: Ars Technica, Engadget, Macworld, MacRumors, Gigaom, Yahoo! News, iPhone in Canada Blog and Gizmodo

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Trouble in Austin: Apple repeats last year's iMac holiday shortage with the Mac Pro

More: Pocket-lint, TechnoBuffalo, Los Angeles Times and TechCrunch. Tweets: @tim_cook

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

Apple's Redesigned Mac Pro Now Available for Online Orders

More: Fortune, Macworld, iMore, MacRumors, Apple, Ars Technica, Cult of Mac, iPhone Hacks, everythingiCafe, TUAW, Softpedia News, Inquirer, TechCrunch, MacDailyNews, Engadget, 9to5Mac, PC World and The Next Web

Reuters:

Exclusive: Dish eyes 2014 bid for T-Mobile - sources — (Reuters) - Dish (DISH.O) is considering making a bid for T-Mobile (TMUS.N) next year, according to people close to the matter, in what would be the satellite TV provider's second attempt in as many years at acquiring a major wireless operator …

More: DSLreports, eWeek, GeekWire, Gigaom, ZDNet, iMore, Ars Technica, IntoMobile, Electronista, Gigaom Research, The Verge and TheStreet.com. Tweets: @reckless. See also Mediagazer

Donna Tam / CNET:

DA to Apple: Make iPhone's Activation Lock the rule — San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón released survey results Wednesday that he says makes an argument for Apple to enable its Activation Lock security feature on every phone. — When enabled, Activation Lock …

More: The Register, NEWS.com.au, SiliconBeat, 9to5Mac, iPhone Hacks, IntoMobile, Gotta Be Mobile, iDownloadBlog.com, Cult of Mac, Macworld, San Francisco Examiner …, MacDailyNews and TodaysiPhone.com

Gerry Smith / The Huffington Post:

California Lawmaker To Introduce Bill Mandating Smartphone ‘Kill Switch’

More: RT and Associated Press

iFixit:

Steam Machine Teardown — If last month's round of next-gen console launches left you in a fog, prepare yourself for the incoming Steam Machine. Valve has released only 300 beta kits into the wild, so grab your companion cube and hold tight—we're about to open one up.

More: GeekWire, Engadget, Joystiq, Ars Technica, PC World, WebProNews, Geek.com, Gizmodo, CNET, The Tech Report and destructoid

Tweets: @ifixit and @steamdb

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Exclusive: Foursquare Raises a $35 Million Round and Adds DFJ's Schuler to the Board — Foursquare, the iconic social location service, has raised $35 million in a Series D round, led by DFJ Growth and the Capital Group's Smallcap World Fund. — The company confirmed the raise to me and later …

More: The Foursquare Blog, VatorNews, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, WebProNews, The Verge, ClickZ, Business Insider, The Next Web, Mashable, Valleywag and Skift

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

WhatsApp announces 400M active users, aims to “steer the conversation” away from registered users — WhatsApp Does a Passive-Aggressive Stats Release to Call Out Others for Bulls**t Metrics — There's a big difference between someone signing up for a service, and someone using it on a regular basis.

More: WhatsApp Blog, iPhone in Canada Blog, Digits, Online Dating Insider, The Next Web and Forbes

Tweets: @papadimitriou, @sarahfrier, @benedictevans, @scottmaustin and @jwherrman

Lisa Eadicicco / LAPTOP Magazine:

$350 Google Glass Competitor Covers Both Eyes to Augment Your Reality — If you think wearing Google Glass makes you look like a futuristic cyborg, than the Atheer One is sure to make you feel like you've just crawled out of a time machine. Atheer Labs has just announced …

More: AllThingsD, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Digital Trends, Fast Company, CITEworld, CNET, The Next Web, Gigaom and Mashable. Thanks:@akattkisson

Libby Jacobson / Verizon Public Policy:

Verizon to Publish Transparency Report Disclosing Law Enforcement Requests for Customer Information — NEW YORK — Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ) today announced plans to publish an online report that will provide data on the number of law enforcement requests for customer information …

More: Gigaom, CNET, Washington Post, TheHill, The Verge, ZDNet and SecurityWeek

Tweets: @csoghoian and @runasand

eMarketer:

Mobile Growth Pushes Facebook to Become No. 2 US Digital Ad Seller — Mobile now accounts for more than 22% of all US digital ad spending, compared with less than 3% in 2010 — US mobile ad spending is expected to near $9.6 billion in 2013 and account for a whopping 22.5% of all digital ad investments …

More: Internet2Go, Forbes, CNET, VentureBeat, Marketing Land, VatorNews, AdAge, Business Insider, The Drum and Inc.com

Tweets: @bizo, @anamarketers and @emarketer

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Calxeda, Chipmaker That Sought to Bring ARM Chips to Servers, Has Shut Down — Depending on whom you ask, the coming year is supposed to be the one during which server chips based on the ARM architecture that is now so popular in smartphones and tablets start appearing in servers.

More: The Register, Forbes and ZDNet. Tweets: @qthrul

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Prismatic wants to build a social network around all of your interests, which is actually a lot harder than it sounds — There are social networks all around us these days, from Facebook and Twitter to more targeted networks like Instagram and Path — and new ones seem to be launching every week.

More: PandoDaily, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, VentureBeat, iMore, CNET, The Next Web and Thomas Hawk Digital Connection. Tweets: @mathewi. Thanks:@mathewi. See also Mediagazer

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

Target confirms breach: 40 million accounts affected — Summary: Customer name, credit or debit card number, and the card's expiration date and CVV (the three-digit security code) were breached, the retailer said. — Target on Thursday confirmed that its payment card data was compromised …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg Sell Shares, Facebook Stock Price Drops — After a nice run on the Nasdaq, Facebook and its CEO are selling a big block of shares. Wall Street's reaction: We're selling, too. — Facebook says it is planning a secondary sale of 70 million shares …

More: PR Newswire, TechCrunch, StrictlyVC, Inside Facebook, Bloomberg, CNBC, SiliconBeat, Wall Street Journal, bizjournals, Softpedia News, CNET, Digits, The Next Web, Gigaom, Guardian, VentureBeat and PE Hub Blog

Derrick Harris / Gigaom:

IBM acquires Aspera and its tech for moving massive files to the cloud — IBM on Thursday announced plans to acquire Aspera, a startup whose protocol technology is used to transfer large files fast over the slow public internet. The Aspera protocol, called fasp, is used by a large number …

More: TechCrunch, IBM, ZDNet, The Register, Wall Street Journal and WebProNews

Matthew Lynley / BuzzFeed:

WSJ's revamped tech section to be called “WSJD”, launches in January — The Wall Street Journal's Answer To AllThingsD Launches Next Month — The Journal's revamped tech coverage section launches next month . The company is launching a global conference, too. — Jason Reed / Reuters

Tweets: @ryanlawler, @karaswisher, @stevekovach and @alexckaufman. See also Mediagazer

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

BitTorrent serverless chat replaces usernames with crypto keys — BitTorrent, Inc. is developing a serverless instant messaging system that relies on public key encryption to protect the privacy of communications, identifying users not with traditional usernames but with cryptographic key pairs.

More: The Verge, TechCrunch, The Official BitTorrent Blog, The BitTorrent Engineering …, PandoDaily, Business Insider, PC World and Ubergizmo

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Airbnb Tops 10 Million Guests Since Launch, Now Has 550,000 Properties Worldwide — This is what hockey-stick growth looks like: Peer-to-peer lodging marketplace Airbnb announced this morning that it'll top 10 million guest stays since being launched in 2007.

More: VentureBeat and The Next Web. Thanks:@ngerke

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Hot mod: Cyanogen raises another $23 million to become the next big version of Android — The effort to turn CyanogenMod into the next big mobile operating system just got a big new vote of confidence. The company announced today that it has raised an additional $23 million …

More: CyanogenMod, Gigaom, Engadget, Peter Levine, GeekWire, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, dailywireless.org, MobileSyrup.com, MobileBurn.com, AllThingsD, 9to5Google and Android Community. Tweets: @caseynewton

Brad Molen / Engadget:

Facebook Home update to bring new lockscreen and gestures to select Android phones — Facebook hasn't forgotten Home, the Android launcher that originally came out this past April and has trickled out to a few select handsets since. The social network just posted a video showing an upcoming update to Home …

More: Gigaom

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