Techmeme: Moto X drops to $399 without contract to start the new year (Kevin C. Tofel/Gigaom)

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January 1, 2014, 11:40 PM

Top News

Chris Ziegler / The Verge:

Alleged Snapchat hackers explain how and why they leaked data on 4.6 million accounts — The individual or team claiming responsibility for SnapchatDB has responded to The Verge's requests for comment the morning after the database went online, containing a leaked collection …

More: The Switch, Reuters, BBC, Digits, ZDNet, Troy Hunt's Blog, Valleywag, TechSpot, PC Magazine, TechnoBuffalo, Naked Security and iDownloadBlog.com. Tweets: @evanspiegel

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

Confirmed: Hackers exploit Snapchat's security hole, leak 4.6m usernames and phone numbers online — If you're a Snapchat user, then you might be interested to know that someone may have found a way to save the usernames and phone numbers for 4.6 million accounts.

More: TechCrunch, BGR, Forbes, ABC News, NEWS.com.au, Digital Trends, O'Reilly Radar, Q13 FOX News, CNN, Engadget, Mashable, iDownloadBlog.com, RT, Daily Dot, Technology Personalized, ResearchBuzz, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, Boing Boing and Gigaom. Tweets: @brianshall

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

Skype's Twitter, Facebook, and blog hacked by Syrian Electronics Army demanding an end to spying — We're not even through the first day of 2014 and cyber attacks are back again. Earlier today, some person(s) breached Skype's security and hacked its Twitter account, Facebook page, and blog.

More: Skype, Reuters, The Verge, Digits, The Desk, WinBeta, VentureBreak, Business Insider, World News, PC Magazine, CNET, Mashable, Naked Security, ZDNet, The Drum, USA Today, SlashGear, Financial Times, TechCrunch and LiveSide.net

Tweets: @skype, @skype, @official_sea16, @green_footballs, @matthewkeyslive, @tomwarren, @matthewkeyslive, @tomwarren and @jbrodkin

@skype:

You may have noticed our social media properties were targeted today. No user info was compromised. We're sorry for the inconvenience.

More: RT

Greg Bensinger / Digits:

Amazon starts charging sales tax in Indiana, Nevada, and Tennessee — New Year Rings in Sales Tax for Amazon Shoppers in Three States — Attention Amazon.com shoppers in Indiana, Nevada and Tennessee: Starting Wednesday, you'll have to pay sales tax on your purchases.

More: The Verge, WTVC-TV, Tennessean.com, bizjournals, WBIR-TV, WebProNews and Examiner

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

AOL Sells Winamp And Shoutcast Music Services To Online Radio Aggregator Radionomy — Some more detail on the fate of Winamp and Shoutcast, the legacy digital music services that owner AOL (which also owns TechCrunch) originally planned to shut down but then halted pending a sale.

More: BetaNews, The Next Web, TechSpot, Techie News, Gigaom and gHacks Technology News

Robert Scoble / Google+:

Google Glass won't succeed as a consumer product in 2014 due to high expectations, cost, more — Scoble says Google Glass is doomed — First, I love headlines that stretch the truth a bit. No one outside of Google got their Glass before March of last year.

More: Forbes, AndroidHeadlines.com, BGR and Business Insider. Tweets: @gautamghosh

Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:

The Best iOS And Android Apps Of 2013 — Congratulations, Planet Earth! We made it another 365 days without crashing into the sun. Go team! — It's the end of the year, and that means three things: booze, ridiculous sunglasses with numbers on them, and lists. Lots and lots of lists.

More: TIME, Co.Design, PC Magazine, The Next Web, Cult of Mac and Gotta Be Mobile

Joep Janssen / Distimo:

Christmas spike: iOS Downloads and Revenue grew by more than 50% — Next to kisses under the mistletoe and turkeys for dinner, a new Christmas tradition has emerged over the last couple of years: a global spike in download and revenue figures in the app stores.

More: The Next Web, iPhone in Canada Blog and MacRumors

Gary Ng / iPhone in Canada Blog:

Google to Discontinue Sharing App Bump and Flock on Jan. 31, 2014 — Back in September Google acquired popular sharing tool Bump, with reports the former paid at least $30 million to acquire the company. At the time, Bump said their app along with their photo sharing application Flock would continue to operate “for now”.

More: Bump Blog, TIME, AppleInsider, The Next Web, The Verge, Gotta Be Mobile, Gigaom, 9to5Google, PC Magazine, VentureBreak, MobileSyrup.com, Android Beat, TechCrunch and App Advice. Thanks:@gary_ng

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 pass 10% market share, Windows XP falls below 30% (Updated) — With the release of Windows 8.1 to the world in October, Microsoft ended 2013 with two full months of availability for its latest operating system version. While Windows 8.1 is certainly growing quickly …

More: BetaNews

Philippa Warr / Wired.co.uk:

GOG's managing director: ‘Gamer resistance to DRM is stronger than ever’ — Digital games distribution site GOG (Good Old Games) has spent the last five years offering classic videogame titles DRM-free to its customers. Earlier in 2013 the site launched an indie publishing …

More: Blue's News

Jonathan Krim / Wall Street Journal:

WSJD launches, announcing signature tech conference held Oct. 27-29 in Laguna Beach, CA — Introducing WSJD — Welcome to WSJD, The Wall Street Journal's new home for technology news, analysis, commentary, daily buzz and consumer-product reviews. — This new section is the latest example …

More: Poynter and Creative Capital. Tweets: @wsjd, @dannysullivan, @spencerante, @baekdal, @joannastern, @nateog and @allthingsd. See also Mediagazer

Walt Mossberg / @waltmossberg:

Re/fresh, Re/think, Re/imagine...Re/code. Our new site is up. Full launch is midnight ET Jan. 2. http://recode.net/...

More: Re/code, Silicon Valley Watcher, Pursuitist, Gigaom, Deadline.com and Mashable

Tweets: @hunterwalk, @karaswisher, @kenli729, @hunterwalk, @recode, @rafat, @karaswisher and @panzer

AllThingsD:

Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher reflect on AllThingsD, tease new company launching January 2

More: TechSpot. Tweets: @ryan, @johnpaczkowski, @allthingsd, @karaswisher, @kabster728, @waltmossberg, @jeffjohnroberts, @engadget, @delrey and @caseynewton. Thanks:@chirag_mehta

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