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January 6, 2014, 3:40 PM

Top News

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Pebble Reveals The Pebble Steel For $249 Shipping Jan. 28; App Store Coming Soon — Smartwatch pioneer Pebble is introducing something everyone has been waiting for at CES this year: new hardware. But the hardware isn't so new that it throws the baby out with the bath water …

Tim Stevens / CNET:

Pebble Steel declassified: Raising the smartwatch design bar without breaking the mold

More: MacRumors. Thanks:@tim_stevens

Bruce Schneier / Wired:

The Internet of Things Is Wildly Insecure — And Often Unpatchable — We're at a crisis point now with regard to the security of embedded systems, where computing is embedded into the hardware itself — as with the Internet of Things. These embedded computers are riddled with vulnerabilities, and there's no good way to patch them.

Tweets: @kashhill

Evelyn M. Rusli / Wall Street Journal:

How Mark Zuckerberg turned around Facebook by prioritizing mobile ad revenues — Profitable Learning Curve for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg — In Taking Facebook Public, Reshaping It Around Mobile Phones, Chief Gained Focus on Bottom Line … MENLO PARK, Calif.— Mark Zuckerberg needed help.

More: NEWS.com.au, Internet2Go, Business Insider, Quartz, AllFacebook and Valleywag

Tweets: @fmanjoo, @bryfitz, @evelynrusli, @alex, @scottthurm, @rickbrookswsj and @tomgara

Eric Limer / Gizmodo:

Asus ZenFones: An Android Army with Intel Inside — After years of bringing you the horror/glory that is the PadFone and FonePad, Asus is branching out on its fone offerings and introducing not one, not two, but three flavors of “ZenFone,” Android handsets with ultrabook lineage.

More: LAPTOP Magazine, The Verge, Engadget and AnandTech. Tweets: @tomwarren

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

Asus' transforming PadFone X is coming to the US on AT&T

More: Engadget, LAPTOP Magazine, GeekWire, TechHive, 9to5Google, Gigaom, BGR, Gizmodo, Engadget, Softpedia News, PhoneArena, AndroidGuys, IntoMobile, Droid Life and Android Central

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Rebooting webOS: how LG rethought the smart TV — Four years after it was first introduced, webOS comes back to CES in a radically different form — Things never went very well for webOS. Between its blockbuster launch at CES in 2009 and its relaunch on LG's smart TVs today lies a history …

More: Engadget, The Verge, VentureBeat, BBC, The Verge, Gizmodo, It's a Gadget, NDTV Gadgets and BGR

Tweets: @fmanjoo and @llsethj

Richard Lawler / Engadget:

Netflix confirms it will stream House of Cards in 4K this year, posts full season two trailer

More: TechCrunch, The Next Web and Gizmodo

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

Sponsored Data: AT&T will now let companies buy out your data charges for specific videos and apps — Today at CES, AT&T announced a new service called Sponsored Data, offering a way for companies to pick up the tab for 4G data usage whenever particular products or services are being used.

More: BGR, The Switch, Gigaom, Examiner, iMore, VentureBeat, PR Newswire, GeekWire, LAPTOP Magazine, MacRumors, Gizmodo, NYT Bits, Re/code, WebProNews, TechnoBuffalo, Engadget, Gotta Be Mobile and Reuters

Tweets: @joshuatopolsky, @russellbrandom, @dannysullivan and @reckless

Ashlee Vance / Businessweek:

Google Teams With GM, Honda, and Audi to Bring Android to Cars — That kid—the one in the back of the SUV with the iPad—is the automotive industry's worst enemy. He's also the reason some of the world's biggest automakers are working with Google to bring its Android software into vehicle infotainment systems.

J.J. Colao / Forbes:

The Inside Story Of Snapchat: The World's Hottest App Or A $3 Billion Disappearing Act? — THIRTEEN MONTHS AGO Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, the richest twentysomething in history, reached out to Snapchat's Evan Spiegel, who oversees a revenue-less app that makes photos disappear, with an invitation …

More: Business Insider, Betabeat, Business Insider and Mashable

Tweets: @kate_pierce and @evanspiegel

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney.com:

Mashable raises $13 million to launch expansion effort — Nearly a decade into its existence, the news Web site Mashable is taking on outside investors for the first time. — The site plans to announce on Monday that it has raised $13.3 million in an equity investment round led by Updata Partners.

More: Mashable and TechCrunch. Tweets: @benpopper, @lazerow, @buzzfeedben, @pkafka, @blam, @pkafka, @taylorlorenz, @stacymartinet, @adamostrow and @brianstelter. See also Mediagazer

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Pinterest Acquires Image Recognition And Visual Search Startup VisualGraph — Pinterest has just acquired two-man startup VisualGraph, which creates machine vision, image recognition, and visual search technologies. The company's founder Kevin Jing and his partner David Liu are joining the Pinterest engineering team today.

More: PC World, Gigaom, VentureBeat, ZDNet, The Next Web, CNET, Re/code and Mashable. Tweets: @joshconstine

Rich McCormick / The Verge:

T-Mobile to buy unused Verizon spectrum in deal worth over $3 billion — T-Mobile has agreed to buy 700 MHz A-block spectrum from Verizon Wireless for $2.365 billion. The sale will also see T-Mobile transfer certain AWS and PCS spectrum licenses with a value of around $950 million to Verizon …

More: Business Wire, Ars Technica, The Switch, TechHive, Fortune, GeekWire, iMore, AndroidHeadlines.com, PhoneNews.com, DSLreports, IntoMobile, Gotta Be Mobile, Wall Street Journal, Engadget and Re/code. Tweets: @johnlegere

Richard Lai / Engadget:

Huawei's big Ascend Mate 2 4G can charge up your iPhone, coming to the US — Given the recent leak, Huawei's announcement of the Ascend Mate 2 4G should be no surprise to anyone. The device is essentially an LTE Cat 4 (read: 150Mbps!) refresh of its predecessor, packing a similar 6.1-inch 720p IPS panel …

More: LAPTOP Magazine, TechCrunch, BGR, Inquirer, CNET, The Verge, Gizmodo and AnandTech. Tweets: @benbajarin

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

The Pirate Bay plans own P2P network accessed via browser-like client to circumvent censorship — How The Pirate Bay Plans to Beat Censorship For Good — Over the past few years The Pirate Bay has had to deal with its fair share of censorship, mostly through court-ordered blockades.

More: Inquirer, The Verge, Guardian and Geek.com

Bloomberg:

Apple promises to diversify its board after shareholder pressure — Apple Facing Criticism About Diversity Changes Bylaws — Apple Inc., facing behind-the-scenes pressure from some shareholders to add more female directors and executives, has taken a step to address the criticism and diversify its board.

More: MacRumors, iDownloadBlog.com, MacNN, AppleInsider and iPhone in Canada Blog

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft reportedly considers letting consumers pick a device and then its OS: Windows Phone or Android — We've already heard rumors that Microsoft has courted smartphone OEMs to offer dual-boot options for Windows Phone and Android, as well as looked at cutting the licensing fees that it normally charges device makers.

More: The Information, BGR, CNET, GeekWire, WinBeta and WMPoweruser. Tweets: @benedictevans

Kate Tummarello / TheHill:

Snapchat hires lobbyists for the first time — The social network Snapchat has hired lobbyists in Washington for the first time. — Snapchat — which allows users to send photos and videos that disappear after a certain amount of time — has hired the powerhouse K Street firm Heather Podesta + Partners …

More: Re/code and bizjournals. Tweets: @nicoleperlroth and @jwherrman. Thanks:@lutherlowe

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

inMarket Rolls Out iBeacons To 200 Safeway, Giant Eagle Grocery Stores To Reach Shoppers When It Matters — Today inMarket is beginning a huge rollout of iBeacons to grocery stores including Safeway and Giant Eagle locations in Seattle, San Francisco and Cleveland.

More: ZDNet, 9to5Mac, VentureBeat, Engadget, TUAW and The Mac Observer

Mariella Moon / Engadget:

LG Lifeband touch and Heart Rate Monitor earphones aim to help you keep fit — Televisions aren't the only thing LG brought to CES this year — it's lugged along a couple of wearable fitness devices, too. In fact, we've already seen one of them. The company's FuelBand competitor showcased …

More: Social LG, The Verge, TechHive, CNET, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, The Next Web, VentureBeat, BGR, IntoMobile, Android Beat and AndroidGuys. Tweets: @tim

Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:

The Asus Transformer Book Duet hybrid can instantly switch between Windows and Android — Back at Computex in June, Asus introduced its Transformer Book Trio — a computer that could function as both a laptop and tablet and dual-booted between Windows 8 and Android.

More: Engadget, CNET, Gizmodo and LAPTOP Magazine

Kwame Opam / The Verge:

Nvidia debuts 192-core Tegra K1 processor — Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, after nearly a year of promising outsized computing power for so-called future “superphones,” took the stage at CES today to unveil the company's latest mobile processor for Android. The 192 CUDA-core Tegra K1 …

Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:

Vizio updates its Thin + Light laptop and all-in-one with Haswell processors, Iris Pro graphics — It's now been exactly two years since Vizio announced it was making the bold move of entering the PC marketplace with its Thin + Light laptops and all-in-one desktop computers.

More: LAPTOP Magazine and Engadget

Kevin Fitchard / Gigaom:

Asus rides the 2nd Wave of 802.11ac atop its new Wi-Fi router — Asus unveiled a new 802.11ac router at CES in Las Vegas on Sunday. I know, big whoop right? The newest and fastest Wi-Fi technology has been on the market for over a year — 802.11ac has already taken off in the enterprise …

More: ZDNet, CNET, PC World, dailywireless.org and PC World

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