Techmeme
January 14, 2014, 12:40 AM

Top News

Google:
Google to acquire Tony Fadell's smart home startup Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in cash  —  Google to Acquire Nest  —  Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has entered into an agreement to buy Nest Labs, Inc. for $3.2 billion in cash.  —  Nest's mission is to reinvent unloved …
Liz Gannes / Re/code:
Google was the only serious bidder for Nest, Apple not in the mix  —  Google Acquires Smart-Home Device Maker Nest for $3.2 Billion  —  Google has acquired Nest Labs, the company founded by Apple iPod creator Tony Fadell, for $3.2 billion.  The smart-home startup makes an innovative digital thermostat, as well as a smoke detector.
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Nest Says Customer Data From Devices Will Only Be Used For Nest Products And Services  —  Nest says that it's not going to just hand over its customer data to Google willy-nilly post-acquisition - in a blog post sent to TechCrunch penned by Nest founder Tony Fadell, a question and answer section at the end contains the following:
Katie Fehrenbacher / Gigaom:
The winners and losers in Google's acquisition of Nest  —  The designer who helped create the iPhone at Apple is now officially going to be part of Apple's arch rival: Google.  That's right, on Monday afternoon Google and Nest announced that the search engine giant plans to spend $3.2 billion acquiring …
Nate Raymond / Reuters:
Apple loses bid to block antitrust monitorship  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc lost a bid on Monday to block an antitrust monitor appointed after a judge's finding that the company conspired to fix e-book prices.  —  At a hearing, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan denied Apple's request …
Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:
Facebook acquires link-sharing service Branch for around $15 million  —  Link-sharing service Branch and subsidiary Potluck have agreed to be acquired by Facebook for around $15 million, sources familiar with the deal told The Verge.  Branch CEO Josh Miller broke the news in a Facebook post this morning, but didn't disclose a price.
Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:
A first look at the Beats Music website, with plenty of leaked screenshots  —  Beats Music is scheduled to launch its subscription service by January 21, but over the weekend, I stumbled across a beta version of the website that already let me sign up and snoop around.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
App Monetization To Get Tougher Still, With Gartner Predicting 94.5% Of Downloads Will Be Free By 2017  —  The business of making money from apps is going to get tougher still, with analyst Gartner predicting that through to 2018 less than 0.01% of consumer mobile apps will be considered a financial success by their developers.
Klint Finley / Wired:
Out in the Open: An NSA-Proof Twitter, Built With Code From Bitcoin and BitTorrent  —  When mass political protests erupted throughout Brazil in June, Miguel Freitas did what countless others did: He followed the news on Twitter.  Tweets revealed information he couldn't get anywhere else, including the mainstream media.
More: Daily DotTweets: @trevortimm
David Kravets / Wired:
Supreme Court Lets Stand Ruling Bolstering Gadget Privacy at U.S. Border  —  A convicted sex offender's loss at the Supreme Court today was indirectly a boost to the privacy rights of travelers crossing the border to the United States.  —  Without issuing a ruling, the justices let stand …
Tweets: @froomkin and @astepanovich
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Eyeing An IPO, E-commerce Software Company Volusion Raises $35M To Take On Shopify  —  Volusion, a company that allows merchants to create an end to end e-commerce store online, has raised $35 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank.  This is the first outside funding for Volusion in the company's ten year history.
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft, GoDaddy partner on Office 365 plans for small businesses  —  Summary: GoDaddy will be offering its small-business customers a choice of three Mirosoft Office 365 plans, including one for $12.49 a month that includes desktop versions of Office.  —  Microsoft and GoDaddy are extending …

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