Techmeme: Motorola Assist now lets you receive and reply to text messages completely hands-free with your voice (Emil Protalinski/The Next Web)

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January 14, 2014, 9:50 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 …

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Tweets: @nest, @benedictevans, @mikeisaac, @levie, @cdixon, @danprimack, @danprimack, @cdixon, @naveen, @nickbilton, @samir, @levynews, @ryan, @getwired, @jwherrman, @fmanjoo, @dcurtis, @pkafka, @fromedome, @hunterwalk, @panzer, @markgurman, @jgilliam, @mattbuchanan, @pmarca, @piercedavid, @pakman, @rabois, @zpower, @peterrojas, @ryanlawler, @om, @samfbiddle, @markmilian and @jank0

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.

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 …

More: StrictlyVC, bizjournals and Business Insider. Tweets: @etamba

Tony Fadell / Nest:

Nest CEO: Nest will retain its own distinct brand identity, Google is a rocket ship for growth — Welcome home. — This is a momentous day for me, for Matt and for all of the Nest family. This afternoon, we announced that we will be acquired by Google.

More: Re/code, USA Today, Gigaom, Inquirer, Lastest ITProPortal news, Forbes, The Information, Mashable and Droid Life. Tweets: @sfly

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

Google's Nest acquisition is about having the ability to do consumer hardware right — On Google's Acquisition of Nest — Tony Fadell, in an interview today with Om Malik, on why Nest sold to Google: … Consider Fadell's record with the iPod at Apple.

More: PandoDaily

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Nest Says Customer Data From Devices Will Only Be Used For Nest Products And Services

More: Nest, The Verge, BGR and Wired

Tweets: @mattrosoff, @reckless, @fmanjoo and @dannysullivan

Thanks:@mjburnsy

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

When Google closes the Nest deal, privacy issues for the internet of things will hit the big time

More: SiliconANGLE, Network World, Gigaom Research, TIME and Forbes

Horace Dediu / asymco.com:

In 2013 the number of Windows PCs sold was only 1.18 times the number of Apple devices sold — When Apple reached parity with Windows — In 2013 there were 18.8 times more Windows PCs sold than Macs. This is a reduction in the Windows advantage from about 19.8x in 2012.

More: 9to5Mac, TUAW, Electronista, Daring Fireball, Fortune and MacDailyNews. Tweets: @alex

@twitter:

We're now rolling out a refreshed http://twitter.com reflecting the look & feel of our iOS & Android apps. pic.twitter.com/Mb6qjjP8Dm

More: VatorNews, The Next Web, iPhone, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, memeburn, Softpedia News, BetaNews, iPhone Hacks, Android Beat, SlashGear, GSMArena Blog, The Verge and Engadget

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Motorola Assist now lets you receive and reply to text messages completely hands-free with your voice — Motorola today updated its Motorola Assistant app with new hands-free texting features. You can download the new version now directly from Google Play. — The full changelog is as follows:

More: Softpedia News, TechnoBuffalo and Android Central

Diane Bartz / Reuters:

U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear shopping cart case between Newegg and patent troll Soverain — U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Internet shopping patent case — (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it would not take on an Internet technology patent case that pitted …

More: Inc.com, Bloomberg, TechEye, SlashGear and IPWatchdog.com

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 …

More: Gigaom, Inquirer, The Register, Bloomberg, bizjournals, Cult of Mac, ZDNet, The Mac Observer, GeekWire, Electronista, AppleInsider, MacRumors, BGR, The Verge, iPhone Hacks, iPhone in Canada Blog and 9to5Mac

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Yandex Adds Facebook Posts And Big Data To Its Search Results In Russia, Other Home Markets — Yandex and Facebook had a notable run-in last year when a team of developers from the Russian search giant created a social search app called Wonder, which Facebook promptly blocked, leading to it shutting down.

More: Yandex.Company, Search Engine Land, The Next Web, Quartz, Yandex.Company, ITAR-TASS, VentureBeat, Reuters, SlashGear, Softpedia News and Gigaom

Marcus Adolfsson / CrackBerry.com:

BlackBerry CEO John Chen: You can be an iPhone or Android customer, and also a BlackBerry customer — CrackBerry's exclusive CES 2014 interview with BlackBerry CEO, John Chen

More: WMPoweruser, ZDNet, Windows Phone Central, My Nokia Blog, iMore, Ubergizmo, BetaNews, PhoneArena, BGR and GSMArena Blog

Nick Hide / CNET:

Moto X hits UK and Europe in February for £380, 429 euros — Motorola is bringing its flagship Android phone to Britain, France and Germany next month. — LONDON — Motorola is bringing its flagship Android phone to Europe. The Moto X will go on sale in the UK …

Devon Maloney / Wired:

The Hacker Who Cracked the Code in Iron Man and The Social Network — British programmer John Graham-Cumming recently noticed something unusual as he watched the movie Elysium: a piece of code that he recognized, flashing across the monitors as the film's characters interacted with a futuristic computer.

More: Co.Labs

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

AOL Sells Winamp And Shoutcast For $5-10M To Radionomy, Takes 12% Stake In Belgian Digital Audio Company — Returning from the brink of death, music services Winamp and Shoutcast are now officially with a new owner: Digital audio business Radionomy has acquired the both media player and radio platform from AOL.

More: The Verge, Tech.eu, The Next Web and Softpedia News. See also Mediagazer

Kyle VanHemert / Wired:

Why Her Will Dominate UI Design Even More Than Minority Report — A few weeks into the making of Her, Spike Jonze's new flick about romance in the age of artificial intelligence, the director had something of a breakthrough. After poring over the work of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists trying …

Steven Levy / Wired:

I Spent Two Hours Talking With the NSA's Bigwigs. Here's What Has Them Mad — My expectations were low when I asked the National Security Agency to cooperate with my story on the impact of Edward Snowden's leaks on the tech industry. During the 1990s, I had been working on a book, Crypto …

Tweets: @liberationtech, @samoltman, @dannyyadron, @jwherrman and @abrams

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Startup Institute Comes To London & Berlin — Pay To Learn How To Become Startup Employee Material — Ok, this is a new concept to me. Already running in Boston, New York and Chicago, Startup Institute — which calls itself a “career accelerator” — is expanding to London and Berlin …

More: The Next Web, Guardian and Tech.eu. Tweets: @ktrae

Toby Wolpe / ZDNet:

Datacenter startup Nutanix raises $101m with eye on IPO — Summary: New round of investment will help finance commercial expansion and boost analytics development at converged infrastructure specialist Nutanix. — Toby Wolpe — Nutanix says the $101m funding anounced this week will enable …

More: VentureBeat, Venture Capital Dispatch, The Register, Gigaom, PE Hub Blog and Contra Costa Times

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