Techmeme: German Firms Seed Web Shopping in the Developing World (Anton Troianovski/Wall Street Journal)

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January 14, 2014, 6:25 AM

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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 …

More: Fortune, The Verge, ZDNet, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, Engadget, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NYT Bits, New York Times, Valleywag, Business Insider, Softpedia News, Wired.co.uk, CNET, Ubergizmo, Pocket-lint, SiliconANGLE, Gizmodo UK, John Battelle's Search Blog, The Droid Guy, Forbes, Business Insider, Android Central, Digits, Mashable, San Francisco Chronicle, Computerworld, SlashGear, eWeek, Larry Page, Mercury News, ScreenwerkScreenwerk, 9to5Google, aNewDomain, CNET, BetaNews, Martin Varsavsky, PandoDaily, iDownloadBlog.com, ReadWrite, Quartz, The Daily Beast, Daily Dot, GSMArena Blog, Apple News aus Cupertino, The Technology Chronicles, Wired, Los Angeles Times, Macgasm, Windows Phone Central, ITworld.com, pocketnow.com, CITEworld, iMore, CNNMoney.com, Mercury News, NEWS.com.au, 9to5Mac, Geek.com, bizjournals, the rajam report, Betabeat, TechSpot, Phandroid, Geek Beat Technology News, The Register, TUAW, Businessweek, Gotta Be Mobile, Guardian, Light Reading, The Switch, dailywireless.org, Venture Capital Dispatch, AppleInsider and BBC

Tweets: @nest, @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, @jank0, @zpower, @peterrojas, @ryanlawler, @om, @samfbiddle, @markmilian, @sundarpichai and @ihnatko

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.

More: Softpedia News, ZDNet, Gizmodo UK, Pocket-lint, Quartz, The Mac Observer, Gizmodo, Business Insider, Ubergizmo, Business Insider, Computerworld, Digits, MacRumors, 9to5Google, CNET, Forbes, GeekWire, SlashGear and Bijan Sabet

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, Inquirer, Gigaom, Forbes, The Information, Droid Life, Tested, Salon and Mashable

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:

More: Nest and The Verge. Tweets: @mattrosoff, @reckless, @fmanjoo, @dannysullivan, @mattrosoff and @caseyjohnston. Thanks:@mjburnsy

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

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.

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

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

More: Gigaom Research, TIME, Forbes and TechCrunch

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 …

More: Pocket-lint, BetaNews, Inquirer, Engadget, The Next Web, The Verge, Softpedia News, Electronista, SlashGear, Phones Review, Android Beat and eWeek

@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, Softpedia News, memeburn, iPhone Hacks, BetaNews, VentureBeat, Android Beat, SlashGear, TechCrunch, GSMArena Blog, Engadget, The Verge and WebProNews

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, Bloomberg, Cult of Mac, ZDNet, GeekWire, The Mac Observer, Electronista, AppleInsider, MacRumors, BGR, The Verge, iPhone Hacks, iPhone in Canada Blog and 9to5Mac

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

Simon Khalaf / Flurry:

Mobile Use Grows 115% in 2013, Propelled by Messaging Apps — In November 2013, Benedict Evans, a well-respected and widely followed analyst, shared an updated version of his famous slide deck called “Mobile is Eating the World”. This deck quickly made the rounds on social media …

More: Electronista, PadGadget, MacDailyNews, BGR, The Next Web, VentureBeat and TelecompetitorTelecompetitor

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

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

Anton Troianovski / Wall Street Journal:

German Firms Seed Web Shopping in the Developing World — LAGOS, Nigeria—The message from his boss on the phone from Germany was straightforward, recalls Hendrik Harren, a former website manager in Africa: “I want you to build the Amazon of Nigeria for me.”

Tweets: @rorywsj

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.

More: Gartner, The Register, Forbes, Tnooz and Business Insider. Tweets: @crashdev

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Google's patent rank shoots up as company stakes out wearable tech — Google received nearly 2,000 patents in 2013, which is a significant jump from previous years and reflects the company's determination, as it moves into new fields of technology, to avoid the sort of legal exposure it has faced for years in the smartphone market.

More: AppleInsider, ValueWalk, The Register and Pulse 2.0. Tweets: @scottkgraham

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.

More: ITworld.com, WMPoweruser, Businessweek and POPSUGAR

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 Dot

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