Techmeme: Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates (Ron Amadeo/Ars Technica)

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January 18, 2014, 8:50 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple continues hiring raid on medical sensor field as it develops eye scanning technology — Apple is moving to expand its personnel working on wearable computers and medical-sensor-laden devices by hiring more scientists and specialists in the medical sensor field.

More: iPhone in Canada Blog, iClarified, PhoneArena, SlashGear, iMore, MacRumors, iPhone Hacks and iDownloadBlog.com

Tweets: @jyarow and @markgurman

Thanks:@mikebeas

Vindu Goel / NYT Bits:

Former Yahoo COO De Castro was paid more than CEO, made at least $88M for 15 months of work — Yahoo's No. 2 Executive Made More Than His Boss (and Virtually Everyone Else) — It's hard to shed too many tears for Henrique de Castro, who was fired this week as Yahoo's No. 2 executive.

More: CNET, Forbes and New York Times

Tweets: @karaswisher, @pmarca, @pmarca, @pmarca and @qhardy

Wall Street Journal:

Stores Confront New World of Reduced Shopper Traffic — E-Commerce Not Only Siphons Off Sales, but Changes Shopping Habits — Best Buy Co. on Thursday became the latest retailer to chime in with weak holiday results. Like other chains, the electronics retailer blamed the race to offer …

More: Jeff Jordan and Gawker. Tweets: @netbanker, @timjhanrahan and @jeff_jordan

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates — One of the coolest things about Chrome is the silent, automatic updates that always ensure that users are always running the latest version. While Chrome itself is updated automatically by Google …

More: Digital Inspiration …. Tweets: @andreasbovens, @jamiew and @asadotzler

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

Security firm IntelCrawler says it has identified Target malware author — Security firm IntelCrawler said Friday that it has identified a Russian teenager as the author of the malware probably used in the cyberattacks against Target and Neiman Marcus, and that it expects more retailers to acknowledge that their systems were breached.

More: IntelCrawler, The Verge, Forbes, Gothamist, Gawker, Newsy, SC Magazine, Security Affairs, The Hacker News, ZDNet and Business Insider. Tweets: @pmarca

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft re-releases latest Surface Pro 2 update following initial issues — Microsoft is re-releasing its latest Surface Pro 2 firmware update today. Following issues with the update last month, the software maker pulled it to investigate and correct the problems.

More: ZDNet, Digital Trends, Gotta Be Mobile, Pureinfotech Newsletter and WinBeta

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Lightroom for iPad briefly appears on Adobe's website, coming soon with $99/year cloud subscription — Adobe will soon make the iPad an even more viable solution for mobile content creation: the company will soon unleash a version of its popular Lightroom photo editing suite that is optimized for tablets.

More: MacRumors, CNET, TUAW, Photography Bay, The Verge, Computerworld, iClarified, Softpedia News, Canon Rumors, PadGadget, iPhone Hacks, MacNN and App Advice

Matt Mullenweg:

43% of websites on Techmeme's leaderboard are powered by WordPress, 42% use a custom CMS — WordPress & Techmeme 100 — Whenever I visit a site I can usually tell whether it's WordPress or not within an instant — there's just something about a WordPress site that is distinctive.

Tweets: @pmaiorana, @splatf, @mathewi and @karaswisher. Thanks:@photomatt

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Dropbox Fundraising Could Actually Be as Much as $400 Million — Dropbox's latest funding round values the company at $10 billion, with private equity giant BlackRock leading the deal with participation with existing investors. — But while the round is currently worth $250 million …

More: VentureBeat, Softpedia News, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, Business Insider, Gigaom and CNET. Tweets: @bgarlinghouse

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Dropbox Raises About $250 Million at $10 Billion Valuation

More: TechCrunch, Mashable, Gigaom Research, ZDNet, TechCrunch, VentureBeat and Business Insider

Tweets: @bryce, @sacca, @chris_ciaccia, @gregbensinger and @joshconstine

Sean Michael Kerner / eWeek:

Cisco's Security Report finds that 91% of attacks in 2013 were Java exploits — Java Primary Cause of 91 Percent of Attacks: Cisco — There are many different risks and attacks that IT professionals had to deal with in 2013, but no one technology was more abused or more culpable that Java …

More: Network World, Out-Law News and The Register. Thanks:@techjournalist

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Storehouse, an iPad app by a former Apple designer, lets users create stories from media — Storehouse: An Apple Vet Tries To Move The Needle On Long-Form Visual Communication — The way we communicate is increasingly visual. The devices that we carry with us are uniquely suited …

More: iPhone in Canada Blog, San Francisco Chronicle, Co.Design, iMore and The Next Web

Brooke Crothers / CNET:

Intel's 64-bit Bay Trail chip arriving on Android tablets in Q2 — Intel's Bay Trail chip arriving on Android tablets in Q2 — Intel's quad-core Atom processor will come to Android tablets in the second quarter, CEO Brian Krzanich said Thursday during a quarterly earnings conference call with analysts.

More: Ars Technica, Engadget, T3 News and AndroidGuys

Joseph Czikk / BetaKit:

Hopper, the Startup That's Been in Stealth for Six Years Finally Launched This Week — It's been six years since a bunch of ex-Expedia and TripAdvisor engineers started working on Hopper, a Montreal and Boston-based startup that has raised $22 million in funding.

More: Tnooz. Thanks:@inkblotca

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