Techmeme: Jimmy Wales joins UK-based charitable MVNO The People's Operator as chairman, plans international expansion (Arik Hesseldahl/Re/code)

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January 20, 2014, 6:35 PM

Top News

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Nest CEO Tony Fadell vows to make any privacy policy changes transparent and opt-in — Following last week's Google acquisition, Nest chief executive Tony Fadell has vowed to make any alterations to its privacy policy opt-in, and to be transparent about such changes to all of its users.

More: Ars Technica, BGR, GeekWire, Valleywag, SiliconANGLE, TechnoBuffalo, 9to5Google, Gotta Be Mobile, TechCrunch, VatorNews, The Verge, Engadget, App Advice, WebProNews, Softpedia News and Electronista

Tweets: @boris and @caseynewton

Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:

Stealth marketing: Microsoft paying YouTubers for Xbox One mentions — Machinima campaign offered undisclosed money to videos promoting new console The line between traditional, paid advertising and organic editorial content on the Internet can sometimes be hazy.

More: Pastebin, iGame Responsibly, Forbes, BGR, PC World, VG247, destructoid, Kotaku, Joystiq, The Escapist, Polygon, CinemaBlend.com and WinBeta

Tom Warren / The Verge:

HP brings back Windows 7 ‘by popular demand’ — HP really wants people to buy a Windows 7 PC instead of a Windows 8 machine. The PC maker has been emailing customers over the weekend noting that “Windows 7 is back.” A new promotion, designed to entice people to select Windows 7 over Windows 8 …

More: Computerworld, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, The Mac Observer, Gizmodo, ZDNet, Softpedia News, Inquirer, SlashGear, VentureBeat, Digital Trends, GeekWire, TechnoBuffalo, BGR, Gigaom and Global Nerdy. Tweets: @mitsuhiko

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Apple insists on anti-cloning provision as part of any patent settlement with Samsung — When the CEOs of Apple and Samsung, accompanied by several in-house lawyers, meet for their (court-requested) settlement negotiations on or before February 19, there will probably be flexibility …

More: AppleInsider, PhoneArena, iPhone in Canada Blog and Electronista

Dan Levine / Reuters:

Intellectual Ventures' first ever trial is set to begin against Google's Motorola this week — Google set to face Intellectual Ventures in landmark patent trial — (Reuters) - Intellectual Ventures is set to square off this week against Google Inc's Motorola Mobility unit in the first trial …

More: Gigaom, GeekWire, SiliconBeat and Softpedia News. Tweets: @fosspatents

David Meyer / Gigaom:

Fon pulls in $14M as it partners with Qualcomm and Facebook — The crowdsourced Wi-Fi network Fon is about to find its way into a whole lot more routers, as Qualcomm and others have plowed $14 million into the Spanish company. Qualcomm in particular will bake Fon functionality into its Atheros wireless chipsets.

More: Martin Varsavsky, TechCrunch, Re/code, VentureBeat, ZDNet and dailywireless.org

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

Jimmy Wales joins UK-based charitable MVNO The People's Operator as chairman, plans international expansion — Jimmy Wales' Plan to Save The World With Mobile Phones — Jimmy Wales, the founder and public face of Wikipedia would like to give $1 billion to charity, but he doesn't have $1 billion to give.

More: CNET, VatorNews, The Next Web, Wired.co.uk, Inquirer, The Verge, Telegraph, Guardian and Gigaom

Todd Spangler / Variety:

As Netflix Rises, HBO and Showtime Subscribers Shrink as Percentage of U.S. Households — NPD finds that U.S. households subscribing to premium cable channels dropped 6 percentage points over 18-month period, while Netflix and other SVOD services grew 4 points — Is Netflix putting a dent in premium cable subscriptions?

More: Gigaom, Betabeat, Engadget, The Verge, WebProNews and Electronista

Michael Mace / Mobile Opportunity:

After Nest acquisition, Google looks more like a conglomerate than a unified product company — Google the Conglomerate: After Nest, No Industry is Safe — I've spent many hours trying to puzzle out Google's product plans. What's the logic behind Google Drive, how does Motorola fit in a software company, and on and on (link).

More: Monday Note. Tweets: @cdixon and @cdixon

Luke Edwards / Pocket-lint:

Samsung Galaxy S5 new UI leaks again looking like an attractive Google Now — Samsung's refreshed UI looks almost certain now. Yet more photos have leaked online at the same time as the Galaxy S5 rumour mill gets up to speed. — We're expecting to see the new Samsung UI unveiled …

More: Engadget, BGR, Phandroid, AndroidOS.in, Business Insider, 9to5Google, Inquirer, Android and Me, IntoMobile, The Verge, Android Beat and The Next Web. Tweets: @evleaks

Kim Zetter / Wired:

Target Got Hacked Hard in 2005. Here's Why They Let It Happen Again — A gang of shadowy hackers tears through the systems of big-box retailers, making off with millions of credit and debit card numbers in a matter of weeks and generating headlines around the country. — Target and Neiman Marcus in 2013?

Tweets: @pmarca and @pmarca

Laura He / MarketWatch:

Weibo user count declined 9% to 281M in 2013 amidst mobile messaging growth, speech crackdown — China's Twitter is bleeding users — While Facebook FB struggles with declining traffic among U.S. teens, China's most popular social-media channel — a group of Twitter-like microblog services …

More: Digital Spy, NTD TV, Sky News, Daily Dot and TheStreet.com

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