Techmeme: EBay dismisses Icahn proposal to spin off Paypal (Reuters)

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January 23, 2014, 1:30 AM

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Adario Strange / Mashable:

Apple Promises to Fix iOS 7 ‘White Screen of Death’ — Since Apple released iOS 7, its completely revamped operating system for the iPhone, reviews have been mixed but mostly positive. However, a glitch that has quietly plagued iPhone users — the “white/black screen of death,” …

More: 9to5Mac, Ars Technica, AppleInsider, TUAW, iPhone in Canada Blog, MobileSyrup.com, MacNN, PC World, Business Insider, BGR, Gotta Be Mobile, The Verge, TechnoBuffalo, iMore, PhoneArena, iPhone Hacks, Cult of Mac, SlashGear, MacRumors, Gigaom, iClarified, CNET, App Advice, Re/code and Macworld. Tweets: @chartier. Thanks:@film_girl

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:

Independent review board says NSA phone data program is illegal and should end — An independent executive branch board has concluded that the National Security Agency's long-running program to collect billions of Americans' phone records is illegal and should end.

Tweets: @jasonleopold, @astepanovich and @trevortimm

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End — WASHINGTON — An independent federal privacy watchdog has concluded that the National Security Agency's program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down.

Tweets: @ncardozo

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Netflix wants to introduce three pricing tiers for new members — Netflix is getting ready for a new pricing structure, according to the company's Q4 letter to shareholders (PDF) released Wednesday. In it, CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells write:

More: TechnoBuffalo. Tweets: @chartier

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Netflix's momentum continues with 2.33 million new US customers in Q4

More: The Next Web, ZDNet, TechCrunch, GeekWire, internetretailer.com, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, VatorNews, Tech Trader Daily and WebProNews. See also Mediagazer

Joan E. Solsman / CNET:

Netflix posts Q4 profit of $48.4M, with 44M subscribers

More: Forbes and WebProNews

Steve Kovach / Business Insider:

Netflix Issues Warning On The Dangers Of Ending Net Neutrality

More: Re/code, ReadWrite, TechCrunch, TechHive, The Verge and The Switch. See also Mediagazer

Reuters:

EBay dismisses Icahn proposal to spin off Paypal — (Reuters) - Carl Icahn has taken a stake in eBay Inc and is proposing a spin-off of the its fast-growing PayPal division, but the e-commerce giant rebuffed the overture, setting the stage for a potential battle with the activist investor.

Tweets: @pierre

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

eBay CEO Donahoe gives Icahn e-commerce tutorial over PayPal plan

More: CNET. See also Mediagazer

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:

eBay Inc reveals activist investor Carl Icahn submitted proposal to spinoff PayPal from company

More: eBay Inc., The Official PayPal, InvestorPlace, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Tech Trader Daily, Gigaom, internetretailer.com and CNBC. Tweets: @pkafka

Roberto Baldwin / Wired:

Tivo Lays Off Most of Its Design Team as It Transitions to the Cloud — Update: Tivo says it will continue to use third-party designers for hardware going forward. The article has been updated to reflect this fact. — Tivo has been bullish lately about releasing new software products beyond its core DVR boxes.

More: Ars Technica, The Verge, TIME, ParisLemon, Business Insider, Gigaom, Engadget, Pocket-lint and SlashGear. Thanks:@strngwys. See also Mediagazer

Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:

Protesters show up at the doorstep of Google self-driving car engineer — Protests against tech giants and their impact on the San Francisco Bay Area economy just got personal. — According to an anonymous submission on local news site Indybay, an unknown group of protesters targeted …

More: Business Insider, Indybay newswire, SFist, Examiner, Veronica Belmont, Salon, Los Angeles Times and PandoDaily

Tweets: @blakehounshell, @jowens510, @dangillmor, @ryan and @paulcarr

Steven Hickson / Steves Computer Vision Blog:

Hacking Snapchat's people verification in less than 100 lines — I woke up this morning and saw this article detailing Snapchat's new people verification system. You may have seen it but if not I will summarize it for you. They basically have you choose each image with the Snapchat ghost to prove you are a person.

More: Engadget, CNET, TechCrunch, Digital Trends, Hack a Day, Daily Dot and Business Insider

Tweets: @lukew, @film_girl, @carnage4life, @chriseng, @privacychoice and @bobpoekert

Marco Arment / Marco.org:

Apparently It's OK For iOS Apps To Ask For Your Apple ID And Password — Apple's currently featuring the Sunrise app in the App Store. — Upon first launch, Sunrise invites you to create an account, then asks you to add a calendar. The first option, “iCloud Calendar” …

More: Neven Mrgan, AppleInsider, iPhone Hacks, Sunrise, Cult of Mac and Michael Tsai

Marco Arment / Marco.org:

Sunrise on why they ask for your Apple ID and password

Tweets: @monkbent

David de Jong / Bloomberg:

Sheryl Sandberg Becomes One of Youngest U.S. Billionaires — Sheryl Sandberg's fortune surpassed $1 billion today after Facebook Inc. (FB) closed at a record high. — The chief operating officer of the world's most popular social-networking service owns about 12.3 million shares of the Menlo Park …

More: Daring Fireball, WebProNews, Business Insider, Mashable, Valleywag, SiliconBeat and AllFacebook. Tweets: @daringfireball. Thanks:@sarahfrier

Reuters:

Massive Internet mishap sparks Great Firewall scrutiny in China — (Reuters) - Human error likely caused a glitch in China's Great Firewall that saw millions of Internet users ironically rerouted to the homepage of a U.S.-based company which helps people evade Beijing's web censorship, sources told Reuters.

More: Xinhua News Agency, NBCNews, Nextgov and CNET

Tweets: @jonrussell and @adampasick

See also Mediagazer

Megan Garber / The Atlantic Online:

This Little House in Wyoming Didn't Just Get Flooded With Web Traffic From China

More: China Real Time Report, The Switch, NYT Bits, Mashable, Sinosphere, cso.com.au, Adam Steinbaugh's, TechPresident, Ars Technica, Business Insider, Gigaom, Gizmodo, The Verge, BBC, The Next Web, DSLreports, Xconomy, Daily Dot and The Technology Chronicles

Shira Ovide / Digits:

The Holes in Microsoft's Data Protection Pledge — Microsoft says it can keep its customers' data from the prying eyes of U.S. spies and cops. But the company may not be able to honor its pledge. — Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said the company would allow its foreign customers …

More: Financial Times, ReadWrite and Engadget

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

Microsoft offers overseas data storage in response to NSA concerns

More: Financial Times

Sriram Krishnan / Facebook Developers:

Facebook announces it's testing its own ad network for third-party mobile apps — Testing a new way for developers to monetize mobile apps — Monetization is a difficult problem for mobile app developers, particularly as people move toward downloading more free apps and advertising dollars lag behind time spent on mobile.

More: Facebook for Business, The Next Web, Wired, Engadget, TechCrunch, PhoneArena, App Advice, Android Central, Betabeat, Re/code, Forbes, VatorNews, AppleInsider, ReadWrite, Marketing Land and WebProNews

Tweets: @mikeisaac, @bbalfour, @niallharbison and @mikeisaac

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Stripe raises $80 million from Khosla, Sequoia and Founders Fund, now valued at $1.75 billion — Payments Startup Stripe Joins the Billion Dollar Club — New $80 Million Funding Round Will Help Company Battle PayPal — In the crowded field of online payments, venture capitalists …

More: TechCrunch and Y Combinator Posthaven. Tweets: @sacca, @erickschonfeld, @cdixon, @vijayshekhar, @sarahfrier, @patrickc, @rabois, @bryfitz and @jess

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Beats Music responds to launch issues, says free trial length to be doubled — Since Beats launched its Beats Music streaming music service earlier this week, the launch has been plagued by reliability issues and new customers not being able to sign up. — Responding to these complaints …

More: Beats Music, ReadWrite, CNET, BetaNews, The Verge, Android Central, iDownloadBlog.com and App Advice

Caitlin Dewey / Washington Post:

Guccifer, the hacker who leaked George W. Bush paintings, reportedly arrested in Romania — The infamous hacker Guccifer has reportedly been arrested in Romania, a bit of early-morning gossip that startled fans of George W. Bush's pet portraits and left everyone else wondering who, exactly, this Guccifer guy is.

More: Gawker, Romania-Insider.com, The Smoking Gun, Softpedia News, Slate, Cryptome, International Business Times, Reuters, RT, eSecurityPlanet, The Register, NBCNews, New York Magazine and Salon

Tal Ater:

Chrome Bugs Allow Sites to Listen to Your Private Conversations — By exploiting bugs in Google Chrome, malicious sites can activate your microphone, and listen in on anything said around your computer, even after you've left those sites. Even while not using your computer - conversations …

More: Ars Technica, Ubergizmo, Gizmodo, Examiner, Android Central, Computerworld, SlashGear, NYT Bits, Engadget, Gotta Be Mobile, BGR India, CITEworld, TechSpot, The Verge, Android Beat, gHacks Technology News and Business Insider. Tweets: @simonstl

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Huawei settles with Rockstar Consortium, will pay for Android's infringement of ex-Nortel patents — The Google-led group of Android device makers sued on Halloween 2013 over former Nortel patents fails to present a united front to the Rockstar Consortium, a patent holding firm jointly owned by Apple …

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Judge: IP-Address Does Not Prove Copyright Infringement — Mass-BitTorrent lawsuits have been dragging on for years in the US, involving hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders. — The copyright holders who start these cases generally provide nothing more than an IP address as evidence.

More: Business Insider, Techdirt, Motherboard, Softpedia News and Boing Boing

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