Techmeme: 4½", 5" screen iPhones expected in second half of year, smaller one further along in development, to feature metal casing, plastic casing scrapped (Wall Street Journal)

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January 23, 2014, 6:35 PM

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Microsoft:

Microsoft Reports Record Revenue of $24.52 Billion in Second Quarter — Double-digit growth in Commercial and Devices and Consumer segments drives record revenue. — REDMOND, Wash. — January 23, 2014 — Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $24.52 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2013.

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Microsoft beats earnings, ships 7.4 million Xboxes, doubles Surface revenue — Microsoft posts record revenue of $24.5B, beats earnings expectations in holiday quarter — Microsoft just announced revenue of $24.5 billion for the December quarter, up 14 percent from the same quarter a year ago …

More: VentureBeat, Computerworld and USA Today. Tweets: @codepo8

Wall Street Journal:

4½", 5" screen iPhones expected in second half of year, smaller one further along in development, to feature metal casing, plastic casing scrapped — Apple iPhones to Come Out With Bigger Screens — Facing competition from rivals offering smartphones with bigger screens …

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Sources say new Apple TV box likely coming soon, App/Game Store possible — We've learned that Apple is making progress on its development of a successor to the current Apple TV and that the device is well into testing. We are led to believe that the new device, which is said to be a set-top box rather …

More: Los Angeles Times, Digital Spy, TechCrunch, Gigaom, The Verge, TechnoBuffalo, SlashGear, iPhone Hacks, Ubergizmo and Business Insider

Phil Dzikiy / iLounge:

Apple TV may get game support with Bluetooth controllers and direct game downloads by March — Reports: Apple TV to add games in coming update — iLounge has heard from reliable industry sources that Apple TV will soon be getting proper game support in an update, likely to come in March or earlier.

More: BGR, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Touch Arcade, iDownloadBlog.com, Gotta Be Mobile, Cult of Mac, App Advice and Electronista. See also Mediagazer

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.

More: Computerworld, Ars Technica, Guardian, Ars Technica, Guardian, The Register, The Verge, The Switch and Engadget

Tweets: @amadooooo, @trevortimm, @joanneleon and @ggreenwald

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.

More: ClickZ and SlashGear. Tweets: @wearpants, @repscottperry, @dangillmor, @rsingel and @arusbridger

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

Pentagon says ‘absolutely no new orders have been placed’ for BlackBerry phones — Stock surges on news of a big win that never was — Last week, a press release from the Department of Defense announced the launch of a new mobile network within the agency that will utilize unclassified mobile devices …

More: CNNMoney.com, Washington Post, CNBC, PhoneArena and Businessweek

Tweets: @jbrodkin and @jbrodkin

Jessica Roy / TIME:

Revenge-Porn King Hunter Moore Indicted by U.S. Attorney — Moore and an alleged accomplice Charles “Gary” Evens are indicted on 15 counts, including conspiracy, seven counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information and seven counts of aggravated identity theft

More: Wired, Betabeat, The Verge, Gigaom, Ars Technica, NEWS.com.au and The Register

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

iPhone 5s Owners Gobbling “Unprecedented” Levels Of Data, Study Finds — Users of flagship smartphones such as Apple's iPhone 5s and Samsung's Galaxy S4 are continuing to suck down more data than their tablet-wielding counterparts, according to a large-scale survey of mobile data consumption …

More: 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, CNET, MacRumors, BGR, ZDNet, SammyToday, LAPTOP Magazine, SlashGear, iPhone in Canada Blog, TUAW, eWeek, MacDailyNews, iDownloadBlog.com, App Advice, Softpedia News, iPhone Hacks, iClarified and Electronista. Tweets: @pkedrosky

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

AOL Buys Personalization Startup Gravity for $90 Million in Cash — In a bid to add another publishing and advertising tool to its offerings, AOL has acquired personalization startup Gravity for about $90 million in cash. — As part of the deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter …

More: Business Wire, Re/code, Digits, New York Times, TechCrunch, TechSpot, The Next Web, Gravity, Reuters, Inc.com, Mashable, CNET, Business Insider, BGR India, Gigaom, ZDNet, Softpedia News, PE Hub Blog and WebProNews

Tweets: @bgarlinghouse, @davidhornik, @alexia, @ibarguen and @luke_beatty

See also Mediagazer

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Biz Stone's Jelly Raises Series B Led By Greylock, And Josh Elman Joins The Board — Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has raised a Series B round of investment led by Greylock Partners, with Spark Capital participating. The raise comes just under a year after it raised a Series A round from Spark …

More: Greylock VC, Jelly Blog, Re/code and bizjournals

Dune Lawrence / Businessweek:

Tor Anonymity Software vs. the National Security Agency — Last year, Edward Snowden turned over to the Guardian, a British newspaper, some 58,000 classified U.S. government documents. Just a fraction of the files have been made public, but they outline the National Security Agency's massive information-collection system.

Tweets: @youranoncentral, @nytimesbits, @sheelahk, @libertylynx and @jpaskin

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Twitter Launches Card Analytics To Let Publishers Monitor Impressions, Clicks And More — In a move that could give brands and publishers more insight into what to tweet, today Twitter is rolling out Analytics For Twitter Cards. The dashboard shows impressions, URL clicks …

More: The Official Twitter Blog, Twitter Developers, Re/code, CNET, ReadWrite, ZDNet, Marketing Land, The Next Web, SlashGear and WebProNews. Tweets: @joshconstine

Bloomberg:

Lenovo to Buy IBM Server Unit For $2.3 Billion Amid PC Slump — Lenovo Group Ltd., the world's largest maker of personal computers, will buy International Business Machines Corp.'s server business for $2.3 billion. — The deal price includes about $2 billion of cash and the rest in Lenovo stock …

More: IBM, DealBook, CNBC, The Verge, ZDNet, InfoWorld, Wall Street Journal, CNET, Reuters, Gigaom, Internet Evolution, WebProNews, GSMArena Blog, Re/code, Gigaom Research and ZDNet

Tweets: @bloombergtech, @ciscoservergeek, @qthrul and @edmondlococo

Jung Ha-Won / AFP:

S. Korea to spend $1.5 bn on 5G ‘movie-in-a-second’ service — Seoul — South Korea, already one of the most wired countries on earth, Wednesday announced a 1.6 trillion won ($1.5 billion) plan to roll out a next-generation 5G wireless service quick enough to download full-length films in a second.

More: Guardian, The Next Web, T3 News, Reuters, USA Today and ZDNet

Chris Kohler / Wired:

Instead of porting its games to other mobile platforms, Nintendo should run its own platform — Everything You're Thinking About Nintendo Is Totally Wrong — The entire internet has weighed in with what it believes is the answer to Nintendo's financial woes: Go mobile, immediately.

Tweets: @mattbraga and @magicody

John Biggs / TechCrunch:

Google Glass User Detained By Feds Talks About Ordeal — While some businesses are banning the high-tech wearable device Google Glass, a theatre owner in Columbus, Ohio, saw enough of a threat to call the Department of Homeland Security. The manager called in unnamed Homeland Security agents …

More: eWeek and Business Insider

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Watch Out Tumblr, Pinterest Now Supports GIFs — Earlier this week, some Pinterest users noticed that the company was experimenting with support for animated GIFs on its site - the popular, moving images that, until recently, defaulted to static photos when pinned.

More: VentureBeat, ReadWrite and ClickZ

Dennis Berman / Wall Street Journal:

Wal-Mart aims to match Amazon's service offerings in two years, continues warehouse build out — Wal-Mart Aims To Match Amazon's Service Offerings — Wal-Mart Will Continue To Build Out New Distribution Centers for Online Delivery — The head of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. 's e-commerce efforts predicted …

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Facebook releases App Insights 2.0 beta with cleaner interface, actionable data, and improved reliability — Facebook today introduced the first major update to its App Insights product, aiming to help developers better understand how users interact with their apps.

More: Facebook Developer Blog, ReadWrite, Inside Facebook and WebProNews

Wall Street Journal:

Lucrative Role as Middleman Puts Amazon in Tough Spot — While Business Is Key to Growth, Conflicts Arise Over Counterfeit, Unsafe Products — Last spring, Amazon.com Inc. moved to end its relationship with one of its biggest third-party sellers, saying that company had offered products that were illegal or otherwise prohibited.

Tweets: @wsjd, @kenbensinger, @shiraovide, @wsj, @drewdowell and @miriamgottfried

Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:

Pixelmator 3.1 brings 16-bit image support for Mac Pro, integrated photo printing and more — Pixelmator have released the latest version of their app today, version 3.1. As usual, it is available exclusively in the Mac App Store for $29.99. Codenamed Marble, this update brings several enhancements …

More: Pixelmator - Blog, Digital Trends, Macworld, AppleInsider, MacRumors, MacDailyNews, iDownloadBlog.com, iMore and MacNN

Chris Burns / SlashGear:

Qualcomm acquires 1,400 Palm, iPAQ, Bitphone patents from HP — This afternoon Qualcomm has announced that they will acquire all of HP's remaining Palm-related patents. They will also be acquiring from Hewlett-Packard a number of other patents in the mobile sector, including those under the titles' iPAQ and Bitphone.

More: Engadget, Qualcomm, The Verge, TechRadar.com, Reuters and AndroidGuys. Tweets: @lexnfx. Thanks:@t_chrisburns

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

eBay CEO Donahoe gives Icahn e-commerce tutorial over PayPal plan — Summary: eBay CEO John Donahoe: Why in an era of big data and e-commerce innovation would you separate eBay, PayPal and their network effects? — eBay CEO John Donahoe elaborated on why PayPal should remain part …

More: The Register and Softpedia News. Tweets: @pmarca and @levie

Reuters:

EBay dismisses Icahn proposal to spin off Paypal

More: Business Insider, ebay inc, eBay Inc., Wall Street Journal, The Official PayPal and ITworld.com

Tweets: @pierre and @pkafka

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