Techmeme: ISPs No Longer Have to Block The Pirate Bay, Dutch Court Rules (Ernesto/TorrentFreak)

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January 28, 2014, 1:40 PM

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Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Framing Google Glass: the headset of the future now works with prescription lenses — Just shy of a year after the Google Glass Explorer edition started arriving on early adopters' doorsteps, Google is announcing a way for people who need prescription glasses to use it.

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

Google Glass to Be Covered by Vision Care Insurer VSP — SAN FRANCISCO — Google and VSP, the nation's biggest optical health insurance provider, have struck a deal to offer subsidized frames and prescription lenses for Google Glass, the Internet-connected eyewear.

More: CNET, Examiner, ZDNet, Wall Street Journal, Laughing Squid, Forrester Research and Gizmodo

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

NFL to block mobile streaming video in Super Bowl stadium — Smartphone usage has skyrocketed at sporting events, as anyone who's attended a recent game can tell you. Look around the stands and you'll see fans checking stats, sharing pictures on social media, or just killing time between plays.

More: Business Insider, The Verge, Gotta Be Mobile, Digits and Gizmodo

Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:

Tim Cook admits iPhone 5c share lower than expected, says demand was ‘different than we thought’ — Though Apple doesn't break down sales of individual iPhone models, Chief Executive Tim Cook admitted on Monday that sales of the iPhone 5c represented a smaller mix of total handset sales than his company anticipated.

More: TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, BGR, PandoDaily, InvestorPlace, iDownloadBlog.com, Re/code, TechnoBuffalo, Digits, Webomatica, Gotta Be Mobile, Business Insider and SlashGear. Tweets: @joshconstine

Apple:

Apple Reports First Quarter Results

More: Wall Street Journal, Digits, Computerworld, VatorNews, USA Today, MacStories, Digital Trends, Wired, ZDNet, TechSpot, The Network Garden, InfoWorld, MacNN, TechCrunch, Tech in Asia, GeekWire, CNET and TechnologyTell

Tweets: @asymco, @pkafka, @tim, @benedictevans, @johnpaczkowski, @panzer, @tim, @llsethj and @tcarmody

Daisuke Wakabayashi / Digits:

Apple Had Trouble Keeping Up with Demand for iPhone 5S, CFO Says

More: BetaNews, The Verge, SiliconANGLE, TechEye and eWeek

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:

Global Smartphone Shipments Top 1 Billion For The First Time Thanks To Cheap Android Devices, Says IDC — The global smartphone market shipped one billion units in a single year for the first time, with Samsung as the leading vendor, according to a new report by research firm IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

Kim Hong-Ji / Reuters:

Samsung sets new smartphone sales record in fourth quarter, widens lead over Apple: report

More: Strategy Analytics, The Econonomic Times, CNET, TechnoBuffalo, Agence France Presse, Android Beat, CNBC, Bloomberg and Wireless Device Strategies

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

ISPs No Longer Have to Block The Pirate Bay, Dutch Court Rules — The Pirate Bay is arguably the most-censored website on the Internet, but that's no longer the case in the Netherlands. — In 2010 Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN went to court to try and force Ziggo, the Netherlands' largest ISP, to block The Pirate Bay.

More: bureau Brandeis, Techdirt, PC World, Gigaom, Engadget, Inquirer, Digital Trends, Ars Technica, ZDNet, The Verge, BetaNews, Softpedia News, The Next Web and Tweakers

Tweets: @piratenpartij and @newtonmark

Dominic Rushe / Guardian:

Indiegogo crowdfunding platform raises $40m to finance world expansion — Indiegogo, the crowdfunding platform famous for financing films, tech startups and the Jamaican bobsleigh team, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $40m in funding as it looks at global expansion.

More: NYT Bits, The Verge, BetaKit, Mashable, SiliconANGLE, Digits, Gigaom, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, GamesIndustry International and Techonomy

Brad Molen / Engadget:

Pebble Steel review: at last, a stylish smartwatch — Smartwatches are supposed to be pieces of jewelry that are just as personal as the smartphones they're attached to, yet rarely are they thought of as fashionable. We've seen a handful (or is it wristful?) that are hip, ornate and sporty …

More: Gigaom, AppleInsider, CNET, TechCrunch, The Verge, TIME, Gotta Be Mobile and Mashable

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Rovio Denies Providing Angry Birds User Data To The NSA, Points Finger At Third-Party Ad Networks — A new report originating from the ongoing Snowden document trove presents the terrifying possibility that our casual gaming habits offer government surveillance agencies a look at some key personal data …

More: Rovio, Computerworld, Examiner, BGR, iMore, VentureBeat, PC Magazine, F-Secure Antivirus …, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, The Verge, Electronista, Softpedia News and App Advice. Tweets: @ashk4n

Douglas MacMillan / Digits:

Yahoo in Talks to Buy App Developer Tomfoolery for $16 Million — Yahoo is in talks to acquire business app developer Tomfoolery for about $16 million, according to two people familiar with the negotiations. — The discussions are at an advanced stage but the deal isn't yet final, the people said

More: CNET, TechCrunch, FierceMobileIT News, Cult of Mac, The Next Web and Softpedia News

Nicole Perlroth / NYT Bits:

Did Big Internet Companies Handicap Start-Ups in FISA Rule Changes? — SAN FRANCISCO — A small but significant caveat in a new agreement brokered between the Obama administration and Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft could cast a long shadow over America's technology start-ups.

Tweets: @trevortimm, @jeffjohnroberts and @clairecm

Dana Wollman / Engadget:

Apple says it received less than 250 National Security Orders in the first half of 2013

More: Inquirer, PhoneArena, DailyFinance.com and iMore

Devlin Barrett / Wall Street Journal:

Obama administration reaches tentative deal with tech companies to disclose more details on government data requests

More: Ars Technica, New York Times, Techdirt, SocialTimes, GeekWire, Re/code and AppleInsider

Tweets: @eastdakota, @dannyyadron, @attackerman, @amir and @franberkman

Christopher Mims / Quartz:

Intel's voice recognition will blow Siri out of the water—because it doesn't use the cloud — There's a problem with today's voice recognition systems: They're just too slow. Anyone who has waited in frustration while Siri or Google's Voice Search “thinks” about even the simplest commands knows what I'm talking about.

More: Gearburn and The Verge. Tweets: @qz. Thanks:@hermanywong

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Google brings Chrome apps to Android and iOS, lets developers submit to Google Play and Apple's App Store — Google today launched Chrome apps for Android and iOS. The company is offering an early developer preview of a toolchain based on Apache Cordova, an open-source mobile development framework …

More: 9to5Mac, Chromium Blog and GitHub

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Akamai: Average Internet speed grew 29% year-over-year to 3.6 Mbps, mobile traffic jumped by 80% — Global average connection speeds have hit a new high, rising 29 percent year-over-year to 3.6 Mbps. Meanwhile, the demands of the mobile world are growing very fast, with data traffic increasing by 80 percent in the last year.

More: CNET, InfoWorld, Xconomy, ZDNet, Engadget and Gigaom

Alice Truong / Fast Company:

Following Arrest, BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem Resigns From Bitcoin Foundation — The day after BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem was arrested on money-laundering charges, the 24-year-old has resigned from the Bitcoin Foundation, where he was a founding member and had served as vice chairman since 2012.

More: The Verge and CoinDesk. Thanks:@alicetruong

Bill Laing / The Official Microsoft Blog:

Microsoft contributes cloud server designs to the Open Compute Project — On Tuesday, I will deliver a keynote address to 3,000 attendees at the Open Compute Project (OCP) Summit in San Jose, Calif. where I will announce that Microsoft is joining the OCP, a community focused on engineering …

More: Data Center Knowledge, ZDNet, Gigaom, Wired, Ars Technica, Digits, GitHub, ZDNet, Gartner, InfoWorld, WinBeta, Digits, Softpedia News, Computerworld and The Next Web

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Prince Sues 22 Fans For $1 Million Each For Linking To Bootlegs In Laughably Confused Complaint — There was a time, not even that long ago, when it seemed like Prince might have been the first musician to actually “get” the internet. He had done a few things that seemed really focused …

More: TorrentFreak, SPIN and Ars Technica. Tweets: @alisternburg

Forbes:

Yahoo Earnings Preview: Ad Revenues And Growth In Associate Companies In Focus — Yahoo! is set to report its fourth quarter and full year earnings on January 28. While the company's stock outperformed the market in 2013, primarily due to investment in associate companies Alibaba and Yahoo !

More: Re/code, Investor's Business Daily, PandoDaily and MarketWatch

Bloomberg:

Perkins: I Regret Using the Word Kristallnacht — In an exclusive interview, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers Co-Founder Tom Perkins discusses his comments comparing the treatment of wealthy Americans to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. He speaks exclusively with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television's “Bloomberg West.”

More: PC Magazine, VatorNews and CNET

Tweets: @alexia, @lexnfx, @emilychangtv, @danprimack, @bradstone, @mhelft, @mhelft, @samfbiddle, @leenarao, @pmarca and @pmarca

Evelyn M. Rusli / Digits:

Tom Perkins Regrets His Nazi Comparison, but Not the Message

More: BBC, PE Hub Blog and VentureBeat. Tweets: @evelynrusli

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