Techmeme: Rovio Denies Providing Angry Birds User Data To The NSA, Points Finger At Third-Party Ad Networks (Darrell Etherington/TechCrunch)

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January 28, 2014, 3:25 PM

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Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple TV graduates from hobby/accessory to product line ahead of major changes — Apple appears to be putting its ducks in a row ahead of major Apple TV changes. Alongside last night's changes to the Apple Online Store to promote Valentine's Day specials, Apple added an entire Apple TV section.

More: Variety, AppleInsider, Gigaom, iMore, MacRumors, iLounge, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechnoBuffalo, SlashGear, MacNN, iDownloadBlog.com, App Advice and Softpedia News. Tweets: @markgurman. Thanks:@benjaminzamayo

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, Reuters, Examiner, Computerworld, ZDNet, Wall Street Journal, bizjournals, Forrester Research, POPSUGAR and Laughing Squid

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

Medium, Evan Williams's Post-Twitter Media Startup, Raises $25 Million Round — Medium is about to become large. — The collaborative publishing startup has just closed a $25 million round of financing, the company confirmed, marking its first major funding raise since it launched a little more than a year ago.

Tweets: @jwherrman, @mikeisaac, @ericfranchi and @samfbiddle. See also Mediagazer

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: Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, The Verge, Business Insider, The Verge, Gotta Be Mobile, Digits and Gizmodo

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: Pebble, The Verge, Daring Fireball, Gigaom, AppleInsider, CNET, TechCrunch, TIME, Gotta Be Mobile, Tom's Guide and Mashable

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, CNET, The Econonomic Times, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechnoBuffalo, Agence France Presse, Computerworld, 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, Gigaom, Engadget, Ars Technica, Inquirer, Digital Trends, Computerworld, The Verge, ZDNet, BetaNews, Softpedia News, The Next Web and Tweakers

Tweets: @piratenpartij and @newtonmark

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: Chromium Blog, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, GitHub, AndroidGuys and Electronista

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, Guardian, Computerworld, Examiner, BGR, F-Secure Antivirus …, iMore, VentureBeat, PC Magazine, MacRumors, Softpedia News, The Verge, App Advice, Electronista and 9to5Mac. 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, Softpedia News and App Advice

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, Mashable, BetaKit, The Verge, Venture Capital Dispatch, bizjournals, SiliconANGLE, Gigaom, GamesIndustry International, Techonomy, VentureBeat, TechCrunch and Joystiq

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, Gigaom, Xconomy, ZDNet and Engadget

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: Gigaom, The Verge, Forbes and CoinDesk. Thanks:@alicetruong

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. Thanks:@hermanywong

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

Dana Wollman / Engadget:

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

More: Inquirer, DailyFinance.com and PhoneArena

Devlin Barrett / Wall Street Journal:

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

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

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

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

See iOS in the Car in action on iOS Simulator ahead of release (Video) — Earlier this month we reported that a developer was seemingly able to get Apple's upcoming iOS in the Car feature running through what we assumed was the iOS Simulator. Today, the same developer, Steven Troughton-Smith …

More: MacRumors, AppleInsider, Gigaom, CNET, Engadget, iMore, Gizmodo, iPhone in Canada Blog, iPhone and iDownloadBlog.com

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: Financial Times, NYT Bits, iMore, Mercury News, 9to5Mac, InvestorPlace, iDownloadBlog.com, BGR, Re/code, ZDNet, PandoDaily, Gotta Be Mobile, SiliconANGLE, TechnoBuffalo, Business Insider and Digits. Tweets: @joshconstine

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Rap Genius Launches App That Could Wean It Off Google's Teat — Rap Genius is back in Google's good graces after a slap on the wrist for SEO spam, but search traffic could become less important to the annotations site as today it launches its first mobile app.

More: The Verge, The Next Web, Y Combinator Posthaven, MacRumors, Business Insider, 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac, Mashable and IntoMobile

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

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